Whether or not the elevation of the Federally Administered Northern Areas to provincial status, and renaming as Gilgit-Baltistan, has met the demands of the local population, it has certainly provided India a new battlefield on which it can fight Pakistan, with the added advantage that it also involves India taking on an anti-Chinese posture. This further involves the USA, which sees India as its future regional counterweight against China, in a position where it works against Pakistani interests. According to a report in this newspaper, Indian attention is already moving in this direction, intercepted messages have shown that the so-called Balwaristan National Front, or BNF, will attempt to disrupt the Pakistan-China trade, which is an important part of the economy of the area, through demonstrations. Expatriates from the area in the USA are to play their role by supporting a certain Imtiaz who is playing a role for the independence of the area. This is evidence that the USA is involved in the Indian machinations, and wants to foment trouble in the area, where it fears the growth of Chinese influence. Apart from its opposition to China, India is also only too happy to involve the USA in a covert operation that puts it in opposition to Pakistan in the disputed territory of Kashmir, of which Gilgit-Baltistan is a part, the former Gilgit Wizarat of the old state, which broke away from Indian control in 1947. The Indian track record shows that it is always eager to meddle in whatever troubled waters it can find in Pakistan. What has changed has been the US intervention on its side. A case in point has been the grant of consulates to India in Afghanistan on the behest of the US, even though those consulates have been only used to foment and fuel the insurgency in Baluchistan. The present government should be clear that the USA is no friend, and its interference in the country is not beneficial. Its belief that US support is essential to its survival in office is damaging the country, because the USA is actively involved in those anti-Pakistan insurgencies which India is supporting. The only way the government can counter this is by abandoning the alliance with the USA, and by expelling all those agents, like Raymond Davis, whose activities Pakistan does not know about. The government would also find that such a change in policy would be in accord with the sentiments of the people, something it should find particularly welcome now that elections, even if not early, are just around the corner.