Tourism, terror, turf wars fuel ISI’s strategy

FROM MUMBAI 26/11 TO PAHALGAM

- INDO- ASIAN NEWS SERVICE

When the Pahalgam attack took place, it became amply clear that Pakistan wanted to disrupt tourism in Jammu and Kashmir and hurt its economy.

Post the abrogation of Article 370, J&K witnessed several positive changes, and key among them was the thriving tourism industry.

While this was one of the main reasons, the other was to address a massive rift between the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Over the last year and a half, there have been sharp differences between the two terror groups. There have been ideological differences, and also relating to the strategy in Jammu and Kashmir.

Both outfits focus largely on Jammu and Kashmir, and a rift had broken out, which the ISI wanted to fix.

This is, however, not the first time that the ISI has targeted India with the intention of fixing internal rifts within the terror networks in Pakistan. ‘The same was done during the Mumbai 26/11 attacks as well.