Latest intelligence reports, collated almost a week after the killer earthquake hit Pakistan, hold that as many as 1,500 cadres of militant outfits in Pakistan perished in the disaster. Though most militant outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) , Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) , Al-Badr and Tehrik-e-Mujahideen took a hit, Hizbul Mujahideen alone lost around 400 men. At least a third of the 1,500 killed were hardcore jehadis, say intelligence officials, basing their assessment on a combination of human and electronic intelligence obtained from across the border.Apart from the fact that Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was virtually the epicentre of the quake, one major factor which hit outfits was that they had recently relocated many of their ''makeshift'' camps from jungles to villages. "Our reports show militant outfits had requisitioned three to four corner houses in many villages for their cadres in areas like Rawalkot, Manshera, Nikial, Kotli, Bagh, Palandri, Dudhnial, Deolian, Kalighati and, of course, Muzaffarabad, which were flattened by the quake," said an official. "Moreover, many of their launch pads and communication centres were also hit by the quake. This has thrown the command and control of the outfits slightly out of gear. We are picking up a lot of radio chatter about this," he added. But all this will not "affect" cross-border terrorism in any major way since most of those killed were "lower-level" cadres used as "cannon-fodder" by top militant leadership and "their Pakistani controllers".
"They can be replaced by other brain-washed individuals in the jehadi factory run by Pakistan's ISI," said the official. The assessment is that while infiltration may show a slight decline, violence levels will be kept up in Jammu & Kashmir in the days to come to show militancy in the state is "home-grown" and not fuelled from across the border.