The state intelligence bureau in Kashmir has intercepted calls between members of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba, revealing a plan by the two terror groups to carry out multiple fidayeen attacks at various places across the valley.
These terror groups are collecting ‘a war-like store’ to carry out ‘a major attack’ in North Kashmir, according to information received by the state Intelligence Bureau.
Based on the inputs, security forces on Monday foiled an infiltration bid near the Line of Control in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, killing six Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Senior officers in the state IB say that they’ve received a number of inputs, the most in last one year, about the fidayeen attack. Although the inputs don’t specifically talk about Republic Day being the target date, senior officials are trying to ascertain whether this is all a preparation to strike on January 26.
Sources say they were first alerted about this plan after finding out that a new JeM group of four to six foreign terrorists have infiltrated the valley in the last week of December. Very specific inputs indicate that fidayeens have come to Kashmir all the way from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Both the JeM and LeT are understood to be working closely to carry out deadly strikes on military and paramilitary installations in North Kashmir’s Handwara and Kupwara districts.
While JeM is focussing on attacking military and paramilitary camps, LeT cadres plan to target residences of senior security personnel. According to an input received last month, LeT terrorists were seen moving in Handwara in a Maruti 800cc car.
State police, CRPF and state intelligence bureau have been put on high alert.
“We have never received as many alerts about a suicide strike as we have been getting for the past 10 days. We understand that the groups are quite desperate to strike back after we incurred heavy losses on them throughout last year, but the fact that they’re planning on carrying out multiple suicide strikes is a new a much bigger security challenge,” said a highly placed source in state police.
Senior security officers in the state say that JeM, which is known to carry out fidyeen attacks, has been working hard to create a presence in the valley for the last three months to give some breathing space to Hizbul Mujahideen and LeT, both of which have suffered huge losses last year.
The security alerts often refer to an LeT operative Waleed as the one who has repeatedly been calling his recruits in the valley. Though it is not clear at this point, but this ‘Waleed’ could be a reference to Khalid Waleed, the son-in-law of LeT founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed. Waleed is known to have been working closely with Saeed, and is seen as Saeed’s successor.
If this is indeed the case, it would indicate the level of seriousness and desperation by the terror group in carrying out huge strikes in the valley.
JeM is the terror outfit responsible for attacking the Indian Parliament and Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2001, and the Indian embassy and Pathankot airbase in 2016.
It has already carried out several strikes against paramilitary forces in the last two months, the latest of which was the attack on CRPF camp in Pulwama’s Awantipora area in which five soldiers died on December 31st last year.
Comments
0 comment