Pahalgam assault: Pakistani terrorist behind bloodbath was ex-special forces commando, says report

Hashim Musa, the Pakistani terrorist behind the Pahalgam assault that killed 26 harmless individuals, largely vacationers, was as soon as a para commando in Pakistan’s particular forces, The Occasions of India reported, citing investigators.

The most recent findings have confirmed the direct involvement of the Pakistani Military and the ISI within the assault, reinforcing India’s earlier claims of cross-border hyperlinks to the bloodbath.

Sources advised TOI that Musa, now a key operative of the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), was despatched to Jammu and Kashmir to hold out assaults on non-locals and safety forces.

Highlighting the shut ties between terrorist teams and Pakistan’s state companies and army, a safety official mentioned, “It’s potential that Pakistan’s particular forces, just like the Particular Service Group (SSG), lent him to LeT.”

The Particular Service Group (SSG) is understood for its extremely educated para-commandos, who concentrate on unconventional warfare and covert operations. Their rigorous coaching emphasises bodily conditioning, psychological resilience, strategic planning, superior weapon dealing with, hand-to-hand fight, and survival expertise.

A senior officer advised The Occasions of India that Musa’s army background — uncovered through the interrogation of 15 Kashmiri overground employees (OGWs) suspected of helping the Pakistani attackers with logistics and reconnaissance — factors on to the ISI’s involvement within the Pahalgam assault and different earlier terror strikes in Kashmir.

These earlier assaults embody the killings at Gagangir in Ganderbal in October 2024, the place six non-locals and a physician had been murdered, and the assault at Buta Pathri in Baramulla, which left two military personnel and two military porters useless.

Musa has emerged because the widespread hyperlink in all three assaults. Two different native terrorists, Junaid Ahmad Bhat and Arbaaz Mir — each educated in Pakistan — had been additionally concerned within the Gagangir and Buta Pathri assaults however had been killed by safety forces in separate encounters in November and December 2024.