After Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Abu Qatal was shot dead in Pakistan, defence experts have called his killing a major blow to LeT, saying that "when such operatives get killed or injured, someone new takes their place." "This is a very big blow to Lashkar-e-Taiba as it was a perpetrator of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks... Secondly, it is going to create a vacuum in the leadership of LeT, and then operatives like Qatal, which means that the number of people working on the ground is also going down," Defence Expert Hemant Mahajan said.

He further noted that targeting enemies of the country would lead to their elimination, reducing fresh recruitment in such organizations. "It is a clear indication that enemies of our country will be targeted in due course and eliminated, ensuring fresh recruitment reduces in such organizations... Middle-level operatives are also not operatives, and this is why violence in Jammu and Kashmir has definitely gone down, and now the attacks of such organizations have become limited to attacking soft targets like women, children, Hindus in the valley or migrant workers."