Tire, track eliminate: Why has the Poonch encounter dragged on for so long

New Delhi, Nov 10: The ongoing encounter at Poonch has entered into its 31st day. The police have now placed several persons under the scanner for providing logistic support to the terrorists.

Seven persons have been arrested so far for aiding the terrorists. The ongoing encounter at Bhata Dhurian is one of the longest in recent times. After the Indian Army suffered casualties, there was a complete change in strategy. It was decided to adopt a wait and watch policy and tire the terrorists out before taking them head on and eliminating them.

In the encounter, nine Army personnel including JCOs have lost their lives. Sources tell OneIndia that the terrorists are very highly trained and are being guided on a minute to minute basis by retired officials of the Pakistan Army. It is also clear that they have been battle hardened during the extensive training imparted to them by the Pakistan Army.

The Indian Army has been told by the commanders to adopt a different strategy. They do not want any more casualties. The soldiers have been asked to be patient and tire out the terrorists. Once done, they would track the terrorists and then eliminate them. This is a war in the jungle and considering its density, it is a very difficult operation. The fact that the terrorists are operating in buddy pairs too has made it even more challenging an official who did not want to be named said.

Pakistan has very often in the past used the services of retired army personnel to train their terrorists.

The investigation into the Mumbai 26/11 attacks made it clear that a group of former naval officers had trained the terrorists to launch an attack from the seas.

An official said that this has been an old strategy by the Pakistan establishment to use retired personnel to train terrorists. They have a deniability factor and if it comes to light, they will reject all allegations that the terrorists were trained by the state.

In this context one must look into the role played by the mysterious Sajid Mir in the 26/11 attacks.

He had coordinated with David Headley and played an extremely crucial role in the logistics part of the attacks. While Pakistan continues to deny Mir's existence, the Indian Intelligence agencies say that Mir was once part of the ISI. He was then asked to quit to specifically train and guide terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

In the ongoing Poonch encounter, the role of the retired army personnel has come to light. A specific team has been put in place to particularly train and then guide the terrorists. infiltrated from Pakistan into the jungles over the past three months. While the patrolling and the security measures along the border with Pakistan has been very high, these terrorists managed to infiltrate as they came in, in smaller numbers and not as an entire group. This may have helped them dodge the security agencies, officials say.

Further officials also say that the terrorists were operating in buddy pairs and this had initially given them a strategic advantage. Hindustan Times in an earlier report had said that the the terrorists took advantage by operating in pairs of two and this allowed them to continuously change positions and engage a larger number of troops.