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India, Nov. 2 -- Nearly nine years after India's first publicised surgical strike across the Line of Control following the Uri attack, intelligence inputs suggest Pakistan-based terror groups are once again mobilising a sign that such cross-border operations, while effective in the short term, have done little to permanently deter them. Since 2016, India has carried out multiple cross-border operations including the Balakot airstrike in 2019 after the Pulwama attack and Operation Sindoorfive months ago aimed at dismantling launch pads and logistics hubs used by groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
However, recent assessments suggest renewed mobilisation and recruitment by these outfits in Pakistan-occupied territory. Officials said these groups often relocate or rebrand after being hit, allowing their networks to survive despite targeted strikes. The presence of established infrastructure and continued support from elements within Pakistan's security establishment have enabled them to reorganise quickly. Some reports have also suggested that Indian intelligence has, over recent years, carried out or facilitated around 30 targeted operations against Pakistan-based terrorists. Yet even such deniable actions have produced limited long-term effect, with groups adapting and continuing operations under new names or fronts.
Officials said the situation underlines the limitations of external punitive actions in the absence of credible steps by Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism within its borders. Security experts noted that while comparisons are sometimes drawn with Israel's recent campaign against Hamas-which involved large-scale military operations and the destruction of command structures-India's options remain constrained by the risk of escalation with a nuclear-armed neighbour. Despite repeated operations, the pattern has persisted: a major terror attack, an Indian response, a temporary lull, and renewed terrorist activity across the border.
In light of these limitations, officials and security specialists say a range of lawful, non-violent measures can raise the cost for militant groups and their enablers without risking wider escalation. Officials and security experts said that while repeated cross-border strikes demonstrate capability, lasting deterrence will depend on measures that raise costs for terror groups and their sponsors without risking a wider conflict.
"Evidence collection, communications intercepts and financial forensics matter more than one-off operations," a senior counter-terror official said, urging authorities to pursue prosecutions of identified operatives, uniformed officers and facilitators. The official added that tracing overseas assets allegedly held by suspected handlers in the Pakistani security establishment would deliver measurable pressure. Experts also stressed the need to track financial flows that sustain these groups. "Following the money has a longer reach than any airstrike," said a former intelligence officer, referring to hawala networks and shell firms used.
Officials said India also needs to increase cooperation with major technology platforms to remove propaganda and recruitment material from social media, and ensure that its cyber units are working to identify and legally disrupt communication nodes used by these groups. Security watchers said these steps, pursued steadily rather than episodically, could help alter the cost-benefit calculus of Pakistan-based networks. "Surgical strikes get headlines," said one official. "Sustained legal, financial and diplomatic pressure changes behaviour"
