By Binoo Joshi
The fidayeen attack at an army camp in Nagrota, close to the 16 corps headquarters by terrorists in the early hours of Tuesday clearly indicates that the terrorists had planned their attack well in advance, and it possibly was not the assault by the newly intruded group from across the border.
A lot of planning seems to have gone into the assault that was mounted at artillery field unit in Nagrota , a mosaic of hills, plains and jungles with civilian habitation . The time and target suggests that the terrorists had carefully studied the terrain and the target , weighing all pros and cons and the impact of the assault on the army camp at this point of time .
It was neither an ordinary day nor the ordinary attack – the attack in Nagrota coincided with the infiltration bid along the international border in Samba sector . It is too early to say that the same group mounted the two attacks or there were separate terror outfits involved in the early Tuesday morning episode that unfolded at two different places . What appears to be certain these attacks is that both were sponsored by Pakistan where outgoing army chief Gen. ( Retd) Raheel Sharif was handing over the baton to his successor Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa .
The Pakistan connection stems from the fact that the modus operandi of the two attacks fell into the pattern of previous such attacks in Pathankot airbase in January , Uri in September, and Institute of Entrepreneur Development building at Pampore in February and October this year . It was a big strategic mistake by the Indian establishment to convince itself that the September 29th surgical strike in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and the massive counter offensive to avenge the beheading of a soldier in Machil sector would shape a new thinking in the Pakistani mind.
That cannot happen . The trajectory of the India-Pak relations has two intertwined connotations – one is diplomatic and military . Pakistan has an advantage over India in this regard . It uses less of its army , more of its strategic asset terrorism to bleed India. Diplomatically, it wants focus on Kashmir and the unrest within the Muslim majority region to take away the world attention from use of terrorists for achieving its foreign policy objectives . The world is aware of it,. But the geo-strategic compulsions of the powerful countries in the West because of the geostrategic location of Pakistan , providing routes to Central Asia and the Arabian sea , makes them to flinch from any decisive action against Pakistan . The Indian viewpoint gets superseded . The western concerns about terrorism hitting India are subsumed by their necessity to have Pakistan on their side be cause of situation in Afghanistan and Iran. China has bigger interest because of China – Pakistan Economic Corridor . There , India suffers at the global international level . The advantage is Pakistan .
India will have to fight its own war against terrorism- Pakistan is unchanged , and India cannot allow Islamabad the luxury of inflicting thousand cuts on its body .