surgical strike

India made headlines in late September after carrying out "surgical strikes" on militants across the de-facto border in disputed Kashmir. Days earlier insurgents had attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 18 soldiers. Tensions spiked as India blamed Pakistan, external . Supporters of the Indian government said the army's strikes had taught Pakistan a long-awaited lesson - but Islamabad dismissed the reports as an "illusion". The BBC's M Ilyas Khan visited the border area to find out what actually happened. Despite the use of the term "surgical strikes", the Indians definitely did not airdrop commandos to hit "launching pads of militants" inside Pakistani-held territory, or conduct ground assaults deep into the Pakistan-administered side. But they did cross the Line of Control (LoC), in some cases by more than a kilometre, to hit nearby Pakistani border posts. Police officials on the Pakistani side privately concede that such a ground assault did occur in the Madarpur-Titrinot region of Poonch sector, west of Srinagar, where a Pakistani post was destroyed and one soldier killed. In Leepa valley to the north, locals said that the Indians crossed the LoC and set up their guns on ridges directly overlooking the village of Mundakali. A Pakistani border post located at some distance east of the village was hit. Two other posts higher up in the mountains were also hit. At least four Pakistani soldiers were injured in the attack, which lasted from 05:00am until 8:00am, locals said. The Leepa valley. A route across the centre of the mountain-top shown was previously used by militants to cross into India, until the border was fenced. The Pakistani army described the exchanges as nothing more than cross-border firing, albeit in a more co-ordinated fashion and all along the LoC. Officials said two soldiers were killed in the attacks - one in Poonch, and one in Bhimber sector, further south. Defence minister Khwaja Asif later said a total of nine soldiers were injured in the assault. Indian troops could not have hit a target and returned alive as the climb required was too steep, officials said. Nor could helicopters have been used to drop special forces given the difficult terrain and because Pakistan would have shot down the aircraft. I normally wake up at 4:30am. As usual I did my chores - and just then I heard small arms fire, about 100 rounds. I waited a few minutes and then I heard four bombs [mortars] land near the village. We have been in a state of war for a long time, so I knew that heavy guns meant trouble and that the village might get hit. I was standing there when four more bombs came. Then four more, after a few minutes. By now they had started targeting another one of our posts higher up on the mountaintop in front. Then the next round of shells hit another post further back. Small arms fire also continued. This was surprising for me. They had apparently crossed over from the LoC and had set up their guns at the top of the cliff. I could heard the bullets whizzing overhead, through the treetops, snapping twigs and leaves that were falling to the ground. The firing continued until about 6am. After that, the heavy guns fell silent but small fire continued. We remained in our basement until 10am. No one had had time to eat or drink that morning. Later, we heard that the Indians had crossed the LoC and hit our posts from positions overlooking the valley. I don't understand why they didn't try to reach our post where we have the local company headquarters. They could have done it. It's walkable, and is easier for them because they occupy higher ground. Perhaps our people detected their movement and fired at them which pushed them back. This is the first time since the war on the LoC began nearly 30 years ago that they have fired from this position. Accounts of villagers gathered in Leepa suggest that Indian soldiers first opened fire in the valley at around 0500, hitting the post near Munda