Three LeT militants gunned down in J&K firefight

Srinagar: As the security forces have intensified their ‘All-Out’ operation against militants in Jammu and Kashmir, three more cadres of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were killed in a fire fight in frontier Kupwara district on Tuesday.

In another gun battle raging in a different area of Kupwara since Tuesday afternoon, one Army jawan was killed and two others were wounded.

The authorities here said that with the killing of three more militants, the toll has risen to 21 in the first 21 days of November.

As many as 194 militants have been eliminated since ‘Operation All-Out’ was launched jointly by the Army, the Jammu and Kashmir police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) earlier this year, they said.  

As per the police statistics, 71  security personnel have also laid down their lives while fighting the militants, so far, this year.

The security forces had before launching the operation ‘All-Out’ ‘shortlisted’ 258 militants from a clutch of outfits including LeT, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizb-ul-Mujahedin and Al-Badr Mujahedin.

128 of them were foreigners, mainly Pakistanis, and the rest local Kashmiris, the police sources here said.

The security forces achieved a major breakthrough against the Lashkar-e-Taiba  on November 18 when six of its top militants were killed in a gun battle in Hajin area of northern Bandipore district.

Among the slain militants was Owaid, a son of Zaki Rehman Maki and nephew of Zakiur Rehman Lakhavi, the mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the police and the Army had said.

Lakhvi is a top leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and currently serves as its ‘supreme commander’ of operations in Jammu and Kashmir.