Troops along the Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir have been placed on high alert following surprise raids by the Pakistan Army's Border Action Teams, a senior defence official said.

"Pakistan troops have started a fresh game-plan of conducting raids by its specialised sabotage group on listening posts and border patrol teams along the Line of Control," the official said.

BATs are a specialised sabotage group, which includes Pakistani regular soldiers and trained militants, and are generally headed by commandos of the Moses company in Pakistan Army's Special Service Group.

In one recent attack, the BAT, crossing the LoC, raided a border patrol of the Jat regiment in the Jangard area, Noushera, in Rajouri district, Jammu region, killing four soldiers, defence sources said.

The team severed the head of a soldier and took it away with them as trophy, the sources said, adding four more were killed in another attack on a listening post in the Uri sector of Baramulla district in Kashmir valley a fortnight before.

Surprise raids by Pakistani soldiers have occurred after a gap of three years, they said.

In August 2000, three Indian soldiers were killed and seven injured in an attack on a listening post in Poonch sector.

Nine Indian and five Pakistani soldiers were killed, when Indian troops repulsed two such attacks on the Turtuk and Chammb posts on September 8 and 21, 1999.

In two others attack on October 25 and 28, seven Pakistan soldiers and four Indian soldiers were killed at the Faulad Lilam posts in Uri sector.

On November 10 the same year, four soldiers including a captain were killed, in an attack on the Rampur Border outpost in Baramulla.

In subsequent raids between January and June 2000, 16 Pakistani and 13 Indian soldiers were killed.

There have been 21 such cross-border raids over the last five years, in which 41 Indian soldiers, including two army captains, lost their lives. Seventy-six others were injured.

Nineteen of the 21 attacks took place between 1999 and 2000 after the Kargil conflict. "As infiltrators are facing lethal cordons and getting killed in large numbers over the last six months," a source said, "Pakistani troops are now targeting our early warning set-up."