Posted on 05/24/2003 10:29:39 AM PDT by swarthyguy
SURANKOTE, May 23: The army, which has so far remained silent on the use of helicopters for flushing out militants from Surankote area recently, today said that choppers were indeed used in the operation but only for logistic support.
"The choppers were used to trace out the bunkers at the top of the hills and were used to destroy a bunker used by the ultras in the Hill Kaka area," GoC Romeo Forces of the Rashtriya Rifles Major General Gardev Liddar told pressmen who visited the border area.
Airpower could be used as this area was not populated, Major General Liddar said and added that the area had a migratory population.
He said the Hill kaka area was now being used by the militants as a base camp from where they could infiltrate into the populated areas.
He said army is continuing intense combing operations in the upper reaches of South Pir Panjal range near here and says that 93 militant hideouts busted so far could only be the tip of the ice-berg and that there has been no slackening of infiltration levels.
Though 93 heavily fortified, almost military like militant fortifications, have been busted in the ongoing operation ‘Sarp Vinash’, Army commanders in the region said that it could be only tip of the iceberg as 70 percent of the area near Surankot town at the Line of Control is yet to be combed.
The hideouts busted were almost like military fortifications, where militants had stored large cache of arms, war like stores and 7,000 tonnes of rations 35 kms deep into Indian territory.
On a visit, a group of newsmen found an indication that despite its claims to checking cross border infiltration Islamabad seems to be in no hurry to stop covert support to militants.
The fortifications were designed on the pattern of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda hideouts in mountains near Jalalabad and some of them located as high as 3989 metres had to be targeted by helicopter fired air-to-ground ‘frog’ high fragmetnation missiles. Comfortably perched in these secure command and control posts, militants, mostly Pak mercenaries using satellite phones were carrying out almost daily conversation with modular cells spread all over India and with their masters in Pakistan. In one of the rare photographs of a slain militant, he was shown posing outside Parliament house and India gate.
Militant fortifications were spread out on mountain tops to ensure they dominated the angle of fire. Some of the hideouts busted had huge underground chambers to accomodate as many as 30 to 40 terrorists and were also armed with surgical and medical equipments.
Giving details of the operations, Major General Hardev Lidder, GoC of the anti-insurgency Romeo Force told newsmen that the armed action had caught the militants by surprise and these groups were in disarray and on the run. Now he estimated the total presence of the militants to 300 or 350 in the area.
Citing operational confidentiality in not giving out the number of troops involved in the operations, Lidder said, beside the Romeo Force, the Victor Force across the Pir Panjal in Kashmir valley was also taking part and had been responsible for killing 20 of the 65 militants killed so far.
Asked, if the military like design of the fortifications indicated any presence of Pakistani troops among the militants, the General ruled it out saying there could be some Pakistani ex-servicemen who could have joined the militants.
He said that Army during the operations had evidence of presence of all groups including Jaish-e Mohammad, Lashkar, Tehrek-ul Mujahideen, Al Badr and others.
The General said a large number of confidential papers seized in the operations had been given to intelligence agencies for sifting and indicated that Pakistani nationals outnumbered the locals in the militants rank now. (AGENCIES)
Covert, my foot, how more overt can you get.
Well, I'm sure Mush will deny this to Bush.
The Indian Govt is scared that if they use helos too often, the terrorists will use missiles to shoot them down.
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