The Indian Army is bracing for the final assault on the 30-40 Pakistani terrorists dugged up in the Keran sector of north Kashmir as the stand-off along the Line of Control (LoC) touched the 12th day on Saturday.

A detachment of elite commandos from the army’s para battalion has been inducted for the final push. The thrust of the operation will be to break the supply chain and flush outterrorists entrenched in the

Shala Bhata village close to the LoC. A defence spokesman in Srinagar said operations in Shala Bhata are on.

“The supply chain is the biggest worry. Once this chain is cut, it will take very little time to eliminate the militants, no matter how battle-hardened they are. We want to dry up their supplies. For that reason, these commandos will come in handy. They will choke them to a point where we will be able to knock them off,” said an officer.

The para battalion deployed on Saturday will be supplemented by the brigade-size troops.Conventionally, a brigade has four battalions with 1,000 men each.

The terrorists are backed by the Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT), which use the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohommad militants as force-multipliers.

The Shala Bhata village extends to the other side of the LoC, where the village’s called Pak-Shala. Locals say this village is dotted with Pakistani army posts, overlooking Indian posts. These posts serve as supply outlets for the terrorists.

The army is not in favour of air power as it could send the wrong message about the LoC situation. “We have the army aviation corps, which helps us with supplies if we need,” said an officer.