Shortly after 12 soldiers were killed by a suicide squad that stormed the Sunjwan army camp near Jammu at the end of June, the field formations at the sprawling Tanda army camp located on the Jammu-Poonch highway conducted a series of rehearsals aimed at sharpening their response to thwart future adventurism by militants.

It took three weeks for terror to come calling again. And when it came, the response was found wanting. Once again, the militants had chosen the early hours-of July 22-and the target was the EME Battalion unit of 10 Artillery Brigade in Tanda. It was a typical fidayeen (suicide) attack-swift and lethal. But there was one key difference. The stealth strike consisted of two acts. The first saw seven army personnel killed at random. The second was far more sinister, and something that the army could never have ever anticipated; a trap-and-ambush strategy aimed at killing top army officers.

EYES WIDE SHUT: Fernandes (above) denies security lapse at the camp

The plan worked since the entire brass of the Northern Command was caught off guard in the second attack which came nearly six hours after the first one. Two militants involved in the pre-dawn strike were killed within half an hour by the forces, but a lone militant, who lay in waiting for over five hours for the army brass, threw two grenades that killed Deputy Director of EME Brigadier V.K. Govil. GOC-in-C Lt-General Hari Prasad, 16 Corps Commander Lt-General T.P.S. Brar, two major-generals and two brigadiers had a narrow escape.

The Tanda camp, roughly twice the size of a football ground, houses EME workshops and residential quarters and is protected by a 7-ft-high barbed wire fence. The modus operandi of the attack was familiar: two of the three militants, dressed in army combat uniforms, approached one of the gates at around 6 a.m., the time when there is a change in sentries. While the credentials of the "militants" in army fatigues were being verified, the entry gate was opened briefly. Just then, the militants opened fire killing one sentry and a JCO. As the killers darted into the complex, a third militant in civvies sneaked in. All three were armed with AK-47 rifles, 500 rounds of ammunition, a pistol and six grenades.

The rear sentry post, manned by a light machine gun nest, was the first to react and shot dead one of the militants. Caught unawares, the soldiers, still preparing for their morning drill, became easy targets as the militants went about spraying bullets. A JCO residential building was also blown up. In all, seven soldiers lay dead and nine others were injured before the Quick Reaction Team of the Rashtriya Rifles moved in. It took the army snipers 40 minutes to mow down the two militants.

For reasons still not clear, the army called off the operation by 9.00 a.m. though confusion prevailed about the third militant. While local police officers who assisted in the operation insisted they saw a third militant, the army authorities ruled it out. The army cordoned off the entire camp but combing operations were done only in an area thick with vegetation.

But the real-and shocking-surprise was yet to come. Having evaded the army, the third militant crawled along a drain for about 75 m and hid himself behind a bush close to the main road inside the camp. Meanwhile, presuming that all militants had been killed, battalion officers passed on an "all clear" signal to the 16 Corps headquarters for inspection of the site by senior officials.

At 1.15 p.m., the brass came out, only to be completely caught off guard. Raising a cry of "Allah ho Akbar", the lone militant emerged from the bushes and lobbed a grenade at them. Before the militant could lob another grenade, it went off blowing him up into pieces. While Govil took the impact of the first grenade, the others escaped with minor injuries.

The audacious attack, a virtual repeat of the Kaluchak and Sunjwan incidents, has not only underscored the tardiness of security drills at army camps but also laid bare the grave risk threat that senior army officials were exposed to. While Defence Minister George Fernandes, who flew to Jammu along with the army chief General N.C. Vij to take stock of the incident, was quick to deny any "security lapse", army authorities are red faced trying to explain how top commanders were given an "all clear" signal when the camp had not been properly sanitised after the attack. That the third militant did not try to escape and positioned himself close to the body of his slain colleague was proof of the suicide squad's design to target the army brass. Also, while he hid and waited for nearly six hours, he did not attack any of the several junior officers who passed by during that time.

Though a little-known outfit Al-Shuhda has claimed responsibility for the attack, Tanda has the unmistakable fingerprints of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba, which along with its terror twin Jaish-e-Mohammed, has been executing fidayeen attacks in the past. A positive fallout, however, has been that the forces in the Valley have refined their counter-fidayeen tactics by fortifying their camps through double fencing, barricading, lighting and dynamic deployment. In fact, all security agencies including the police have evolved standard operating procedures-a drill with a clear role and reaction mechanism in the event of a fidayeen attack.

Security officials argue that it is not easy to neutralise suicide bombers. But a proactive strategy entailing high alertness has been paying good dividends in the Valley. How alert the army is depends on specific intelligence on militants' plans which is hard to come by. In fact, jehadi outfits invariably try to mislead the security agencies with wireless relays on "targets" which turn out to be false. The latest militant intercepts had indicated militants' plan to attack Nagrota Corps headquarters but Tanda became the target instead.

Under pressure in the Valley, which has lately been showing signs of normality, militant outfits are now making Jammu their prime killing field. Jammu's vulnerability stems from the fact that it has over 200 cantonments and security camps, most of which have rudimentary perimeter security. In the Valley, where vigilance is high, security forces have a better kill rate in fidayeen attacks (one militant killed for two securitymen) than Jammu (1:4). Officials believe the security agencies in Jammu will be on test in denying militants the upper hand. And in India's evolving peace initiative towards Pakistan, for the first time, Jammu may hold more stakes than the Valley.