On April 22, four terrorists belonging to The Resistance Front (TRF), a suspected proxy of Lashkar E Toiba (LeT), hunted down 26 civilians, mostly Hindus, at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir. In response to this dastardly attack, the Indian government launched Operation Sindoor targeting 11 terrorist hubs and launch pads in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and in Pakistan. The Pahalgam incident marks the worst terrorist attack targeting civilians in Jammu & Kashmir since the last attack by LeT in June 2024, which killed 9 Hindu pilgrims.

These two attacks carried out by LeT, within a year, comes at a time when Jammu & Kashmir’s economy is opening up to new opportunities after the revocation of special status vested under Article 370 in 2019. Though terrorist groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir have been attempting to revive terrorism since 2019, these two attacks on civilians, especially the one in Pahalgam in April 2025, stand out as desperate attempts to lure local recruits into terrorist groups, to shore up plummeting recruitment in recent years. Despite the Pahalgam attack gaining widespread visibility, the choice of target points to serious setbacks in the operational ability of terrorist groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir amid a sustained counter terrorism campaign since 2019. Developing a greater understanding of the factors underpinning weakness among these terrorist groups represents a way forward for Indian policy planners.

Ever since the repeal of Article 370 in 2019. Jammu & Kashmir’s economy has opened up to various investment opportunities. Its economic mainstay which is tourism has seen rapid rise, reaching numbers as high as 10 million tourist visits in 2024. This has led to a plethora of new employment opportunities, providing a strong pedestal for youngsters to join the economic mainstream and shun terrorist groups, producing a rapid decrease in recruitment over the past few years. Terrorist groups, mainly Lashkar e Toiba, recruited 187 locals in 2018, 121 in 2019, 181 in 2020, and 142 in 2021. Compared to this in 2023, only 22 local recruits joined terrorist ranks pushing the local recruitment down almost 80%. Similarly in 2024, there were only 119 terrorists operating in Jammu & Kashmir, of which only 24 were local recruits while the rest were from Pakistan, indicating that terrorist groups are relying more on foreign recruits over local ones.

As a result, the operational ability of terrorist groups such as LeT to conduct attacks appears to have been impacted, leading to a drastic reduction in the number of attacks since 2019. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), between 2018 to 2021, there were 634 terrorism related killings in Jammu & Kashmir, with 2018 the most violent year with 206 killings. However, from 2022 to May 2025, the number of terrorist killings has come down to 302, breaking down into 151 incidents in 2022, 72 in 2023, 61 incidents in 2024, and 18 in 2025. In line with the decreased attacks, casualties among security forces and civilians have also reduced, indicating a let up in terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. SATP data indicates that while 95 security personnel were killed in 2018, the figures have come down to 26 in 2024 compared to terrorist losses, which stood at 271 and 69 respectively. The lesser terrorist casualties in 2024 appears to be commensurate with the lesser recruitment numbers the same year.

Hence, in order to bolster their operational ability, terrorist groups have made some tactical changes. To begin with, terrorist groups have placed reliance on foreign recruits, and some of these recruits are believed to be linked to the Pakistani Special Security Group (SSG) commandos who are trained in survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) missions. For example, Hashim Moosa, one of two Pakistanis suspected to be involved in the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, is a former SSG commando who is believed to have infiltrated into Jammu & Kashmir recently. This is not the first time a SSG operative would have operated inside Jammu & Kashmir. In 2024, Noman Ziaullah, a former SSG operative was killed while trying to infiltrate into Jammu & Kashmir. In February 2025, the Indian army chief General Upendra Dwivedi. in an interview to Asian News International (ANI). stated that one of the deceased terrorists from Pakistan belonged to a UN mission, suggesting that he was in fact a Pakistani soldier.

This does not come as a surprise to the Indian security planners. Mr. Shesh Paul Vaid, a former Director General of Police (DGP) who has handled counter terrorist operations in Jammu & Kashmir, has gone on the record to state that at least 600 SSG commandos have been shortlisted to be sent clandestinely into Jammu & Kashmir to revive terrorism amid falling local recruitment numbers.

Additionally, one can observe an intended shift in the choice of targets which is gradually but certainly shifting from hard targets such as armed combatants to soft targets such as unarmed civilians. The last two major attacks, the one in Reasi in June 2024 which killed 9 Hindu pilgrims and the recent Pahalgam attack in April 2025, appear to buttress the intentional shift. And apart from both attacks focusing on soft targets, the targeting of Hindu pilgrims and tourists is another common characteristic which cannot be ignored for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this is probably done with an objective to send a message and create a fear among tourists who have been feeding the Jammu & Kashmir economy for the past few years. Ominous signs of this impending downfall in tourism are already visible in Jammu & Kashmir, with the Jammu & Kashmir government closing down at least 40 major tourist attractions in light of the attacks in April 2025. Reports indicate that even locals have stayed away from tourist spots, fearing further attacks by terrorist groups. Another reason why soft targets are chosen is possibly due to the degraded ability of the terrorist groups to mount sophisticated attacks such as convoy ambushes, attacks using vehicle borne improvised explosive devices, and facility storming attacks. According to SATP, 92 attacks were initiated by terrorist groups (presumably targeting security forces) between 2018-2021, but this number has come down to 23 attacks on security forces from 2022 to May 2025.

In closing, the Pahalgam terrorist attack appears to be a desperate attempt to gain visibility both in India and elsewhere. The shift from hard targets to soft targets is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it reflects a handicap that has seeped into terrorist networks in Jammu & Kashmir in recent years.

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