PAKISTAN ARMY ALARMED BY CHANGE IN INDIA’S RESPONSE TO TERROR

With the IAF strikes, uncertainty has been brought into the operational planning matrix of GHQ Rawalpindi’s asymmetric war on India.

Early in the morning of 26 February, Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft launched a precision strike on a Jaish e Mohammad ( JEM) training camp in Balakot (Khyber-pakhtunkhwa) in Pakistan. Previously, the camp had been used by the Hizbul Mujahideen, and had several structures designed to accommodate students, classes and terror instructors. It gets visited repeatedly by Masood Azhar, who was given a second stint in terrorism through his release by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999, as also his family and associates. Situated on the banks of the Kunar river, terror trainees were given instructions in escape through water, by trainers, many of whom had previously served in the Pakistan army or were on leave from the institution that controls the Pakistan state. Training under “Daura-e-khaas” rules was imparted, in which expertise was honed in field tactics, weapons handling, ways of ambushing security convoys (as was carried out in Pulwama), making and concealing improvised explosive A soldier stands guard at the Ministry of Defence building in New Delhi, on Thursday. devices (IEDS) and equipping vehicles for suicide missions. A high priority was given to survival tactics, especially at high altitudes and in hyper-stress conditions. At least three hours would be spent each day on indoctrination into Wahhabi tenets that stressed the “inevitable takeover of the planet” by followers of the same creed that members of ISIS subscribe to, and which is entirely different from Islam, a religion that has peace, compassion and beneficence at the core of its values. As images of the strike taken from onboard cameras have not so far been released by the IAF, the GHQ Rawalpindi spin machine has been having an unobstructed run claiming that only “empty ground” was hit by precision strikes that used laser-guided, almost fail-safe systems to lock onto their designated targets. The strikes were not