Intel shows Jaish, Lashkar planning attacks in winter

NEWDELHI: Pakistan-based terror groups Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) are preparing for largescale terror strikes against India in the coming winter, according to the latest intelligence reports. The strikes are aimed at preventing the return to normalcy of what is now the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and to test the mettle of the Narendra Modi government.

HT learns that inputs conveyed to the government by intelligence agencies suggest that the Jaish leadership has asked its trained and indoctrinated terrorists to report at its Markaz Usman-o-Ali headquarters at Bahawalpur this week as a precursor to possible Fidayeen attacks in India.

HT has been briefed on the inputs by top officials at security agencies who asked not to be named.

Bed-ridden Jaish chief Masood Azhar and his younger brother or de facto chief Mufti Abdul Rauf Asghar are both at Bahawalpur currently.

Other inputs indicate that LeT’s commander Abu Uzail has claimed that India would soon face a deadly suicide attack.

The inputs also say that Pakistan-sponsored terror groups will make renewed attempts to send their cadres across the Line of Control (LoC) after October 26— the day that J&K’s erstwhile ruler signed the instrument of accession that made the former princely state a part of India.

While the home ministry and security agencies have largely managed to keep the region out of harm’s way since August 5, national security planners believe that the Pakistan-based groups will attempt a strike this winter to prove their relevance and dominance.

On August 5, the Indian parliament passed laws and resolutions to split the region of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories — J&K and Ladakh (they came into being on October 31) — and scrapped special privileges that the state enjoyed.

Rawalpindi General Headquarters, the nerve Centre of the Pakistani armed forces, has apparently given the green signal to selective infiltration by Jaish cadres into India.