New Delhi: The Indian Army, this year, has suceeded in eliminating almost 30-40% of the operatives of terrorist groups operating in Kashmir, including Hafeez Saeed's Lashkar-e-Toiba, Syed Salahuddin’s Hizbul Mujahideen and Maulana Masood Azhar's Jaish-e-Mohammad, thus scoring a major victory in its war on terror.  

Having already killed 200 terrorists and with 50 days still remaining for the year to end, the Army feels that with Pakistan desperate to push more terrorists into India, it would be able to neutralise more of them in the coming days.

Also read— Army hits 'double century' in Kashmir; 8 terrorists killed in 19 hours takes kill count in 2018 past 200

Army sources in the Northern Command said the security forces have worked tirelessly with great deal of synergy among them and evolved a befitting response mechanism this year taking the process started in 2017 to a new high.

Also read— Know how security forces are able to wage a successful war on terror in Kashmir

In recent times, the Army has worked on a two-pronged strategy under which it deals with foreign and local terrorists in a different way and this policy has yielded good results for them.

Image may contain: one or more people and text

The sources said the major operational successes for the security forces have been in the elimination of Category A++ terrorists Abu Mateen and Abu Hamaas in March 2018, which was followed by neutralisation of Sameer Ahmad Bhat alias Sameer Tiger in Shopian on April 1, 2018.

Top militant commanders like Saddam Paddar, Abu Qasim and Abu Maviya were eliminated in May, June and July respectively. Last month witnessed the neutralisation of 27 militants, including Mannan Wani, Mehrajudin Bangroo and Sabzar Ahmad Sofi.