Why India zeroed in on 9 hubs of terror

India's strikes on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir were based on information about the continuing support being provided from these locations to terrorists in India, counter-terrorism officials said on Wednesday.

- Shishir Gupta

NEW DELHI:

Anti-India terror outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Hizbul Mujahideen, among others, have been receiving covert aid from the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, in the form of systematically coordinated financial, logistics, doctrinal and military support besides direct combat training, these officials said.

Pakistani military officers regularly visit and supervise sessions at the training camps of these outfits that have been rebranded as The Resistance Front (TRF), People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) and Kashmir Tiger (KT), among others, to elude global watchdogs and to depict their terrorism as a home-grown indigenous resistance, they added.

Key support to the groups comes in the form of infrastructure concealed in government facilities. Several training camps and launch pads targeted in Operation Sindoor were being run near army facilities and cantonment areas, and under the cover of Basic Health Units (BHU) and Primary Health Centers.

Religious indoctrination and other support activities for terrorists such as funding, propaganda and expansion were carried out with establishment backing in some of these facilities well inside Pakistan, such as Markaz Taiba of the LeT in Muridke, and Markaz Subhanallah of the JeM in Bahawalpur.

The locations not only serve as residences to major commanders of the outfits but also serve as epicenters for radicalization and various training courses on intelligence and arms handling. Additionally, the commanders of these terrorist groups use these facilities to deliver anti-India speeches as was the case in December 2024, when JeM chief Masood Azhar spoke in Markaz Subhanallah in Bahawalpur.

Camps such as Syedna Bilal and Shawai Nalla in Muzaffarabad and Raheel Shahid in Kotli were used by the Pakistan army's Special Services Group (SSG) to train people in jungle and guerrilla warfare, the officials said.