Security Agencies on Alert in Kashmir After Intel Confirms Presence of 45 Al-Badr Terrorists

Security agencies in Kashmir have received inputs about the presence of 45 newly recruited Al-Badr militants, who had been receiving arms training.

Highly placed sources have told News18 that along with terror groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, which are training newly recruited cadres at their own camps, Al-Badr cadres are being given training at its headquarters in Mansehra in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Sources also said that the training of these cadres, which started sometime in the first week of May, is said to have concluded and the Pakistani forces are now looking for a window to bring the cadres in the valley.

One of the largest cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mansehra, lies close to Kashmir and is located less than a 100 kilometres west from its hinterland.

This is the same terror group, which had recently been putting up posters in Srinagar's Lal Chowk area, calling for a social boycott of the families of police officers, even warning those who continue to maintain contact with them.

The group is believed to have training camps in the Mansehra area of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan, and in Kotli and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The training of newly recruited Al-Badr cadres is likely being carried out by its battle-hardened terror operatives from Afghanistan. This terror group, along with LeT, is regularly known to use fidayeen attacks against security forces to spread terror.

The Pakistan based group whose activities started peaking around 2000 was thought to have been nearly eliminated after the army and paramilitary counter-insurgency forces conducted massive operations. However, sources told News18 that the group led by Bahkt Zameen Khan had again been revived, and was now almost ready to cause disturbances in whenever it gets a chance.