Army chief General Bipin Rawat said here on Monday the Army is verifying reports that snipers have entered Kashmir valley to target security forces.  His comments came in the wake of reports that at least three security men were killed in sniper attacks by ISI trained Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM) militants since mid-September forcing the security forces to redraw their strategy to meet the new challenge.

Responding to the pattern of attacks, the Army chief said the Army was studying whether the attacks were carried out by snipers. “Whether these attacks have been done by snipers or not, this is something we are still studying. “But to say that snipers have infiltrated and that they have sniper weapons...We have not found any sniper weapon,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

Rawat also said to say snipers have come into the Valley was  “premature.”   

Based on intelligence inputs, security agencies believe that at least two separate ‘buddy’ groups of the proscribed JeM comprising two terrorists each  entered Kashmir Valley in early September and have entrenched themselves in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district with the help of some overground supporters of the outfit.

These terrorists, according to the officials, have been trained by ISI for carrying out sniper attacks in the Valley and have been armed with M-4 carbines, used by the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan.

Rawat, however, said normal weapons could have been used to target the security personnel in the recent attacks as a good rifle has the range of 200-300 metres.  He also said the security forces were able to trace some snipers and “that we are fully aware that people have been trained in sniping