INDIA-PAKISTAN: The Indian army fears that a "fifth column" of thousands of Muslim insurgents inside northern India's disputed Jammu and Kashmir state will severely hinder its fighting ability in the event of a war with nuclear rival Pakistan.
Military officers said about 3,000 to 4,000 Pakistan-backed insurgents across Kashmir were poised to disrupt the army's supply lines, sabotage its rear-area security by blowing up bridges and rail lines, attacking soldier convoys and by laying siege to National Highway 1A that is the state's lifeline.
Interdicting Highway 1A has been Pakistan's military objective in the three wars and the 11-week border campaign the neighbours have fought since independence 55 years ago, with the aim of cutting off the Jammu region from the rest of Kashmir.
Local Kashmiris, strongly opposed to the army's presence in the region for the last 13 years that the state's Islamic insurgency has raged, are also likely to dilute the military's capabilities during hostilities, intelligence officers said.
"Anticipating war, this brigade strength of armed, trained and highly-motivated lashkars (insurgents) are repositioning themselves in key locations in Kashmir waiting to strike," a senior military officer said, declining to be named.
"To counter such an eventuality, a reserve infantry brigade deployed on counter-insurgency operations has recently been withdrawn and relocated to deal with the anticipated threat posed by these fifth columnists," he added.
More than one million Indian and Pakistani soldiers, massed along their joint frontier since last December, went into a heightened state of alert earlier this month following the attack on soldiers' families in a military base in Jammu.
India blamed that attack, like the one on its parliament in December, on Pakistan and the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behrai Vajpayee, told the army to prepare for a "decisive battle".
But even as army units ranged along the border awaited orders to switch to the "hot war mode", they felt vulnerable to attack from behind their own lines.
Officers said Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, which India accuses of fuelling Kashmir's insurgency, had specially trained groups comprising six to 10 militants for "hit-and-run" raids on Indian army units.
Pakistan denies sponsoring Kashmir's insurgency, while admitting to providing it with political, diplomatic and moral support.
Besides ambushing the security forces, these guerrillas are also experts in laying mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at key locations.
"Their strategy is to keep the army under constant threat," a senior military officer said.
Security officers said their arsenal included anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers, heat activated missiles and anti-tank mines.
About 45 attacks by fedayeen, or suicide militant squads, on army bases in Kashmir during the past two years killed scores of soldiers.
They further demoralised the army, revealing to the enemy that India's military simply did not have the numbers to fight and protect itself from internal attacks.
Intelligence officers said a Pakistani army mountain division recently conducted exercises across the line of control that divides Kashmir between the rival claimants, alongside some 3,000 insurgents drawn from various militant groups fighting Kashmir's civil war that has claimed over 35,000 lives.
They said the army aimed at infiltrating these "irregulars" drawn from the 14-party Unified Jihad Council based in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, to join their tanzeems (militant groups) across the border in order to harass the Indian army.
