There's a new terror threat in Kashmir

Two items caught my attention from a neat line of assault rifles, ammunition and food packets, the army recovered from six dead Lashkar Taiba terrorists in Uri on December 5: a pair of sawn-off shotguns. Barrels chopped off to make them lethal in confined spaces, stocks removed for easy concealment. Why shotguns, one would ask, when the terrorists had far more effective AK-47s? I sent the picture to a friend in the special forces. His short response startled me. "Shotguns for opening locked/ latched doors. Indicates change in training/ equipping". It then struck me where I had seen shotguns being used. At the National Security Guard (NSG) training area in Manesar where commandos blasted away door hinges and locks to burst into rooms during hostage-rescue training. A 12-gauge shotgun pressed against door fittings delivers a concentrated burst of pellets that will shatter door fittings in a way that an assault rifle cannot.

I then recalled the eerie CCTV footage of the four terrorists at the Taj, kicking at hotel doors to capture hostages. Over a two hundred guests were saved because they barricaded themselves inside The Chambers.

Except these terrorists at Uri were not carrying the shotguns to rescue hostages. Most likely, to capture them. At the Uri camp, they were fortunately neutralised before they actually got a chance to use the "door openers" or the 25 shot shells. But they did use one or more light anti-tank rockets which they carried, to destroy the guard bunkers of the army unit in Uri; military-style ready to eat meals specially packed to withstand a march through three feet of snow and temperatures of eight degrees below zero where they crossed the Line of Control. They had two night vision binoculars and four radio sets. In short, everything an Indian army special forces team would carry into a mission.

As five terrorists hit the camp from two directions at 3 am, a sixth terrorist was positioned on the road outside. He ambushed a Quick Reaction Team Gypsy carrying Lt Colonel Sankalp Kumar. The jeep overturned killing the officer and a soldier. It would be another few hours before the six terrorists could be neutralised, fittingly, by an army special forces unit.

The 15 Corps Commander Lt General Subrata Saha’s December 7 statement in Srinagar that “the terrorists were highly trained, like special forces, to carry out the attacks” marks an ominous rise in the profile of cross-border terrorists. Terrorists who, like the ten who struck at Mumbai on November 26, 2008 are not just well motivated, but equipped, trained and tasked like the commandos they are pitted against.