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| Foreign militants a challenge but diplomatic edge | | The longest encounter on LoC reveals interesting stories of ugly battle | | NIRBHAY JAMMUAL
Jammu, Aug 3: One of the longest encounters of the recent years on the Line of Control while foiling infiltration bid which ended on Thursday with the killing of ten militants has revealed many underlying facets of the cross border of terrorism.
The most glaring revelation of this encounter in Uri sector which also claimed the life of a Colonel and another soldier remained that among the infiltrators four were of the Afghan origin. The security forces are now studying the new trend of militancy with regards to the influx of foreigners. It may be recalled here that the EARLY TIMES had only last week reported that with few locals taking up the recruitment more and more foreigners are infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir.
As per an analysis of the security forces, nearly 300 militants of foreign origin are presently operating in the Kashmir Valley alone. "Though the influx of foreign mercenaries is serious challenge but is good that fewer locals are now taking to guns which is why the foreigners are being roped in by Jehadis", said a top security official.
He pointed out that with the involvement of locals things becomes little difficult for a variety of reasons. "One that upon the killing of a local militant there are protests and demonstration which sows public anger against the security forces and makes operation difficult as public support is most vital to all the counter-insurgency operations", said the security officers. The second reason, he said, "involvement of foreigners gives a diplomatic edge as we can say that the foreigners are being pumped in for terrorism".
Another facet of this encounter was that with the killings of 10 militants the security forces have been able to foil a major terrorist attack around the Independence Day. The maps and other belongings of the militants have revealed that they had disastrous plans.
Third interesting revelation from this encounter is that one of the eight infiltrators was a local militant who was missing since 1993, police said today. He has been identified as Ghulam Rasool Mir, son of Faqeer Mir, a resident of hill Patheri-Bijhama.
A security officer told EARLY TIMES that Mir was in the list of militancy related "missing persons" of Bijhama police station since 1993.
Identity of seven other militants killed in the encounter is yet to be ascertained and their bodies were given to the police station Bijhama-Uri, where they were buried in the graveyard at Braripora today.
Eight militants were killed in an encounter at Zorwar-Khandnar near Line of Control which continued from July 29 to July 31. Along with them, a colonel and two soldiers were also killed.
He said eight AK-47 rifles, 16 magazines, including five damaged, 315 rounds of ammunition, three grenades, one Global Positioning System, a solar battery charger, a wire cutter, one coloured photo copy of Indian map (matrix-infiltration area) and five acid bottles were recovered from their possession.
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