Inside the Myanmar surgical strikes war room
LEIMAKHONG (IMPHAL): Inside a secret war room of an army mountain division, some 15 feet underground in the basement of a building on a hill, a two-star general in combat fatigues details the long-running security challenges Manipur faces and how insurgent safe havens across the border in Myanmar imperil the state’s stability. Phones are not allowed in Kautilya, the war room.
It was in this ops room, more than three years ago, that an Indian Special Forces officer briefed the military brass about the surgical strikes he had led against three insurgent camps in Myanmar.
The cross-border attack in which 40 to 50 insurgents were killed was ordered by the Modi government to avenge the massacre of 18 Indian Army soldiers in an ambush by Myanmar-based militants on June 5, 2015.
New Delhi later publicly acknowledged the combat action on foreign soil for the first time, announcing India’s muscular military response to the world.
But three years on, the threat to Manipur’s security from safe havens on Burmese soil is still a reality.
Major General VK Mishra, who heads the division, did not reveal the number of insurgent camps in Myanmar in his three-hour presentation in the war room last week, though he did touch upon the insurgents’ hit-and-run tactics in Manipur that shares a 398-km border with the neighbouring country.
Two officials familiar with the matter in New Delhi, however, said on the condition of anonymity that there are 38 insurgent camps scattered across the border.