ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan told India on Saturday it did not want war and would use force only if attacked — a move apparently aimed at reducing tensions after Pakistan moved troops toward their shared border.

Intelligence officials said Friday that the army was redeploying thousands of troops from the country's fight against militants along the Afghan border to the Indian frontier — an alarming scenario for the West as it tries to get Pakistan to neutralize the al-Qaida threat.

Islamabad also announced it was canceling all military leave — the latest turn of the screw in the rising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors after last month's terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

India has blamed Pakistani militants for the terrifying three-day siege. Pakistan's recently elected civilian government has demanded that India back up the claim with better evidence.

"We don't want to fight, we don't want to have war, we don't want to have aggression with our neighbors," Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in a televised speech.

Still, Gilani said the country's military was "fully prepared" to respond to any Indian aggression.

Pakistan's latest moves were seen as an indication that it will retaliate if India launches air or missile strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil — rather than as a signal that a fourth war between the two countries was imminent.

The United States has been trying to ease the burgeoning crisis while also pressing Pakistan to crack down on militants Washington says were likely responsible for the Mumbai attack. The siege left 164 people dead after gunmen targeted 10 sites, including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Saturday it was unfortunate that a "sort of war hysteria" has been created in Pakistan.

"I appeal to Pakistan and Pakistani leaders, do not unnecessarily try to create tension," he said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. "Do not try to deflect the issue. A problem has to be tackled face to face."

Mukherjee has accused Pakistan before of trying to divert attention away from what many analysts say is a halfhearted attempt to rein in homegrown terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India accuses of masterminding the Mumbai attacks.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said Friday that elements of the army's 14th Infantry Division were being redeployed from the militant hot spot of Waziristan to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border.