As Pak Terror threat persists due to still active LeT and Jaish, a fresh surgical strike needed
A few days back the US Africa Command carried out a strike about 260 kilometers northeast of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, near Galcad. There were no civilians injured or killed in this surgical strike. The statement issued by the US Africa Command said that US forces “conducted a collective self-defense strike” in support of Somalia National Army forces who were “engaged in heavy fighting following a complex, extended, intense attack by more than 100 Al-Shabaab terrorists.”
Since outlook of the Pakistan deep state towards its long-held objective of weakening India has not changed, the proscribed terror groups are still being backed by GHQ, Rawalpindi, and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI. The terrorist groups are still active, even as they lie low to avoid global attention.
Therefore a similar US Africa Command Air strike by IAF should be planned to totally break the back of these terrorist groups. To this end Indian and Western officials studying present and future threats from Pakistan-based terror groups, such as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), say they have credible reasons to believe that both these groups are still as impactful, if not more so. The IAF air strike will send a real message not only to Pakistan but even the USA and rest of the world that now India is going to be increasingly intolerant of such terrorist groups and even their rabid supporters.
Thus it is also a welcome sign that the Paki based and Paki supported terror groups have came under intense watch from Washington, but Indians are highly disappointed because Americans are currently focused on enhancing their coordinated efforts with Islamabad to tackle only Al-Qaeda and its allies, a clear self-serving. Therefore India took must act independently to strike at the LET AND Jaish.
Presently lack of any “big” or “significant” activity from the Lashkar and Jaish against India is attributed to the domestic situation in Pakistan, where every organisation—from the Army to the political class—is currently dealing with internal tussles. The failing economy has also led to anti-India goals being put on the back burner for now.
“It is not a complex puzzle as to why Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed are not coming out in public or giving speeches. The relevant offices, in India and in other countries, know where they are and what they are doing.
Having said that, they are still a potent group and they don’t need more than two-three weeks’ time to prepare their followers for a terror assault by crossing into India,” an official with an anti-terror body said.
“The politicians and the generals right now are dealing with multiple issues, including the massive economic crisis in Pakistan and its catastrophic widespread consequences, an increasingly hostile Taliban, and the threat of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). It is due to this domestic situation that the GHQ Rawalpindi-controlled deep state has gone silent. That does not mean that terror financing is not happening, that terror camps have been permanently uprooted, or recruitments have stopped.
Intelligence, satellite images and similar proof exist of the Lashkar and Jaish carrying out their assigned work as earlier. The only difference is that they are doing it silently,” a top official with a security agency told The Sunday Guardian on the backdrop of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s interview in Dubai seeking “serious and sincere talks” with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to normalise ties.
“Unless and until we get proof that terror groups and cells are being chased and shut down, there is no point in moving towards talks only to realise that the same talks will then be derailed by a terror strike planned from across the border.
Sharif is saying what the world needs to hear so that Pakistan continues to get financial assistance and aid doesn’t stop,” said another official with a government department tasked with coordinating ties with neighbouring countries.
Sources in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region told The Sunday Guardian that both Lashkar and Jaish operatives are moving around without any restrictions and training classes imparting religious indoctrination and physical exercises are going on openly.
