ALL TO ARMS

Though there has been relative calm in the subcontinent post-Balakot, intelligence reports accessed by THE WEEK reveal how major terrorist groups are building a second rung of leadership to lead operations, and how dormant groups in Kashmir are being revived to plan attacks on India

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

ON February 26 last year, India shed its image of a soft state.

It flew Mirage jets into Pakistan-held airspace, bombed a Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp in Balakot and claimed to have killed 200. This was done in retaliation to the attack on a CRFP convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir, on February 14, which killed 40 security personnel. The strikes redefined the relations between the two nuclear powers.

A year on, there has been relative calm in the subcontinent, even though Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan warned of a possible nuclear war after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August, and again after the new citizenship law was enacted.

In the aftermath of the Balakot strikes, Khan had given army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa an extension till 2022, essentially telling the world that the strikes had not affected the Pakistan army.

And yes, on the surface, few changes were effected. The Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Asim Munir retired and was succeeded by Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed. In January, Major General Babar Iftikhar replaced Major General Asif Ghafoor as head of the Inter-Services Public Relations.

Within the deep state, however, there seems to have been a churning. “Pakistan has been forced to go back to the drawing board as its entire policy of sub-conventional warfare has been turned on its head,” said Tilak Devasher, a member of the National Security Advisory Board, which falls under the prime minister’s office. On February 13, a Pakistani court sentenced Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed to 11 years in jail; JeM founder Masood Azhar has been underground for some time now.