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Operation Sarp Vinash (2003)

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While surfing the net i came across this operation which seems to have made a significant blow to terrorists in the valley 13 years back. Am trying to put together several articles and information as to start a discussion as i have never really heard anyone mention it.


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http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/1_46.htm

J&K: Operation Sarp Vinash - The Army Strikes Hard

Guest Writer: Praveen Swami
Special Correspondent, Frontline

Most afternoons, there is plenty of work at the Foreigners' Graveyard in Surankote, digging graves for the bodies of terrorists killed in the mountains. The small green field behind the Surankote police station used to be the size of a suburban bungalow lawn. It now sprawls over an area of an outsize football field, and threatens to overrun adjoining farms.

The designated burial ground for unidentified terrorists, the graveyard houses the remains of the dozens of jihadis, many from Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the Kashmir valley, graves in what are known as 'martyrs' graveyards' often have elaborately carved headstones. Here, no one seems to care enough to take the trouble. Talk to local police and military officials about how they find terrorists in this area, the centre of the most bitter fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, and it soon becomes clear it has little to do with special tactics or high-grade intelligence. "All you do is march into those forests", says a trainee at the Surankote Police Station, pointing to the dark shadow, "and, soon enough, you'll be in the middle of a war."

Over the last month, it has become clear that nowhere near enough Indian troops were marching into the mountains of Poonch, and up into the Pir Panjal. Operation Sarp Vinash [Snake Destroyer], a three-division strength operation involving three Army brigades, has thrown up evidence that terrorists on the Poonch heights have been building up safe bases in key areas of the district for several years. Troops discovered a network of almost a hundred well-defended bunkers around the Hill Kaka bowl in Surankote, built up from the high-altitude Dhoke shelters used by Gujjar herdsmen in the summers. So far, the Army claims to have killed upwards of 62 terrorists in the operation, although not all the bodies of those killed have so far been recovered.

Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) terrorist Muhammad Amin Sajid's diary provides interesting insight into how terrorists in Surankote actually functioned. Sajid, who lived in the Madrassa Jamia Ashrafia in Pakistan's Okara district, maintained a record of contributions from various groups for common expenses, like guides, porters, supplies and medicines. The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, al-Badr and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) all made contributions to Sajid's central fund. Other diaries record the deaths of comrades in Afghanistan, with one entry recording the death of a terrorist code-named Butshikan, or idol-destroyer, in Osama bin Laden's Tora Bora complex. Interestingly, Indian troops encountered one elaborate cave defence at an altitude of 3,989 metres, which was eventually destroyed with the use of helicopter-fired air-to-ground fragmentation missiles.

Other diaries, interspersed with Islamist slogans attributed to the Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, show the presence of a crude counter-intelligence apparatus. It records the execution of 10 'spies' whose throats were slit after they allegedly 'betrayed' jihadis to Indian forces between May 1999 and July 2002. The list includes two women and three children. Such killings of Muslim villagers, mainly from the Gujjar community, are common in Rajouri and Poonch, and have continued through the Sarp Vinash period. Five villagers were shot dead at Keri Khwas, near Rajouri, on March 25, and another six were slaughtered at Kot Dhara, near Darhal. Many of the killings can be traced to wholly non-military origins, pegged around land and resource conflict between Gujjars, Rajput Muslims, and ethnic-Kashmiri migrants.

An elaborate communications structure built around portable satellite phones allowed terrorists to communicate on their handlers with Sialkot, Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Islamabad, Abbotabad, as well as sympathisers across India - calls were made to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. One photograph recovered from a killed terrorist showed him posing in front of the Parliament House in New Delhi. Since the satellite phone systems used by the terrorists are of a type which uses a gateway in Pune to transmit signals, it is possible Indian intelligence knew of the signals traffic for some length of time, and was content to allow it to be generated. Elaborate codebooks for radio-frequency communications were also found.

There are lessons to be learned from the fighting on the Pir Panjal. First up, it is necessary to remember that, the Army's own public relations enthusiasm notwithstanding, this is not the first time large-scale operations have been carried out in the region. In July 2001, twenty-one Jaish-e-Mohammad cadre were eliminated in a bunker-busting operation above Surankote. Many, as investigation later disclosed, were teenagers, tragically press-ganged into the service of jihad. Again, in mid-2002, joint operations by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and Rashtriya Rifles claimed eighteen terrorists in Doda's Wadwan area, in some of the most remote and difficult terrain in all of Jammu and Kashmir. Regular encounters have taken place even in Hill Kaka, where the Army has found such success.

The problem has been that offensives in the high mountains have rarely been well thought through or sustained. Helicopter-borne operations were attempted in Wadwan during the winter of 2000, but the lack of an infantry presence meant that all troops eventually found was one empty Kalashnikov magazine. In 1999, the entire 8 Mountain Division was pumped into Kupwara's Rajwar forests. Again, lacking intelligence support and planning, the grandiose operation, code-named Operation Kaziranga, succeeded in finding just one dead body in its first two weeks. In the summer of 2000, company-strength pickets were put up in Wadwan, and on the Margan pass into Kishtwar. The mainly defensive positions killed no terrorists, and were burned down when troops withdrew at the onset of winter - sending a clear message to local residents about who was boss.

It is silly to blame small Army units in the mountains for failing to operate aggressively, as the media often does. Consider, for example, the case of Kishtwar. The district of Doda sprawls across 11,678 square kilometres, only a few hundred square kilometres less than the entire Kashmir valley. Over 60 per cent of this area is made up of the single tehsil of Kishtwar, which, in turn, divides equally into four major valley systems. The northern valley systems of Wadwan and Marwah were protected by just one battalion, and a single company traditionally sent to Wadwan in the summer was pulled out in 2001, enabling a massive escalation in terrorist violence. The offensive operations carried out that year have had no subsequent follow-up - and now, the Nagrota-based 16 Corps is considering a series of Sarp Vinash-style operations in this part of its domain.

Much of the credit for the success in Poonch goes to the new commander of the Romeo Force, Major-General Hardev Lidder. Lidder, sources disclose, was appalled to find that the Romeo Force, charged with counter-terrorist operations in Rajouri and Poonch, just wasn't spending enough time on the heights. Helicopter pads to supply troops in the mountains, as well as minor roads, were constructed in the winter to improve mobility. Then, without fanfare, troops of the 9 Para-Commando Regiment were tasked to take on a major bunker on Peak 3689-metres in Hill Kaka, after helicopter surveillance flights picked up large numbers of footprints through the snow leading to a single complex. Thirteen terrorists were shot dead in the operation, the largest single success recorded in the course of the ongoing operations.

As terrorists groups scattered into the Pir Panjal, more troops were called in to saturate the ground, and disrupt their movement routes. The 6 Rashtriya Rifles was joined by the 163 Brigade and the 100 Brigade, pulled off duties on a new second counter-infiltration ring along the Line of Control. The major offensive axis, as the operation evolved, were Thanamandi on the Rajouri-Poonch border, where a welter of killings of civilians had recently taken place, Hari Buddha, Marhot, Hill Kaka, and the Bufliaz forests near Surankote. Troops from the 15 Corps were also pulled in to block routes from Saujian and Loran in northern Poonch, across the Pir Panjal into Tangmarg and Shopian in the Kashmir Valley. It is unclear just how successful these efforts, unlike the initial strike, have been, but large scale terrorists groups have clearly been dislocated and their logistics routes disrupted.

Lidder's most important contribution, perhaps, was to breach the unstated ban the Army has placed on the use of air power in counter-terrorist operations. Apart from the use of air-to-ground missiles, Cheetah helicopters fitted with heavy machine guns were used on several occasions. The use of such weapons was made possible by restrictions on Gujjar herdsmen, which barred them from using traditional high-altitude summer pastures, thus excluding the possibility of civilian casualties. It seems probable that terrorists will now seek to bring down helicopters, and it will be interesting to see how Indian forces respond to such an escalatory move. Operation Sarp Vinash also used technologies just starting to disperse through the ranks of Indian infantry formations, like portable ground radar and night-vision devices, to considerable effect.

And the problems? For one, large-scale operations like Sarp Vinash can't, very obviously, make up the bread-and-butter of counter-terrorist work. There is no sign, yet, that its lessons about the importance of rapid mobility and technology have adequately dispersed through the Army. In fact, there is a very real danger that operations that secure media coverage may now be privileged over less flamboyant but equally necessary work. There is also little sign that much-talked-about civilian-military synergies are even being considered. Jammu and Kashmir, for example, has the highest livestock-to-human ratio in India, but is also an importer of milk and meat. A sensible programme of livestock improvement and procurement might do more to keep Gujjars off the high pastures than the arbitrary handouts now being given. Sadly, no one is even talking about such reform.

Sarp Vinash has shown that innovation, intelligence and enterprise do work. The problem is that this has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past decade: only to be forgotten the morning after.
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http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/23josy1.htm

The Indian Army has killed over 60 terrorists, uncovered several bunkers and seized huge stocks of arms, ammunition and medicines in a phased operation in the remote Hill Kaka region near Surankote town in Jammu and Kashmir.

The operation, codenamed Sarp Vinash, the fourth phase of which is still continuing, started in the month of January. They are being carried out by the Romeo Force of the Rashtriya Rifles and supported by Special Operations teams.

Army officers, however, were quick to clarify that the presence of such a huge number of militants for so long a period should not be compared to Kargil intrusions.

Hill Kaka region is a remote area, occupied during summer by migratory nomads, lying close to Pir Panjal range that divides the Kashmir valley from rest of India.

Major General Hardev Lidder, general officer commanding of the Romeo Force, toldrediff.com that 40 per cent of the combing operations have been completed. Sixty-three terrorists, he said, have been killed and three apprehended. Nineteen of the killed ultras are from Laskhar-e-Tayiba, 12 from Jaish-e-Mohammed and the rest from other groups.

The army, he added, got information about the extensive nature of these bunkers after a surrendered terrorist during interrogation revealed that 300-350 terrorists were hiding in these bunkers.

The Hill Kaka area is very difficult to access with the nearest road around ten hours away by foot. "It was an ideal area for establishing safe hideouts for the guerrilla operations that they (terrorists) wanted to carry out," Major General Lidder said.

Giving an example of the tough nature of the operation, Major General Lidder said the army had to use a helicopter gunship to bust a bunker situated at the highest point on the Derawali Ridge.

The army, he said, faced several constraints, including the inability deploy troops on a long-term basis due to lack of access.

When the first phase of Operation Sarp Vinash began on January 29, the first thing the Romeo Force did was to construct three helipads in the region, at heights between 10,000 and 11,000 feet. Twenty kilometres of mule track was also laid, besides the setting up of storage dumps.


As part of preparations for the first phase a 'deliberate misinformation' campaign, an army officer said, was also carried out to mislead the terrorist groups.

In the second phase from April 1-15, the army set up several bases around the Hill Kaka region, while preventing the migratory population from entering the area.


Hill Kaka area is one of the permanent locations of migrant communities such as Bakariwals and Gujjars, who climb up during summer to graze their cattle. In winter, they vacate these places.

The government, in fact, is engaged in resettling and reimbursing the migratory communities, the cost of which is estimated to be Rs 7.5 crores.

The third and crucial phase in which the army started the occupation of the Hill Kaka area began on the night of April 21

By about 0530 hours IST next morning, Major General Lidder said, the army had killed 13 terrorists and arrested three of them. The rest had fled the area.


Of the three held, two are young boys, who were forcefully taken away from their homes for militant training, he added.

The fourth phase, which began on May 3 and is continuing, has seen the army carry out massive search operation in and around the area.

A satellite phone was also seized from one of the hideouts. "Several calls were made, some of them to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pakistan and even to the Gulf region. They were very well connected, talking to all sorts of people in all sorts of directions," Major General Lidder said.

The army has found 94 hideouts and a whopping 7000 kilogrammes of rations. "That after they spent the entire winter period there," General Lidder said.

The army also found several bunkers, including some as deep as 60 feet by 20 feet that could hold up to 50 terrorists at one time. They have also found paper detailing expenditure running into almost Rs 1.8 crores.

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Overall report suggest around different links 150-200 militants in total may have been killed in the operation. Can anyone put more light on this operation ?

@Abingdonboy @Levina @nair @ranjeet
 
Several calls were made, some of them to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pakistan and even to the Gulf region.

Found this piece interesting....... Well there are only 3 mallu's reported to have joined militant organisations (luckily all of them are resting in piss ).... But this issue is dated 2003....... Mallu's got killed in 2008. and if there were calls made in 2003 what was intelligence agencies doing???? or did they do something which is not available in public domain.....
 
Can anyone put more light on this operation ?

@Abingdonboy @Levina @nair @ranjeet

First of all, great thread Madzzy. :tup: :tup: :tup:

Even before I write about the op let me you about the repurcussions of the Sarp Vinash. Don't know how many of you have heard of Teli Katha massacre, which was supposed to be a revenge attack on innocent villagers who supported INDIAN ARMY during the operation and had refused to bury jihadis in the valley.
This is what they do to our people who don't support the idea of jihad.

RIP to the soldiers and villagers who lost their lives in the op.



Op Sarp Vinash had achieved 3 important things
1) Sarp Vinash was an intelligence driven op rather than a fruitless jungle bashing sweep, which was the case of ops of this scale in th past.
2) Increased force levels and steady build of infrastructure in an area which was previously known for thinly stretched forces. Prior to op Sarp Vinash Indian forces had been unable to contain the terrorism in Pir Panjal, a vast and inaccessible region.
Immediately after the op, Rohtang tunnel project was taken up and so also the decision to connect Udhampur and Baramulla by Railway.
3) The most important achievement was a rejuvenated sense of belonging in the local Kashmiris.
The credit for the success of Op Sarp Vinash not only belongs to the forces but also to the people of Hilkaka area, whose intelligence gathering helped the forces to initiate the operation.


After some gleaning i came to know that the op was carried out in 4 phases.
Phase I: 3 months long, prolly the longest phase of the op when the physical infrastructure needed for the op was built.
Phase II: The target region was established and migrant herders were relocated.
Phase III: a cordon was thrown and unauthorised entry into the region was prevented.
Phase IV: CIF(R), counter insurgency force or the so called ROMEO force eliminated the enemy. :)


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Mallu's got killed in 2008. and if there were calls made in 2003 what was intelligence agencies doing????
Intelligence agencies were working on it.
To be very precise these were the places calls were made to
1. Aligarh Muslim University, Malappuram in Kerala.
2. Chinapalli in Tamil Nadu,
3. Ahmedabad
4. To Kuwait
I'm assuming the names of people who were picked up on the basis of this info were definitely not revealed to the media. :)
 
1. Aligarh Muslim University, Malappuram in Kerala

Wrong.... There was a aligarh university in malappuram at that time...... The foundation stone for aligarh university was laid on 2010..... and we are talking about 2003 here....
 
Wrong.... There was a aligarh university in malappuram at that time...... The foundation stone for aligarh university was laid on 2010..... and we are talking about 2003 here....
May be they had a correspondence Center running.
I'm not sure if the General would make such a blunder.


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