Srinagar: At least 48 army soldiers have died in the Jammu region in less than three years as a result of the widening arc of violence south of Pir Panjal region and Chenab valley where militants have opened a new, deadly front for armed forces since 2021 amidst a semblance of calm in the Kashmir valley.
The attacks started on October 11, 2021 when security forces were tipped about the presence of a group of suspected militants in Chamrer village of Dera Ki Gali belt in Poonch district. As the forces moved into a wooded area, they were ambushed and a junior commissioned officer (JCO) among five army soldiers were killed.
A timeline of major attacks that were reported from Jammu region since 2021
The attack was unlike the challenges security forces had experienced in Jammu region, which was declared militancy-free only some years ago. An operation was immediately launched to hunt down the perpetrators. However, after a brief exchange of gunfire in Panghal, about two kilometres from Chamrer, the militants managed to escape.
As the forces expanded the area of operation, the same group of militants had taken position on a hillock in the thick Bhatta Durian forests of Poonch’s Mendhar where they carried out another attack on the army five days later, killing two more JCOs among four soldiers.
What’s more, some of the attackers, who seem well-trained in jungle warfare, wore body cameras to film the action, and shocking videos showing bloodied soldiers were posted on social media platforms as part of information warfare, according to officials.
These were not the kind of setbacks that the Army had faced for many years.
Armed with modern weapons and gadgets, the militants had taken up strategic mountain heights from where they rained down ammunition on the incoming security personnel. Due to rugged terrain and low visibility, it took several days to recover the bodies of two of the four soldiers killed in the Bhatta Durian forest.
Also read: Who Is Responsible for Militants’ Success in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh?
‘New outfits with new strategies’
The two attacks in Poonch prompted the security agencies to launch one of the biggest counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir but, despite a massive media hype, it remained inconclusive.
According to the data of South Asia Terrorism Portal, which monitors the conflict-related violence, the October of 2021 was the worst month in Jammu and Kashmir in many years wherein a security personal and a civilian were killed almost every second day.
The Poonch attacks also marked the arrival of the People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) and other relatively unknown militant outfits in J&K where nearly three dozen such outfits, a majority of which are inactive, have operated since the eruption of insurgency in the early 1990s.
Security agencies believe that the PAFF is an offshoot of the Jaish-e-Mohammad group and it has been floated to take away the focus of western countries from the Pakistan-backed terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by projecting it as an indigenous struggle. An eight-minute video of the Poonch attacks featured a man narrating the events in chaste Kashmiri language.
The latest attack in Urranbaggi area of Doda’s Dessa, in which an army captain among four soldiers and a policeman were killed, was claimed by another Jaish offshoot Kashmir Tigers while The Resistance Front, which is a shadow outfit of Lashkar-e-Toiba, has also claimed responsibility for at least one such lethal attack on the army.
Also read: Jammu Faces a New Wave of Terrorism With Divergent Tactics Unseen in the Last Two Decades
Deadly attacks and setbacks
The bouts of deadly attacks by militants in Jammu have caught the security forces off guard.
Five soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on an Army camp in Pargal village on the outskirts of Darhal town in Rajouri district on August 11, 2022 while another five soldiers were killed when militants ambushed an army truck in Bhatta Durrian on April 20, 2023.
As the Union government continued to beat the drums of “peaceful and prosperous J&K”, militants expanded their operations from Pir Panjal region and Chenab valley to Kathua and Udhampur in Jammu where a member of the controversial Village Defence Guard, a state backed militia set up as a first line of defence against militants, was killed in an encounter with militants in April this year.
However, the skirmishes in Jammu have been unlike the conventional gun-battles in the plains of the valley where militants are often trapped in residential houses. Armed forces raze down these suspected hideouts with precision strikes using the IEDs or mortar shells which ensure zero survivors.
But the dense forests and the networks of caves in mountain cliffs of Pir Panjal region act as natural hideouts for militants. Running for hundreds of kilometres draped under thick foliage, security forces have struggled to overcome the challenges posed by the region’s difficult and inhospitable terrain.
‘Situation won’t improve’
The thinning out of troops in Pir Panjal region, who have been moved to Ladakh post the violent clashes with Chinese army in Galwan valley, the breakdown of human intelligence networks which was exemplified by the custodial killing of three civilians in Poonch district following a militant attack in which four soldiers were killed last year and a crumbling road network which increases the response time of armed forces to militant attacks, have all contributed to the worrying setbacks in Jammu region.
As a deterrence, security forces last year toyed with the idea of setting up a “temporary base” in a forested area of Halan in Kulgam district of south Kashmir which has Chenab Valley on one side and Pir Panjal region on the other. However, on August 4, militants launched a deadly attack on the base, killing at least four soldiers and forcing the security establishment to drop the idea.
It can’t be a coincidence that the violence has spiked dramatically in Jammu since the reading down of Article 370 when Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union territories despite protests by Pakistan and China. Since then, Hindu pilgrims have also been targeted on two occasions, purportedly to flare up communal tensions in J&K, according to intelligence assessments.
“One can’t say with certainty whether Pakistan is acting alone by opening a new theatre of conflict for armed forces in Jammu, or if it is supported by allies like China. Unfortunately, in the absence of diplomacy, my fear is that the situation will not improve much in coming months,” said a senior political analyst in Srinagar, who didn’t want to be named.
