Insurgency contd...

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Winter infiltration tests LoC defences

Winter infiltration tests LoC defences

Praveen Swami

Lashkar and Jaish cadres replenish terror ranks ahead of polls

The new infiltrators are geared for high-altitude survival

Lashkar started testing India’s LoC defences in 2008

SRINAGAR: This week, tens of thousands of police personnel will fan out across Jammu and Kashmir to guard the Lok Sabha elections from any threats, in particular jihadist assaults.

But their adversaries also seem to be prepared. Guided by global positioning system equipment, and specially geared for high-altitude survival, a new wave of infiltrators has succeeded in an enterprise that conventional wisdom has held to be impossible: crossing the Line of Control when the passes across the mountains are still carpeted by snow that is upwards of 40 feet thick.

Last month Jammu and Kashmir saw some of the most intense fighting in years. In one instance, Indian troops were pitted against a group of up to 25 Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad cadre who had traversed the snowfields that separated their base near Athmuqam and the Rajwar forests.

Despite losing seven soldiers in an ambush, troops of the 1 Paracommando Regiment succeeded in killing five terrorists, which forced the group to disperse. Later, police and Army personnel hunted down six more terrorists in villages around Handwara.

In addition, soldiers from 22 Rashtriya Rifles eliminated seven members of the group at Drangyari, close to the LoC.

But the interception of the group did not stem the surge in infiltration. Last week, at least 16 Hizb ul-Mujahideen operatives pushed their way through the snow-covered Kanzalwan forests of Gurez and headed towards Bandipora. Troops have made fire contact twice with the group, killing at least two terrorists, but there has been no sign of the rest of it.

Eight Lashkar terrorists are believed to have crossed the LoC moving towards Trehgam. Other groups are known to be preparing to cross the Sonapindi Pass from Kel into Macchel.
New tactics

Believed to have been crafted by a Lashkar commander, known only by the aliases Muzammil and Yusuf, the winter-infiltration strategy seems to be based on a careful study of India’s LoC defences.

Kashmir has traditionally seen infiltration in late spring and early summer, after the snow on the mountains melts. The Army’s Srinagar-based XV Corps prepares for this seasonal offensive by pushing additional troops forward, putting up barbed wire and planting electronic sensors. When the passes are snowed over, though, the Army and jihadist groups shifted their energies to the southern stretches of the LoC, in Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu.

Last year, the Lashkar began testing India’s winter defences in Kashmir. Infiltrators probed the Keran and Lolab sectors in late- February 2008, leading to the death of at least five Lashkar and Jaish cadres.

Later, in March 2008, a larger Lashkar group crossed into Handwara — but it lost at least three men while trying to ford a river in sub-zero temperatures.

But enough number of infiltrators evidently made the winter passage to encourage Muzammil to plan this year’s infiltration plans. India’s intelligence services estimate that more than 300 cadres from the major jihadist groups have been trained for cold-weather infiltration.

Lashkar spokesperson Abdullah Ghaznavi — which is a pseudonym for Lahore-based Abdullah Muntazar, spokesperson for the Lashkar’s parent religious group, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa — has publicly exulted in the success of the strategy. “The gun-battles should serve as a message to India,” he said in a recent statement, “that the struggle for Kashmir’s freedom is not over.”

Back in January, after the Lashkar was compelled to close its offices and training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, its language was very different. “If the world listens to our cries and plays its role in resolving the Kashmir issue,” he said, “there is no point in continuing fighting.”

Perhaps the most stark about-turn has been made by the patriarch of the Islamist movement in Jammu and Kashmir, Syed Ali Shah Geelani — whose anti-election campaign will be helped should the violence escalate.

In July 2008, empowered by the communally-charged protests that were sweeping the State, Mr. Geelani insisted that the “struggle should be peaceful.” He further claimed: “We need neither the gun of the mujahideen now, nor the support of Pakistan.”

But at a rally in southern Kashmir on March 29, Mr. Geelani insisted that “armed struggle is the backbone of our struggle. Our issue is internationally acclaimed because of the sacrifices of its martyrs. Such people are our heroes, way ahead of those involved in the political struggle for freedom.”

 

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Mumbai terror architect crafts infiltration surge

Praveen Swami

Satellite phones used at Lashkar headquarters found in J&K



Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Muzammil alias Yusuf, in a computer-generated photofit.

SRINAGAR: Ever since the massacre in Mumbai in November 2008, intelligence services across the world have searched, without success, for one of its architects: a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander known only by the twin aliases Muzammil and Yusuf.

Now, highly-placed police and intelligence sources have told The Hindu, the man who had hands-on responsibility for the tactical training of the terrorists as well as pre-assault reconnaissance, has resurfaced in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. And he has been commanding a surge in infiltration that has sparked off some of the most intense fighting seen along the Line of Control in years.

Muzammil, the sources said, had crafted a new infiltration strategy — involving pushing unusually large groups across dangerous but thinly-defended snow-covered high-altitude passes — at meetings held in the first week of March with representatives of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen, al-Badr, the Harkat ul-Mujahideen and the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Since then, there have been at least three major infiltration attempts in Gurez, Kupwara and Handwara — one of which resulted in the death of 18 terrorists and eight members of the Indian Army’s crack 1 Paracommando Regiment.

A veteran of the Lashkar’s jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, Muzammil was given hands-on charge of the organisation’s pan-India operations around 2001. He specialised in using the Lashkar’s Jammu and Kashmir-based fidayeen assets to execute operations outside the State, starting with the September 2002 attack on the Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Last year, Western media reported Muzammil’s arrest in a Pakistan Army raid on the Lashkar’s Shawai Nullah base northwest of Muzaffarabad. His name did not, however, figure among several Lashkar suspects Pakistani authorities later admitted to have arrested.

Electronic evidence harvested by India’s communications intelligence services has underlined fears that the Lashkar’s military infrastructure has again been unleashed. Last month, Research and Analysis Wing analysts determined that at least half a dozen Thuraya satellite phone sets that had been active northwest of Muzaffarabad — which is the general area of the Lashkar’s Shawai Nullah base — were being used by Lashkar field units operating deep inside Jammu and Kashmir.

One satellite phone often used by Muzammil, with the number +88 (216) 55526551, has been used by a Lashkar unit operating near the Amarnath cave-shrine in southern Kashmir. Muzammil is suspected to have used a phone with all but the last digit in common, +88 (216) 55526550, which was among four Thuraya sets to which the Mumbai fidayeen relayed messages from the high seas. Both phones, experts say, were possibly purchased at the same time, as part of a set meant for use by high-ranking Lashkar operatives.

A phone known to have been used by Muzammil’s office assistant, identified in the interrogation of arrested terror suspects as ‘Talha’, has also become active in southern Kashmir.

Lashkar units in Jammu and Kashmir have also resumed communication with a hub across the LoC. Thus, weeks of silence that began days after the Mumbai attacks has ended. The Lashkar’s state-of-the art communications facility is located at Kel, not far from the headquarters of Pakistan’s 32 Infantry Brigade.

The strategy of winter-time infiltration of the LoC, employing jihadists specially trained and equipped for the mission, is believed to have been crafted by none other than Muzammil alias Yusuf, based on a careful examination of India’s defences along the crucial frontline.

 

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Kashmir violence kills five militants, one civilian

Friday, 03 Apr, 2009 | 05:43 PM PST |
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Kashmir has been in the grip of a deadly insurgency since 1989 that has left over 47,000 people dead by official count. –Reuters Photo

SRINAGAR: Five militants and a civilian were killed in fresh violence in Kashmir as senior Indian officials arrived in the revolt-hit state to review security ahead of elections, police said Friday.

The militants died in gunbattles with the army in the southern district of Kishtiwar and in Kupwara in the north, closer to the de facto border dividing Kashmir between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

‘Three of the slain militants were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba,’ a police spokesman said, referring to the militant group India blames for the deadly November attacks in Mumbai that left 165 people dead.

Lashkar has denied any role in those attacks.

Police said suspected militants shot dead a civilian in southern Rajouri district late Thursday.

The new violence erupted as India’s Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh arrived in the summer capital Srinagar to review the region’s security ahead of the general elections due to kick off April 16 and be held in stages to May 13.

‘The two held meetings with senior army and civil officials, including the chief minister,’ the police spokesman said.

Elections to the state’s six parliamentary constituencies will be held in five phases to allow the security personnel time to move from one place to another.

Security concerns have grown since a series of running gunbattles last month along the border left eight soldiers and 17 militants dead.

Lashkar said afterwards its members were involved in the fighting along the Line of Control that divides the Indian and Pakistani-administered parts of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region.

The clashes were some of the fiercest in recent years and were followed by warnings from Lashkar of fresh attacks against Indian troops.

Kashmir has been in the grip of a deadly insurgency since 1989 that has left over 47,000 people dead by official count.

The increase in clashes between Indian security forces and militants comes at a time of heightened tensions between Pakistan and India following the attacks on Mumbai.