Pulwama planned at Balakot terror training centre, had 250 wards

NEW DELHI: India chose the biggest training facility of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan’s Balakot for Tuesday’s Indian Air Force strikes because the Pulwama suicide attack mastermind was a trainer there, and top Jaish commanders were suspected to be there, officials privy to the strikes said.

The facility was also training fidayeens to carry out another suicide attack in India, they said. The strikes in the predawn hours of Tuesday also served the purpose of avenging the Pulwama attack as the Balakot facility had a direct role in it.

Eliminating the leadership would disrupt the group’s networks and activities in J&K.


The February 14 suicide attack on a convoy of Central Reserve Police Force in Pulwama had killed 40 jawans and injured five.

Officials said about 250 terrorists were killed. It remains to be seen how many top leaders of Jaish were among them.

Indian agencies had received inputs on the Balakot facility from their Afghanistan counterparts two days before the Pulwama attack, officials said. On February 12, two Pakistani Jaish operatives were arrested from Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province before they could carry out suicide attacks.

During their interrogation, the two claimed to have been trained in Balakot.

The town located in Pakistan’s Mansehra district is notorious for being a training ground for not only Jaish, but also the Lashkar-e-Taiba as brought out by Indian agencies in the 26/11 Mumbai and 2016 Pathankot terror attack cases. In both cases, terrorists had trained in Mansehra, where three to four terror camps are located.

The Balakot facility provided basic and advanced training to terrorists for using advanced weapons, explosives, tactics for attacking military convoys and planting IEDs, officials said. Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the Pulwama attack mastermind and an improvised explosive device (IED) expert, was a trainer there. Jaish head Masood Azhar’s son Abdullah had underwent ‘advanced armed training’ in December 2017.

In July 2017, 160 Jaish cadres underwent a 10-day long refresher training at the facility, and in November 2017, 60 Jaish cadres undertook a three-month long advanced combat course. The advanced course promotes terrorists to become recruiters.

Even border action team training was given here, officials said. A BAT team comprises Pak military personnel and terrorists and carries out night raids on Indian patrols and posts along the LoC. Five most wanted targets for India are also suspected to have been at the facility.

They are Maulana Ammar, Masood’s brother and associated with Afghanistan and Kashmir operations; Maulana Talha Saif, Masood’s other brother and head of the group’s propagation wing; Mufti Azhar Khan Kashmiri, head of Kashmir operations; Ibrahim Azhar, Masood’s elder brother; and Yusuf Azhar, Masood’s brother-in-law and head of the facility. The facility consisted of six barracks and had usual capacity of 200 terrorists. But, because Pakistan had shifted terrorist launchpads deeper into their territory in fear of Indian retaliation, the facility had an increased strength of 250 terrorists.