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WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (AFP) - Boiling tensions between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan are forcing the United States to plunge deeper into South Asian diplomacy, in the hope of checking a mounting conflict in a region critical to its war on terrorism.

Washington has little appetite for being sucked into a crisis between the two rivals: success may prove elusive and the India-Pakistan drama is an unwanted distraction from its hunt for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

But analysts say there may be no other choice.

India has threatened to retaliate after a bomb attack on its parliament last week, which it says was the work of Kashmiri militants backed by Pakistani intelligence -- a charge that Islamabad denies. The escalating standoff has raised fears of a confrontation equal to or more intense than the Kargil conflict in 1999.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was working the phones Tuesday and Wednesday, talking to leaders in India and Pakistan, including President Pervez Musharraf, against a backdrop of repeated calls for calm by the Bush administration.

Senior State Department official Francis Taylor is scheduled to visit both countries soon to discuss counter-terrorism measures soon.

"I think we're in a very difficult diplomatic position," said Stephen Cohen, a leading South Asia scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"My advice to the administration would be to prepare a crisis team, get ready to go out there, get a good understanding of the personalities you'll be dealing with because there may be a sudden crisis blowing up very quickly."

Administration officials decline to reveal their thinking on how or if Washington will try to ease seething tensions between the rivals.

But US South Asia policy was turned on its head by the September 11 terror attacks.

Until then, the Bush administration had followed a track laid down by the Clinton foreign policy team -- quickly expanding relations with India at the expense of former close ally Pakistan.

But needing to bind Musharraf into its campaign against terror in Afghanistan, Washington was forced to turn again to Pakistan, and return to balancing its relations with New Delhi and Islamabad.

Apart from the human cost, a fourth war between India and Pakistan or a more limited conflict could pose significant political problems for Musharraf, and incite a wave of anger which could benefit his militant Islamic opponents. It may also expose him to pressure from within the armed forces.

At the heart of the India-Pakistan conflict is dispute over Kashmir -- where Pakistani and Indian troops traded fire as recently as Wednesday.

India is reluctant to permit US mediation in the dispute, which Pakistan wants to be opened to international arbitration.

"India is fundamentally the status quo power and Pakistan fundamantally the revisionist power. India has historically not wanted any involvement, that is still the way their national knees jerk," said Teresita Schaffer, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington was still ready to help.

"Our willingness to help out if they want is to is well known."

India wants the United States to force Pakistan to rein in militants in Kashmir it equates with the al-Qaeda forces being battled by Washington in Afghanistan.

It may also ask the United States to support strikes against militants in Kashmir it believes are terrorists who trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

A US mediation bid would be complicated and without guarantees of success.

"Any diplomatic intitiative that hopes to have any kind of impact will have to be carried out with at least some attention to the major hangups of both sides," said Schaffer, a former US diplomat.

"That means it would have to be a pretty much behind the scenes effort rather than special envoys and trumpets blaring."

It is also possible that India and Pakistan, are already too far down the road of conflict to permit useful mediation.

"It may be too late and we may have to have diplomacy of parallel bilateralism, whereby we work with each country separately on particular issues of importance to the United States," said Cohen.

Issues would include the nuclear question in the case of Pakistan and trying to persuade India to liberalize its rule in Kashmir, he said.

But Cohen warned "it may well be that it's fruitless for us to seek cooperation between India and Pakistan when they rejoice in not cooperating with each other. They use our desire for their cooperation as leverage over us."

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