Since the Indian troops occupied many of the higher positions it made no real sense for Pakistan to take them head on rather it would be better to go around the mountains and cut off the Indian supply routes from behind. One Pakistani commander told me this idea had been discussed in the late 1980s the aim, he said, was to occupy the mountains on the Line of Control overlooking the towns of Dras and Kargil and then use artillery to block the road used by India to bring in its supplies. Whether it was ever taken very seriously then, it was not put into practice. It resurfaced a decade later when then General Pervez Musharraf sent troops to occupy mountain positions above Dras and Kargil, leading to the brief and bitter Kargil war in 1999.