IN THE wake of the Mumbai attacks that left 172 dead, anger divides two nuclear powers: India and Pakistan.

New Delhi says the 10 gunmen arrived from Pakistan. Security has been upped to "war levels" and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned "neighbours" that attacks launched from their territory "will not be tolerated".

A dangerous escalation is possible.

President Asif Ali Zardari has struck a calming note.

Militants have the power to precipitate a war, he told the Financial Times - and so hit on the key reason why grieving India should hold back.

It is "non-state actors" - in the Mumbai case, probably the Pakistan-based but not thereby state-sponsored Lashkar-e-Taiba - who would welcome a conflagration for their own sinister purposes.

Pakistan's government is as engaged in fighting extremists as India's. Its intelligence agencies once had ties to them but, today, Islamabad seems to know who its true enemies are.

"We must all stand together to fight this menace," said Mr Zardari, who even told CNN that Pakistan would agree to
both nations questioning terror suspects in each other's country.

Suicide bombings are staged within Pakistan itself with impunity; that a raid could be mounted in Mumbai without government collusion is no surprise, Pakistan's Daily Times noted.

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will arrive in India tomorrow, has asked Pakistan "for complete, absolute, total transparency".

Mr Zardari has already offered as much, saying Pakistan would cooperate in any probe "without hesitation".

That should be enough for India.

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