As the Kupwara operation entered the 15th day, the Army on Saturday said the group of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants holed up in the Manigah forest range were getting supplies from the nearby villages.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a seminar here, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lt. Gen. Satish Dua said the operation was taking so long because the terrain was tough and the Army wanted to avoid ‘collateral damage.’
Lt. Gen. Dua said unmanned aerial vehicles were being used to track the movement of the militants.
He said pouches recovered from three slain militants of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) near the encounter sites at Tangdhar, Kupwara, bore the marking ‘Afzal Guru Squad.’
Documents recovered from the militants made it clear that the Tangdhar Army base was their target, he said.
“A few months ago a similar kind of attack in Tangdhar was foiled too. Last year, there was an attack on an Army camp in Mohura, Uri. Militants try to target camps near the Line of Control because they are unable to infiltrate the well-coordinated counter-infiltration grid,” Lt. Gen. Dua said.
The Army officer also warned that Islamic State was “a live threat and a cause for concern.”
