Impact on India continues...

Another group which was already active in Kashmir was Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), a Lahore-based terrorist group created

by Pakistan Army during the last stages of Afghan Jihad. LeT’s first set of training and operational bases were in Kunar and Paktia provinces of Afghanistan and were commanded by mujahideen

commanders who later became the founding members of al Qaida.

The group carried out several spectacular suicide attacks, massacres and terrorist operations in India, including sending its

fighters backed by regular army troops, to occupy mountain tops in

upper Drass and Batalik, the ridge overlooking the town of Kargil

in Kashmir, in the summer of 1999.

The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre brought terror home to the United States of America and forced changes in the manner in which terrorist groups operated. The ompact of the WTC attack on terrorism in Kashmir was significant.

Barely 19 days after the WTC, on October 1, three JeM terrorists carried out an audacious attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. The attack killed 29 on the spot and nine others succumbed to injuries later. Between October 1 and December 12, there were at least seven attacks on the security forces, including an abortive suicide attack on the Indian Air Force base at Avantipore, 35 kms from Srinagar, in which six people, including four terrorists, were killed on October 22. The attack on the J&K Assembly was a trial-run for the suicide attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on the morning of December 13, led by Mohammad alias Sunny Ahmed Qazi alias Burger, one of the hijackers of the IC-814 Indian Airlines flight in 1999.

With Pakistan compelled to join the US-led War on Terrorism, it became difficult for the State agencies to openly support these groups. The Kashmir jihad groups were asked to lie low; some like Hafiz Saeed were even paid compensation.

To be continued....