The axis wants to force India to shift troops from India–China border and engage them to counter terrorists.
Terrorists killed four Indian soldiers on Dec. 21 in an ambush in India’s Poonch-Rajouri region on its northwestern border with Pakistan.
The difficult, densely forested Himalayan terrain in Jammu and Kashmir has recently seen an intensified terrorist presence and anti-India operations.
It was the sixth attack on Indian military forces in the region this year. India Today reported on Dec. 25 that New Delhi plans to increase troop strength on this front to strengthen its counterterrorism operations. A new brigade of troops was brought in a few months ago, and another is scheduled to be brought in soon.
An Indian counterterrorism expert who’s the author of a new book on terrorism in the region told The Epoch Times that behind the increasing attacks is the strengthening China–Pakistan axis.
“After Galwan, India moved a portion of its battle-hardened, premier counterinsurgency troops, [the] Rashtriya Rifles. This has brought a huge chunk of Indian forces on the eastern border [with China],” said Abhinav Pandya, author of “Terror Financing in Kashmir.”
The Rashtriya Rifles (RR) is a special counterinsurgency force deployed on India’s northern borders with Pakistan to the west and China to the east. The bloody Galwan conflict in the trans-Himalayan altitudes of Ladakh left 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese dead in June 2020. The event was followed by renewed military buildup on both sides.
“The Chinese are already feeling the heat after Galwan,” said Mr. Pandya, who’s CEO of India-based security affairs think tank the Usanas Foundation. “They have failed in all their pressure tactics, psy-wars and propaganda wars, so now they have used their proxy, Pakistan, to intensify terrorism in Poonch Rajouri, so that RR troops are shifted back to [the] Poonch-Rajouri region [from the Ladakh border].”
The developing scenario is in an area with mountainous terrain, with natural caves that give cover to terrorists. This helps them to plan and conduct surprise attacks and inflict more casualties. He said the enhanced operations and the way they’re being conducted indicate that the terrorists have “excellent intelligence” on the movement of Indian armed personnel in the area.
By Venus Upadhayaya
