coffins. Reaching inside, he pulled back the cloth muslin material that had been draped over the dead soldier’s face.
Beneath, the badly disfigured face of the dead man was unrecognizable. The soldier let out a small gasp. He was momentarily stunned. Unseen by all he closed his eyes and tried to gather himself. He didn’t bother opening the second box. Instead, he turned. He looked back at the gathered group of peasants. They stood quietly, waiting. Raising his Kalashnikov, the soldier stepped forward. He aimed the weapon at the group of peasants as he moved slowly across the gravel square.
“ Animals! ” he barked.
The soldier began firing. A woman screamed as the first slug struck her thigh. The soldier held the trigger back and did not let up, cutting slugs in a horizontal line across the gathered villagers, slaughtering men, women, and children in a tide of bullets and blood.
* * *
At the small Indian Army base in North Pullu, the radio dispatcher awakened the base’s ranking officer, Lieutenant Benazem Banday, who immediately contacted the larger army base to the south in Leh, part of the Northern Command’s XIV Corps. There, Colonel Faris Durvan, the watch commander, dispatched two Mi-25 helicopters, multipurpose choppers designed for flexible missions, including high-altitude combat and reconnaissance.
The choppers lifted off the tarmac in Leh at 4:17 A.M. Each chopper was loaded with four soldiers in addition to two pilots. Each chopper was heavily armed: 9K114 Shturm antitank missiles on the outer and wingtip pylons, PKT machine guns, and Yak-B Gatling guns. The trip to Yagulung would take just over an hour.
After the Mi-25s were airborne, Colonel Durvan radioed Northern Command headquarters in Udhampur, to the south. In turn, Udhampur sent out a “Green Dot” security flash to the Indian Army’s leadership notifying them of the incident in Yagulung. It was not an unusual occurrence to have incidents flare-up in Kashmir, including in the remote Ladakh Region, and in other areas along the Line of Control with Pakistan. A majority of the incidents resulted in little activity, not even bloodshed. But often there was bloodshed, which both sides, though neither would admit it, had a strategic interest in containing. Ever since the last war, Pakistan and India had tensely coexisted, nearly going to war in 1999 once again due to tensions in Kashmir. It was in neither country’s interest to see a conflict spark in the region.
But if there was one factor that had altered the tense relations more recently, strained the already antagonistic chemistry even further than before, it was Omar El-Khayab, the newly elected president of Pakistan. The radical cleric’s election the year before had fundamentally altered the Indian Armed Forces’ level of paranoia about their neighbors to the west.
The choppers moved in the dark night across the rooftop of the Ladakh Range, up the thin, winding strip of valley along the Shyok River, toward Yagulung. As the lead Mi-25 rounded the last mountain ridge above Yagulung, the pilot flipped a switch in the dashboard, which in turn caused a red siren light in the rear compartment, where the soldiers were, to pulse on.
The pilot tapped the headset microphone.
“Wing One, this is Wing Five. We’re within two minutes of Yagulung.”
“Over Wing Five. I’m right behind you.”
Soldiers in both choppers adjusted their helmets, checked communication links, and readied their weapons.
The sky at half past five in the morning was gray as dawn approached, the terrain shadowy. Still, even in pitch-black, the next sight to come into view would have been visible to anyone. The pilot in the lead chopper leaned back in his seat, momentarily startled. As they rounded the final ridge just above Yagulung, all eyes were transfixed by the sight of bright flames and billowing smoke raging on the ground below. Violent bursts of orange and red threw themselves into the sky. An
Beneath, the badly disfigured face of the dead man was unrecognizable. The soldier let out a small gasp. He was momentarily stunned. Unseen by all he closed his eyes and tried to gather himself. He didn’t bother opening the second box. Instead, he turned. He looked back at the gathered group of peasants. They stood quietly, waiting. Raising his Kalashnikov, the soldier stepped forward. He aimed the weapon at the group of peasants as he moved slowly across the gravel square.
“ Animals! ” he barked.
The soldier began firing. A woman screamed as the first slug struck her thigh. The soldier held the trigger back and did not let up, cutting slugs in a horizontal line across the gathered villagers, slaughtering men, women, and children in a tide of bullets and blood.
* * *
At the small Indian Army base in North Pullu, the radio dispatcher awakened the base’s ranking officer, Lieutenant Benazem Banday, who immediately contacted the larger army base to the south in Leh, part of the Northern Command’s XIV Corps. There, Colonel Faris Durvan, the watch commander, dispatched two Mi-25 helicopters, multipurpose choppers designed for flexible missions, including high-altitude combat and reconnaissance.
The choppers lifted off the tarmac in Leh at 4:17 A.M. Each chopper was loaded with four soldiers in addition to two pilots. Each chopper was heavily armed: 9K114 Shturm antitank missiles on the outer and wingtip pylons, PKT machine guns, and Yak-B Gatling guns. The trip to Yagulung would take just over an hour.
After the Mi-25s were airborne, Colonel Durvan radioed Northern Command headquarters in Udhampur, to the south. In turn, Udhampur sent out a “Green Dot” security flash to the Indian Army’s leadership notifying them of the incident in Yagulung. It was not an unusual occurrence to have incidents flare-up in Kashmir, including in the remote Ladakh Region, and in other areas along the Line of Control with Pakistan. A majority of the incidents resulted in little activity, not even bloodshed. But often there was bloodshed, which both sides, though neither would admit it, had a strategic interest in containing. Ever since the last war, Pakistan and India had tensely coexisted, nearly going to war in 1999 once again due to tensions in Kashmir. It was in neither country’s interest to see a conflict spark in the region.
But if there was one factor that had altered the tense relations more recently, strained the already antagonistic chemistry even further than before, it was Omar El-Khayab, the newly elected president of Pakistan. The radical cleric’s election the year before had fundamentally altered the Indian Armed Forces’ level of paranoia about their neighbors to the west.
The choppers moved in the dark night across the rooftop of the Ladakh Range, up the thin, winding strip of valley along the Shyok River, toward Yagulung. As the lead Mi-25 rounded the last mountain ridge above Yagulung, the pilot flipped a switch in the dashboard, which in turn caused a red siren light in the rear compartment, where the soldiers were, to pulse on.
The pilot tapped the headset microphone.
“Wing One, this is Wing Five. We’re within two minutes of Yagulung.”
“Over Wing Five. I’m right behind you.”
Soldiers in both choppers adjusted their helmets, checked communication links, and readied their weapons.
The sky at half past five in the morning was gray as dawn approached, the terrain shadowy. Still, even in pitch-black, the next sight to come into view would have been visible to anyone. The pilot in the lead chopper leaned back in his seat, momentarily startled. As they rounded the final ridge just above Yagulung, all eyes were transfixed by the sight of bright flames and billowing smoke raging on the ground below. Violent bursts of orange and red threw themselves into the sky. An
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