With recruitment in local militancy low, Pak turning to foreign terrorists to keep J&K boiling

As recruitment of locals in militancy has gone down considerably in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan is now relying more on foreign terrorists to keep the pot boiling in the Union Territory (UT).

This year out of 46 militants killed across the UT, 37 were Pakistanis while only nine were locals, official figures reveal. It is for the first time in the last 33-years of militancy that elimination of foreign terrorists is four times higher than the locals.

From 2019 to 2022, at least 750 militants were killed by security forces in the UT of which 83 per cent were local Kashmiri youths. But the presence of foreign terrorists started to increase from 2022 as 43 per cent of total militants killed that year were foreigners.

Compared to 143 local youth in 2019, only 100 Kashmiris joined militant groups in 2022 while the number is below 30 this year sofar.

With relentless anti-militancy operations being carried out in the UT, there has been a significant dip in the number of active militants in Jammu and Kashmir. From a total of 250 at the end of 2019, the number of active militants has fallen in double digits, police maintains.

According to Northern army Commander Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi  this is for the first time that among terrorists killed in various operations across the region this year, the number of foreign terrorists was four times higher than locals.

29 of these terrorists were killed in the south of Pir Panjal region bordering Pakistan, he said. Pakistan is frustrated with the restoration of peace in Jammu and Kashmir and attempts are being made from across the border to disrupt peace in UT which “we will never allow it to happen.”

However, as militancy has taken a hit, it has also morphed in new ways: ‘hybrid militants.’ Unlike in the past when young men would post their pictures with guns on social media to announce their entry into militant ranks, ‘hybrid militants’ are part-time militants who go back to their ordinary lives as soon as they carry out an attack or kill a civilian.

“It is easy to track militancy recruitment by keeping an eye on the number of youths who go missing from their homes. But it is very difficult to track a youngster who kills a person in the morning, hands back the weapon to his handler and then goes to his college like it is any other day,” a senior police officer explained.