Pakistan-based terrorists owing allegiance to Osama bin Laden have long been held responsible for various massacres in Jammu and Kashmir. And in 1998 alone they have killed more than 200 unarmed Indian citizens, say senior military and intelligence sources.

In a related development of far-reaching significance, the UN military observer group based in Srinagar has flown its staff out of the Valley. A special plane flew the western military officers out of the Avantipur air base, to Islamabad, and then they will be flown to New York.

In Islamabad they are to collect the officers posted there, who like their counterparts in Srinagar are supposedly monitoring violations along the Line ofControl.

The departure of the UN staff has been received here with sentiments bordering on disdain. ``Obviously they have some information about retaliatory attacks planned on them, since Osama has his chaps operating here. But what is not amusing is that once again blood is being valued according to its nationality. At the first hint of trouble, they have scooted, but this is only after terrorists responsible for grisly massacres here are now targeting them,'' said an official. The official is familiar with terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

The massacres in Jammu and Kashmir over the years have been pinned on foreign terrorists operating in the Valley. An increasing number of them have been killed or captured. Since militancy began in 1990 in the Kashmir Valley more than 900 foreign militants have been killed, and over 130 captured. Chief amongst those caught by the security forces are Sajjad Afghani and Nasrullah Langriyal, both Pakistanis and vital to this international network.

And like the othersalso owing allegiance to groups associated with bin Laden.

Prime amongst the groups that form a part of this Pakistan-Afghanistan based network of terror run by bin Laden is the Harkat ul-Ansar, which only recently has been put on the international terror list by Washington. A sub-group of Harkat ul-Ansar is responsible for the 1995 kidnapping of foreign tourists from the Pahalgam area of the Kashmir Valley.

A majority of the Harkat ul-Ansar terrorists are from Pakistani Punjab, with a sprinkling of Afghans, Arabs and even some Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.

``This is a group active from Bosnia to Chechnya, J&K, Myanmar and all the way to Phillipines. We are talking about a major international network, based in Pakistan, run by their intelligence services, aided and funded by the likes of bin Laden,'' said the official.

A number of terrorists being trained for operations in Jammu and Kashmir are believed to have been killed in the US air strikes on the Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami camp nearKhost.

Agencies reporting from London, and quoting Afghan dissidents, state that some Pakistan Army trainers are also believed to have been killed in the air strikes. If confirmed, this could be one of the reasons for the perplexing retraction by Pakistan, of its statement made in the National Assembly, that a missile fell on its soil killing a number of its citizens.