Army men near the police complex in Pulwama which came under Jaish attack on Saturday. Tribune Photo

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 30

At the crack of dawn on Saturday last week, three fidayeen militants stormed a heavily fortified police installation in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. Their intention was to go for the maximum kills and their message was terse: Jaish-e-Mohammad is back, and it has the capability to mount deadly attacks deep inside the Kashmir valley.The Jaish, which faced near extinction of its cadres in the Valley till recently, has made a quiet entry in recent months into south Kashmir — the epicentre of the region’s new-age militants.The police now estimate that the Jaish has around a dozen militants in south Kashmir who operate in three units, one of which moves around the fringes of Srinagar.“We have reports that their two groups (with possible strength of six to eight) are floating in south Kashmir and one may be on the fringes of Srinagar,” Kashmir IGP Muneer Khan said, adding that another Jaish unit was suspected to be hiding in Tral sub-district.The Jaish militants operating in south Kashmir are believed to have infiltrated this year, with the latest unit of six to eight militants that operates around Pulwama town suspected to have infiltrated only a month ago. Abdul Mateen and Muhammad Bhai, both foreigners, are believed to be commanding the Jaish in south Kashmir, police sources said.The sudden surge in the Jaish strength in the Valley comes after years of lying low; even though, in recent years, it had launched devastating attacks against security installations along the Line of Control and the International Border.The Jaish was formed in January 2000 by militant cleric Maulana Masood Azhar, days after he along with two others were released in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in exchange for release of passengers aboard the hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814. Azhar had spent six years in Indian jails before his release in December 1999.The group had emerged on the militant scene in Kashmir within months after its formation and marked a dramatic escalation in the conflict. The first attack, which signalled its arrival, targeted the Army’s 15 Corps Headquarters in the city here when an 18-year-old Srinagar boy detonated a car bomb outside its main entrance in April 2000.However, the militant group faced an existential crisis in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks on the United States and as Pakistan became a frontline ally in the ‘war on terror’, the Jaish faced desertions with its leadership staying quasi-neutral.In subsequent years, the Jaish strength came down and by July 2013 it had only eight cadres left in the Valley. The last known Jaish militants — Adeel Pathan and Chota Burmi — who operated in south Kashmir were killed in October 2015.So far, six Jaish militants — including the three foreign fidayeen, who attacked District Police Lines on Saturday last week — have been killed this year in south Kashmir. Two local Jaish cadres — both south Kashmir residents — have also died this year.Pulwama SP Mohammad Aslam told The Tribune that the police were investigating whether the three fidayeen, who attacked the police installation in which eight security men were killed last week, were part of the older group that was in the area for the past month or whether they had freshly infiltrated.“Some Jaish militants have managed to infiltrate and there is a movement of eight to ten militants in this area,” the police officer said.The entry of Jaish makes an addition to the number of insurgent groups and militants operating in south Kashmir, dotted with dense orchards and ringed by forests and mountains.Another police officer said the entry of Jaish militants would impact the overall security scenario in the region. “They are better equipped, better committed and better trained than militants from other groups,” he said.