Pak LeT terrorist killed in Budgam linked to main Pahalgam attacker
Was active in the region for the past few years and was linked to multiple attacks in Jammu and Kashmir
A day after security forces killed a terrorist in the higher reaches of central Kashmir, police identified the slain man on Saturday as Yasir, a Pakistani national affiliated with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), who was active in the region for the past few years and was linked to multiple attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.
“You can run but you can’t hide! The terrorist neutralised during Op Ashdar has been identified as Yasir, a Pakistani national of Lashkar-e-Toiba,” the police said in a post on X.
Sources in the security establishment told The Tribune that Yasir was active in the area along with another terrorist, identified as Musa, and was part of a terrorist group responsible for a number of attacks in both the Jammu and Kashmir regions.
According to the sources, only Yasir and Musa remained active from the group and had been also operating in the dense forests of central Kashmir, which connect with the Pir Panjal region of Jammu.
Yasir was also described as a key associate of senior LeT commander Sulaiman Shah, who was killed along with two other terrorists in an operation in the forests on the outskirts of Srinagar in July 2025. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had subsequently told the Lok Sabha that the three militants killed in the operation were involved in the Pahalgam attack, in which 25 tourists and a local resident were killed.
Security sources further said that Yasir, along with Sulaiman Shah, Musa and Junaid Ahmed Bhat, was involved in a series of attacks in the Jammu region, including the ambush at Dera Ki Gali in Poonch, in which four soldiers were killed, and an attack on an Air Force convoy.
After carrying out the attacks, the group shifted its base from the Pir Panjal region to the Kashmir Valley and split into two groups in 2024, the sources said.
According to the sources, Shah and Junaid were involved in the Ganderbal tunnel attack in October 2024, while Yasir and Musa were suspected to have carried out the Butapathri attack near Gulmarg the same year, in which two soldiers and two civilian porters were killed.
Junaid was killed in a security operation in the Harwan area on the outskirts of Srinagar in December 2024.
Sources said Yasir and Musa had since been active in high-altitude forest areas of central Kashmir and the Pir Panjal region.
Security officials said it is suspected that Yasir was crossing from the Poonch region into Kashmir on Friday, where the security forces engaged him and he was eliminated.
They said additional forces, including Army special forces personnel, had recently been deployed in high-altitude areas following technical inputs also indicating the presence of terrorists in the region.
Last month, J&K chief Nalin Prabhat also reviewed the functioning of temporary operating bases (TOBs) in the region. He was accompanied by senior police officers from the Kashmir zone.
With Yasir’s killing, security agencies have now shifted their focus to the remaining militant, Musa. “There is a complete cordon in the area and it is suspected that Musa was also with him. All efforts are on to trace and neutralise him,” an official said.
