Shift in militant strategy to ‘complacency’, why Jammu is seeing a terror thrust

The Indian Express had earlier reported that data from 2021 showed that the three districts of Jammu region — Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu — have seen fewer but bloodier and more high-visibility terror attacks when compared to Kashmir Valley.

Of the 251 ‘terrorist-initiated’ incidents in J&K since 2021, 15 were in the three districts of Jammu region and 236 in Kashmir Valley. While the three Jammu districts saw 2, 10 and 3 incidents in 2021, 2022 and 2023 (till May 30) respectively, Kashmir Valley saw a significantly higher number of such incidents at 129, 100 and 7 in the corresponding period.

The Army truck that was ambushed on April 20, leaving five soldiers dead. (Express photo)

The Valley also recorded a higher number of civilian casualties (60 since 2021) while Jammu region saw 15 civilian deaths in the corresponding period.

Yet, the attacks to the south of the Pir Panjal range (Jammu region) have been high-impact incidents that have ended up inflicting the maximum damage.

Thirteen days after the Thanamandi attack, two Army soldiers, including a JCO, were killed in the same area. This was followed by the killing of another militant in Rajouri disrict’s Manjakote area on September 13.

There were other attacks too. On August 12 that year, a two-year-old was killed and six people were injured in a grenade attack on the house of a local BJP leader, Jasbir Singh, near Khandli bridge in Rajouri. The attack took place a day after the Director General of J&K Police, Dilbagh Singh, chaired a high-level meeting to review security preparedness for Independence Day.

Few, however, connected the dots.

For one, militants, after infiltrating into the area from across the LoC, are traditionally known to have a layover of not more than two or three days in the region before they cross the Pir Panjal range to Shopian in South Kashmir, a senior police officer told The Indian Express. So it was unlikely, many in the security establishment thought, that the militants who crossed the LoC would stay back in Jammu for longer to carry out the attacks.

Senior sources in the security establishment said a number of factors may have led to the stepped-up attacks in Jammu – from a shift in strategy of the militants to the thinning of forces in the region.

More high-tech, well-trained militants

Over 18 months since the Thanamandi attack of August 2021, police and security forces say they find themselves faced with militants who appear to be well-trained and tech-savvy. A senior police officer said this is evident in the way militants have been able to cover their tracks since the January 1-2 killing of seven civilians in the Upper Dangri area.

Those involved in the attack were careful to not use their own communication systems, the signals of which could have been intercepted by police and security forces and their location tracked. Instead, the officer said, the militants borrowed the phones of locals to communicate with their handlers in Pakistan. “They would download apps such as Telegram on the phones of the locals and talk to their handlers in Pakistan. By the time we tracked their location and reached there, the terrorists would have disappeared, he said.

Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi visited the site of the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district in which five Indian soldiers lost their lives. During the visit, he reviewed the operational situation after the attack and was briefed on the actions undertaken so far and exhorted troops to be steadfast in their resolve. (Indian Army)

The only time in the last 18 months that the militants used their satellite phones was to deceive – on the intervening night of May 5-6, militants hiding in a forest reportedly switched on a satellite phone in Rajouri’s Kandi forests for a few minutes. As the forces rushed a team of para commandos to the area after tracking their location, the militants triggered an IED, killing five personnel.

“Earlier, we used to track down militants by intercepting the signals of their communication devices such as wireless sets, satellite and mobile phones. But now they use offline apps to communicate among themselves and with their masters across the LoC, which makes it harder for us to track them. However, in this case, as a red herring, they switched on their satellite phones,’’ the officer said.

Fewer informers

A retired Army officer, who served in J&K during the peak militancy years, said one of the reasons why forces may have not been able to anticipate the attacks is the drying up of the “human intelligence” or their network of informers.

“Human intelligence is very important in counter-insurgency operations. Even with all their reliance on gadgets and smart ways to avoid surveillance, ultimately, they have to come out of forests or down the mountains to the nearest human settlement in order to get logistical support for their survival. That’s where, for us, the informers come in handy. But things have changed… While militants and their network of overground workers continue to exist, the informers are missing,” the officer said.

Sources in the police attribute the dried-up human intelligence to authorities taking the “prevailing peace for guaranteed”.

“Some of the new officers who got transferred to the region didn’t work as hard as they should have on their informer network, which led to intelligence drying up,” said a source, blaming it on a sense of complacency.

An ex-army officer pointed to how the movement of a single Army truck on the Bhimber Gali-Surankote road had made it a sitting duck.

The retired officer said that in the past, acting on intelligence on terrorist movements, forces would climb up the mountains for area dominance almost every alternate day.

Forces shifted out

In 2020, amid the standoff with China along the LAC in Ladakh sector, several companies of the Rashtriya Rifles were moved from the hinterlands of Poonch, Rajouri and adjoining Reasi district in Jammu division.

This thinning out of personnel, sources say, may have emboldened the militants. The move coincided with a period when militants operating in Kashmir Valley had come under pressure from police and security personnel, and were looking for newer hideouts.

Militants thus took this as an opportunity to revive terror activity in the Rajouri-Poonch area that has a thinner concentration of security forces and which is equidistant from Shopian and Kulgam in Kashmir, and the Line of Control with Pakistan, making it easier to move between the three regions, a senior police officer said.

This gave them a distinct advantage considering it was highly unlikely that security forces and police from all three regions would simultaneously launch an operation against the militants, a senior police officer said.

A push-back

Despite the recent attacks and a renewed thrust by militants in the region, police and security forces say they have been able to successfully push back.

Chairing a meeting of the core group of intelligence and security agencies in Srinagar on August 7, 2019, the first after the Centre’s move to strip J&K of its special status, Northern Army Commander Lt General Ranbir Singh had accused Pakistan of increasing the strength of militants in launch pads along the LoC, initiating ceasefire violations and pushing infiltrators across the border.

However, security forces point out that except for a few pockets in Rajouri and Poonch districts, the militants have failed to make any impact following successful encounters and arrests in Jammu division. Several attempts to push weapons, narcotics and cash through drones were foiled too.

In April last year, two militants were gunned down the moment they stepped out of a house they were hiding in the Sunjwan area of Jammu. The two were allegedly planning to attack a security installation to coincide with PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Palli village in Samba district on April 24.

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Also, with the arrest of a government teacher, who allegedly planted two IEDs in Jammu city’s Narwal area in January this year, police claimed to have successfully solved a terror case in Ramban and two different explosions in Udhampur town.