After AK, US-made M4 rifle makes it to Kashmir valley

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 7

After relying on variants of Kalashnikov rifles for nearly three decades, the insurgency in Kashmir has now added a new weapon to its arsenal: Colt M4 Carbine of the US Armed Forces.

The US-made assault rifle is the newest addition to the weapons used by militants in Kashmir and was recovered by security forces from the site of a gunfight in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

Three militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, among them a nephew of the group’s founder Masood Azhar, were killed in the gunfight at Aglar village of Pulwama on Monday night. Later, the police had recovered three weapons, including a short-barrel AK-47 Draco rifle, a pistol and the prize catch, M4 Carbine.

The rifle — which has an effective range of 600 m — is likely to have been brought along by the Jaish-e-Mohammad militants, who infiltrated into the Kashmir valley in recent months.

The recovered M4 Carbine was later shown by Kashmir police chief Muneer Khan at a press conference in Srinagar. General Officer Commanding of Army’s south Kashmir-based Victor Force Major General BS Raju was also present at the meet.

“This weapon (M4 carbine) is with the special forces of the Pakistan army. So we have reasons to believe that this was given by the Pakistan army to Jaish cadres,” Raju said.

The recovery has come at a time when a militant from south Kashmir was seen with a similar rifle in a picture that had gone viral on social networking sites.

According to the rifle’s manufacturer, Colt, the M4 rifle is the only 5.56 mm carbine that “meets or exceeds the stringent performance specifications required for acceptance and use by the US Armed Forces.”

It is for the first time that a US-made rifle has been recovered from militants in Kashmir, Muneer Khan said.