Balakot strike after intel on Pulwama ‘celebration’ meet

NEW DELHI: Luck was clearly on its side as the Indian security establishment went about planning the air strikes on Jaish-e-Mohammed’s

Balakot

terrorist training facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Armed with information that 300-400 Jaish terrorists, including 25 top commanders, would converge on the Balakot camp on Monday to celebrate the Pulwama operation and plan further attacks in India, the Indian forces acted swiftly and virtually flattened the structure in precision air strikes.


Top security officials here were pleasantly surprised how things panned out in their favour. First, Jaish, which many believed would turn extra cautious in the wake of pressure brought on it post-Pulwama, decided to get its top leaders and cadres under one roof. Second, the facility where they chose to assemble is far removed from civilian settlements and military camps, making it an ideal target for air strikes as there would be minimum collateral damage.

Third, the strategy session that Jaish was holding at the Balakot facility — a modern structure complete with a playground, swimming pool, racing tracks, firing range and a social media war-room — was to discuss plans to wreak havoc in India by carrying out suicide attacks and bombings over the next two months, coinciding with the general elections. The intelligence gave Indian forces valid ground to launch pre-emptive strikes.

The air strikes blew the Balakot facility to smithereens. Intelligence officials said given the extent of destruction, all occupants of the camp would have been killed.

The importance of Balakot lies in the advanced training facilities it offered. Meant for ‘battle inoculation’ of Jaish fighters, it had several barracks to accommodate the trainees and is known to have housed 200 terrorists at any given time. Many trainers in Balakot were ex-personnel of Pakistan army and ISI.

Sources said Masood Azhar and his brother Mufti Rauf Asghar used to visit the ‘five-star’ terror camp to radicalise and motivate the fidayeen. Alternatively, their videos would be shown to the trainees. Two JeM terrorists interrogated as ‘witnesses’ by the NIA after the Pathankot attack claimed recruits at Balakot camp would go through extensive motivational, physical, military and tactical training.

Jihadi volunteers who successfully completed the basic terror training course — Daura-e-Aam, covering religious indoctrination, grenade throwing, use of small firearms and physical training — would undergo advanced terror training or ‘Daure-e-Khaas’ at the Jaish camp. The facilities covered training in use of big arms and weapons, handling of explosives, assembling IEDs, field tactics, tactics for attacking security convoys, preparations for suicide bombings, rigging vehicles for suicide attacks and survival in high altitude areas and extreme-stress situations.

Even US authorities are familiar with the Balakot camp, having detained Hafez K Rahman, a fighter affiliated with Taliban. Rahman, a Pakistani, told the US authorities he had trained at Balakot camp that offered “basic and advanced terrorist training on explosives and artillery”.