The armies of the jehad

Of the troops resisting the Indian Army, some 2,000 are irregulars. Call them militants, mujahids or Taliban, a majority of these jehadis in the Kargil theatre are battle-hardened guerrilla fighters. They have seen action in Afghanistan, Bosnia and even Chechnya. Intercepts of wireless messages show that the mujahids refer to each other as members of the “Taliban Jamaat” and frequently refer to Osama bin Laden in despatches. Some 200 are said to have fallen in action so far, but there is no dearth of trained men waiting to go into the Kargil theatre, or of fresh faces at Muzzafarabad’s recruiting centres.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is also known to be conductingKargil camps in Muzzafarabad, which are attended by the launching commanders of various tanzeems (wings). In one such drive held on May 25, for instance, 600 mujahids were picked up to join the army battalions in Kargil. In addition, 300 fresh recruits were roped in to act as guides and porters for assault parties. The border villages were evacuated long ago by the army and there is said to be an acute shortage of local porters. A line of supply is yet another logistical gap that the mujahids helped to fill as the Pakistani war machine entrenched itself in the peaks of Kargil.

Though Osama bin Laden is nowhere near the theatre of operations, he has backed the Kargil war by making his men and equipment available to work in tandem with the Pakistan army. He also remains the motivating factor for the highly committed members of the militia, who were well-integrated with the Pakistani troops by the time the Indian forces engaged them. There is still a heavy concentration of these militiamen in Dras, Batalik andKhaskar, and sources say some 3,500 more are awaiting launch along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. They are either being funded locally by the ISI or directly through the Gulf route. For Pakistan, the militia have been integral to the intrusions, both a fig-leaf and an insurance policy. There is evidence to show that the process of integration and assimilation had begun as early as May of last year, when Pakistan conducted preliminary reconnaissance missions. Early this year, troops of the Northern Light Infantry were ordered to disguise themselves as mujahids, completing the stratagem and allowing Pakistan to deny any involvement in the offensive.

Initially, the joint patrols meandered close to the LoC and were mostly unarmed. Later, the surveys became intensive and every nullah and gully was carefully mapped. The focus shifted to Skardu, where the militia began preparing for assaults along with regular army battalions. Having crossed the LoC, they dug themselves in in bunkers. Cadres of somegroups carried their own arms, mostly AK-47s. The rest of the weaponry, ammunition and food supplies were provided by the Pakistan army.

Military Intelligence officials say that it is almost certain that the Stinger missile which downed an Indian MIG-25 in the first days of the conflict was part of the consignment given by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Pakistan-sponsored irregulars during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s official line has been that the missiles were destroyed long ago but now, almost two decades later, they have reappeared in the Kargil theatre. Sources say the mujahids have some 20 Stingers in their possession.

Apparently, after the first flush of euphoria and bravado, when the mujahids were speaking in the idiom of holy war, they now appear to be a demoralised, even desperate lot. Their supply lines have been snapped and a number of intercepted messages reveal their anxiety about getting food, medicines and ammunition from the infantry regulars. Besides theissue of withdrawal, sharp differences are also said to have cropped up between the regulars and irregulars concerning treatment of the wounded in base camps and hospitals.

There are intercepts (the Afghans have been using the Pakistan army’s communications network even to call their families in Kandahar) which lay bare the do-or-die situation facing the mujahids. Many have been killed by advancing Indian troops in their bunkers. The Pakistani artillery that was to lay down covering fire failed to protect them. But the most depressing factor is an ideological vacuum, about which the mujahids have been complaining bitterly to their ISI masters. Their action in Afghanistan was a freedom struggle in which they held the moral high ground and were backed by the masses. In Kargil, the mujahids are being used as a shield, a tactical convenience. And they are fighting in a treacherous battlefield in which their every move is decided not by their ideological masters, but by men in military fatigues.

The ISI’shired guns

TEHRIK-E-JEHAD: The group was formed in 1997 and has about 400 cadres in the Kashmir valley. It has a large recruitment base in the Gujjar community and also picks up a large number of ex-servicemen from the Pakistani army. Headquartered in Chelabandi in Muzzafarabad, the Tehrik-e-Jehad also roped in a section of Harkat-ul-Ansar cadres. The ISI has been using its cadres as guides, `half-guides’ and porters. Guides are paid Rs 500 for each ammunition box carried up into the hills. Batches of Tehrik-e-Jehad militants are waiting to be pushed in from the Rajouri sector.

AL-UMAR MUJAHEDEEN: Formed in 1989 by Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, a former leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, the group has been very active in the Valley and has masterminded several attacks on security forces. After several clashes with the Hizbul Mujahedeen, the group sank into oblivion till 1992, when it was picked up by the ISI. Intelligence agencies have learnt that one ISI route for making payments tothe group is through the Jhelum Valley Medical College. The group also has a large component of criminal elements and ex-convicts. Its members were being inserted into the Kargil theatre from September onwards. Presently, the Al-Umar has the largest troop deployment in the Mushkoh Valley.

The Afghan veterans

HARKAT-UL-ANSAR: Formed in 1993, this is the second-largest militant group in Pakistan and was declared a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997. A majority of cadres have been trained in the militant camps which were started in Khost in the wake of the Soviet intrusion into Afghanistan. The militants have the option of doing a basic course (Tehsisiya) or a specialised course (Jindullah). Subsequently, the group developed an interface with the Taliban and served in Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechnya. After the US blacklisting, the group split into two factions — the Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen and the Harkat-ul-Jehad. The Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen receives the maximum logisticalsupport from the Taliban.

LASHKAR-E-TOIBA: Launched in the early 1980s, the group has the largest number of cadres involved in the Kargil intrusion. It has its headquarters in Muridke, Gujranwale, where thousands are waiting to be `launched’ into Kargil. The group has a pan-Islamic vision and almost half of its cadres hail from Punjab province. The rest are from Afghanistan and there is a sprinkling from Sudan and Libya. After the Afghanistan war, the Lashkar-e-Toiba sent a large number of its cadres into the Valley. The most organised of the mercenary groups fighting on the Kargil heights, the Lashkar-e-Toiba has a well-knit organisation with a students’ wing, a women’s wing, a finance wing and a military wing. Illustrations in handbooks on arms and ammunition distributed to its cadres bear a striking resemblance to archaic-looking artillery pieces recovered by the Army from recaptured positions in Kargil.