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Upsurge in terror in the Valley
There has been "a quantum jump" in infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) as well as terrorist violence in the hinterland in Jammu and Kashmir in the last three months. Army officers claim Pakistan is desperate to push in as many heavily-armed militants as possible before snow blocks the mountain passes and traditional infiltration routes along the 740-km-long LoC. Anticipating more fidayeen (suicide) and "stand-off" terrorist attacks against "high-value" targets in the coming days, the Army does not want to reduce force levels in J&K. Army vice-chief Lt-Gen Shantonu Choudhary himself said on Wednesday that Islamabad had "revived" terrorist-training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). "We have photographic evidence of this," he said, rejecting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s claim that his government had clamped down on jehadis.
Perv says that all the time. Any time he's done it, if actually ever, it's lasted only a short while...
The Army also has other "evidence" to show an estimated 3,000 terrorists are being trained in these camps, with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other tanzims running scores of recruitment centres. LeT district commander Mohammed Shahzad, captured in Banihal on September 13, for instance, has given a detailed account of this. Latest Army statistics show the total number of terrorist incidents have shot up from 130 in September 2002 to almost 180 in just the first half of this month. The comparative figures for July and August have also jumped by 70 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively. Similarly, the number of IED (improvised explosive device) blasts have registered a sharp increase. Compared to four IED blasts in September 2002, over 15 have already taken place this month.

The security forces, of course, are also notching up more successes against terrorists. The "kill ratio" has improved, with roughly five terrorists being killed for every soldier. Ninety-two militants, including some key leaders like Gazi Baba and Nasir Mehmood Ahwan "Ansar" of Jaish-e-Mohammad, have been killed by the security forces so far this month. In all, around 560 militants have been killed since January.
With a large number of battlefield surveillance radars and hand-held thermal imagers now being inducted, which can detect movement almost 2.5 to eight km away, Army troops are also better equipped to detect infiltration bids across the LoC. "Even though militants also now have night sights, we have killed around 80 infiltrators since July. But only one out of four to five infiltration attempts is detected," said an officer.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-09-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=18833