NEW DELHI (AP):

Nearly a month after the Mumbai terror attacks, India has not provided the evidence needed for Interpol to help identify and apprehend the suspected masterminds, the chief of the global police agency said yesterday.

Ronald Noble, speaking in Islamabad after a visit to New Delhi, said Pakistan has agreed to work with the agency to help investigate the attacks that killed 164 people in India's financial hub last month.

But he said India had provided no names or information that would allow police in other countries to check their databases, calling it "not acceptable" for New Delhi to provide those details to the media first.

Hatching the plot

India's reluctance to turn over evidence while demanding that Pakistan crack down on the militant group suspected of hatching the plot has been a major irritant to Islamabad.

On Monday, Pakistan sent fighter jets screaming through the skies near major cities in a display of military force that raised concerns the two nuclear powers may go to war for a fourth time.

Seeking to temper tensions, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a second visit to Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks and urged the country's leadership to work with India to fight terrorism.

He "encouraged the Pakistani leaders to use this tragic event as an opportunity to forge more productive ties with India and to seek ways in which both nations can combat the common threat of extremism together," the US Embassy in Islamabad said in a statement.

Announced twice

Meanwhile, police in Kashmir a region India and Pakistan have gone to war over twice announced the arrest of three men accused of plotting a suicide bomb attack in Indian Kashmir. One, Ghulam Farid, is a Pakistani soldier, said Kuldeep Khoda, director-general of police in Indian Kashmir.

In Pakistan, a military official said Farid was not an active soldier. He said Farid deserted in June 2006.