They are pigs after all , pigs eat their own shitsShastri wrote:what about the 6 terrorists , where would they be eating and shitting during attack?Shaun wrote: Its a sprawling campus with 24 km of perimeter fence , even if you know , there is some impending attack , you can't make people stop eating and shitting .
From where I stand it obviously looks like others are wrong, what I think is right and this is an honest observation.Shastri wrote: it obviously looks like, either there is weapon shortage or they don't care about the lives of these ex servicemen. This is a ''chalta hai'' attitude and honest observation.
A very simple question which needs a very large detailed answer. However, I will encapsulate it, akin to chapters in a book.kvraghav wrote:Rajan..what would you have done if PM of india? Just curious
There is a loss of life and nothing can justify it.shiv wrote:From where I stand it obviously looks like others are wrong, what I think is right and this is an honest observation.Shastri wrote: it obviously looks like, either there is weapon shortage or they don't care about the lives of these ex servicemen. This is a ''chalta hai'' attitude and honest observation.
Especially among Indians I find that when it comes to concern for fellow humans and diligence in doing a job, only I am good at it. That explains my success. But others are no good. That is why India has so much poverty and botches these things so badly. If others could learn from me, things would be so much better.
Someone asked me this question. Here is the answer.disha wrote:I am surprised that this is not discussed here:
Modi gives Badmash 72 hours deadline to respond!
http://www.firstpost.com/india/well-don ... 74972.html
then security should have been provided for kitchen saar. If some armed intruder comes into my compund, can I ask my chef to cook me breakfast, tea & snacks. I will tell him I will take care of perimeter, you keep cooking. If this is SOP then change is due, atleast in border area front bases. Either my cook is armed and cooking, or else i have couple of guards posted to kitchen considering it is in isolated and removed from main area.deejay wrote:Habal ji, 60 -70 DSC personnel. This was the DSC mess. Food / Tea and other eats would be getting ready round the clock. It was early winter morning and because most were out there were only 04/05 in the cook house. The Op lasted 80 hrs. You don't think they would not rotate / eat in between?
I believe this pre-intel warning and advance mobilisation must be applauded since cannot recall any earlier instance where we had pre-empted TSP scum and got our forces rolling before the shooting match started.“Inputs of terrorists in close vicinity of Army camps”, the message was now updated to read. “Please alert all guards and pickets and keep QRTs (Quick Reaction Teams) and columns ready for deployment to strike at short notice”. At 8.30 pm, two Special Force teams, QRTs, and six Mine Protected Vehicles from the Army were in place at Mamoon just 10 min from the airbase. Why were they not sent to the base directly? “The attack could have taken place anywhere so we needed to have flexibility on deployment,” said an Army official. Fearing that the attack could also target hundreds of military families living in Pathankot, Doval ordered the National Security Guard into Pathankot at 9 pm, in case a hostage situation developed. The force, NSG sources said, was ordered to be prepared to deal with a hostage situation, or in case critical military assets, like the aircraft in Pathankot, were hit in an assault.
Commenting in a taunting fashion on Indian military training, while giving a free handie to SSG is not cool in an Indian military forum. So enough of this, Shastri. You are trolling and on notice.Shastri wrote:
There is a loss of life and nothing can justify it.
If there is prior intelligence input , even the slightest, and NSG, Garud and other personal are getting martyred rather making the enemy martyr then there is some serious training issue. (I am being little rude here but this does not makes me less proud on our soldiers)
The terrorist could infiltrate into a foreign land in the cover of night, travel towards airforce station, jump 11ft wall, engage our bestest commandos for 3 days with less technical and moral support. I am sure you would think once, what level of bl**dy damn training they might have gone through.
If this is the level of training they get in Pakistan, one can assume that their SSG is far better in techniques.
Good question, while I am not sure of what happened and will wait for news here, having been through such alerts, each installation / set up has a security procedure which gets activated when the base is put on alert. These places have to be manned.habal wrote:then security should have been provided for kitchen saar. If some armed intruder comes into my compund, can I ask my chef to cook me breakfast, tea & snacks. I will tell him I will take care of perimeter, you keep cooking. If this is SOP then change is due, atleast in border area front bases. Either my cook is armed and cooking, or else i have couple of guards posted to kitchen considering it is in isolated and removed from main area.deejay wrote:Habal ji, 60 -70 DSC personnel. This was the DSC mess. Food / Tea and other eats would be getting ready round the clock. It was early winter morning and because most were out there were only 04/05 in the cook house. The Op lasted 80 hrs. You don't think they would not rotate / eat in between?
The DSC cookhouse may well have taken a hit even if all precautions were followed. But one can only work to make things more tough for infiltrators.
More BSF men to guard sensitive points as assessment lists gaping holes
After a comprehensive assessment of the Pathankot terror attack, the Indian security establishment has found that conduits for smuggling drugs on either side of the border were used by terrorists to cross over to India with arms, including mortars.
Most of these drug conduits on the Pakistani side are controlled by the ISI and have in the past been used to push arms and terrorists inside the Indian territory.
Top sources said it was clear that the six terrorists, who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Pathankot at 3.30 am on January 2, entered India in two groups.
The group carrying bigger weapons arrived before the second group of four militants who killed taxi driver Ikagar Singh and “abducted” SP Salwinder Singh. The complicity of BS Force officials in allowing the drug carriers to pass through unfenced portions of the border and also middle-level politicians in Punjab is not ruled out.
After the assessment, three key steps have been initiated. First, Punjab will get additional BSF companies to guard sensitive segments, especially the riverine stretch that is not fenced. Second, a way has been found for foolproof security in the area where the Ravi and its tributaries criss-cross the border. Third, security on the periphery of military bases will be strengthened. A new method will be devised for the job.
After an alert was received, the first priority before Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha was to secure the assets. The MiG 21 fighter jets were moved out while the Army hiked security around missiles, ATC, ammunition and fuel dumps. Some 500 armed soldiers were stationed in Pathankot on January 1, hours before the attack. The immediate task at hand was to protect the 3,000 families inside the air base. IG Operations of the National Security Guard (NSG) Maj Gen Dushyant Singh was made the commander of the operations in consultation with the Army.
The “Y” angles on the wall that keep in place the razor wire had also been tampered with at this spot and the wire was cut through. A cap and a pair of gloves were found there, too. (Source: Express photo)
INVESTIGATORS are questioning an employee of the Army’s Military and Engineering Services (MES) posted at the Pathankot airbase on the suspicion that he may have helped the terrorists infiltrate the Indian Air Force base on January 1, The Indian Express has learnt from at least two independent sources.
As an investigation by The Indian Express pointed out yesterday, in the stretch of the 11-foot-high wall that was breached, the floodlights were not functioning. It is now learnt that on the night of the breach at the airbase, three of the powerful lights were said to be found “turned upward,” directed away from the wall and up throwing the area in a zone of darkness.
Indian Express Investigation: All alert, all caught unawares — luck their strongest ally
pathankot-terroist meds Strips of Ponstan painkiller tablets (right) found on the bodies of the four terrorists who were killed. The strip shows it was made in Karachi. Syringes as well as vials of injectible Neurobion were also found.
Every other light on the perimeter was in the right position except these, a source said. Officials and investigators said that this possibly pointed to “insider complicity”. The man being questioned has been detained.
Watch Video Pathankot Attack Update: Sharif Tells Modi He Will Act
He was recently transferred to Pathankot from the Udhampur airbase and was described by military sources as a full-time Class IV grade civilian employee, whose job would entail electrical or other general maintenance, sources said.
Read: kashmir-route/">Pathankot attack: BSF zeroes in on two intrusion theories — a tunnel, Kashmir route
The “Y” angles on the wall that keep in place the razor wire had also been tampered with at this spot and the wire was cut through. A cap and a pair of gloves were found there, too.
READ: Terrorists also spoke in Kashmiri: FIR quotes SP
The point of entry was close to an MES vehicle maintenance shed.
Nonsense. This is a rhetorical argument that seeks to hold moral high ground. this is war. There will be casualties. But the war needs to be directed at the enemy, not at one's own by whining and saying "chalta hai" which is what you are doingShastri wrote: There is a loss of life and nothing can justify it.
An ignorant conclusion - but it is your prerogative to remain ignorant or learn. It is a free country, but don't expect to get away by making statements about bad training without being ready to show what you know that others don't.Shastri wrote: If there is prior intelligence input , even the slightest, and NSG, Garud and other personal are getting martyred rather making the enemy martyr then there is some serious training issue. (I am being little rude here but this does not makes me less proud on our soldiers)
Good morning Rip Van Winkle. Where have you been when this was being pointed out by the army and on this forum? You write as if you have just discovered something.Shastri wrote: The terrorist could infiltrate into a foreign land in the cover of night, travel towards airforce station, jump 11ft wall, engage our bestest commandos for 3 days with less technical and moral support. I am sure you would think once, what level of bl**dy damn training they might have gone through.
You can assume anything you like but this statement is like my love story with Angelia Joile. I am better than Brad Pitt but if she doesn't come to me it's no use. SSG may be the best on earth but they have to come and show how good they are. If they cower in their mummy's burqas in Pakistan and send only second rates jihadis it does not say much for them no matter what you might want to assumeShastri wrote: If this is the level of training they get in Pakistan, one can assume that their SSG is far better in techniques.
Yeah, Flame throwers to cremate the shit out of them. What hppens to IEDs/grenades if the bodies are booby trapped and we use flame throwers on the bodies? Would they go boom or the explosive material simply burns off?ramana wrote:deejay, You think those five bodies are still booby trapped?
Maybe best to demolish them as a hazard.
Don't want more casualties trying to make them safe.
And amrikhan shit as well.Shaun wrote: They are pigs after all , pigs eat their own shits
attack: All alert, all caught unawares — luck their strongest ally
Pathankot/ Chandigarh/ New Delhi | Updated: January 8, 2016 9:53 am
Security personnel at the perimeter fence of the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on Wednesday. (Express Photo by: Gurmeet Singh) Security personnel at the perimeter fence of the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on Wednesday. (Express Photo by: Gurmeet Singh)
(Reported by: Kamaldeep Singh Brar and Navjeevan Gopal in Pathankot; Kanchan Vasdev and Nirupama Subramanian in Chandigarh; Deeptiman Tiwary, Sagnik Chowdhury, Pranav Kulkarni and Praveen Swami in New Delhi)
LONG after the fighting, a fire continued to rage across the Airmen’s Mess and the pile of discarded furniture in the yard outside. The last terrorists inside the Air Force base in Pathankot had held out since early on Sunday morning, January 3, firing from inside the building and a nearby patch of elephant grass. The Airmen’s Mess was where they were killed, set alight by explosives and gunfire from armoured personnel carriers. As the National Investigation Agency sifts through the detritus of the battle, there’s a strange fact facing them.
Read: Behind the Pathankot breach, 3 lights turned upward and airbase staffer detained
Four bodies of terrorists have been handed over, clad in military fatigues, and explosives strapped to their bodies. There are four recovered assault rifles and four pistols — the standard kit of the fidayeen, along with ready-to-eat chicken and rice, painkillers, and vials of perfume. Just four.
Read: Fence floodlights that didn’t work, gaps in border patrol, patchy police response
“It is possible that two more bodies were blown to pieces, as the Airmen’s Mess disintegrated,” an intelligence officer familiar with the case told The Indian Express, “and we have sent forensic samples for examination. The thing is, we would have expected to find their weapons in the debris, and nothing’s surfaced”.
Watch Video Pathankot Attack Update: Sharif Tells Modi He Will Act
The unresolved issue of just how many terrorists attacked the base is emblematic of the growing questions over just how well-organised operations to eliminate them were.
Read: Pathankot attack: BSF zeroes in on two intrusion theories — a tunnel, Kashmir route
Intelligence Bureau agents have even, government sources say, been able to identify, with a high degree of confidence, the men who sent them to their death. The Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar, his key aide Maulana Ashfaq Ahmad, Hafiz Abdul Shakoor and Kasim Jan: these men, they say, spoke to the terrorists in intercepted phone conversations.
Everything that transpired once the firing began, though, is lost in the haze of battle. That, in turn, The Indian Express investigation shows, points to worrying signs that the outcome of the operation was as much good luck as good management.
Pathankot terrorist attack, Pathankot Air Force Base, India-Pakistan peace talks, pathankot security, pathankot operations, pathankot martyrs, pathankot rescue operation, terrorism, pathankot news, india defense, india news, latest news Soldiers keep vigil at the IAF base in Pathankot on Wednesday. (Source: PTI)
January 2, 3.30 am: First fire
EVER since 10.10 pm, the airbase was preparing for battle: the first team of National Security Guards landed there then, to be followed, a few hours later, by a second one, standing by if the terrorists ended up taking hostages from the more than 10,000 members of military families living there. Two teams of the Indian army’s crack special forces were stationed at the Mamoon Army base next door, along with six mine-protected vehicles. Everyone braced for an attack on the Air Base, or another military facility.
Also read: On Dec 31, 9 Pakistan calls on taxi driver’s phone; one incoming, eight outgoing
Inside the Defence Security Corps’ mess, a few hundred meters from the building where the NSG was waiting, Jagdish Chand was brewing tea for the guards who would soon be ending their shift at the base’s perimeter wall. Fifty-eight-year-old Chand, a cook, had just been transferred to Pathankot from Leh, arriving a day earlier.
Drawn from retired soldiers, typically in their late 40s or early 50s, the DSC is responsible for security duties at many defence installations across the country.
The cook, officials involved the operation have told the NIA, likely looked up when he heard gunfire outside — and then, perhaps, saw a man with a gun running into the mess kitchen. The terrorist was shot dead, perhaps after Chand fought him to the ground, before being killed by a second attacker.
Pathankot terrorist attack, Pathankot Air Force Base, India-Pakistan peace talks, pathankot security, pathankot operations, pathankot martyrs, pathankot rescue operation, terrorism, pathankot news, india defense, india news, latest news
Even though the base was prepared for a classic fidayeen attack on its gates — men, armed with grenades and assault rifles, trying to shoot their way on the technical area tarmac — no one had expected they were already inside.
Located by thermal-imaging equipment on board Air Force helicopters, the terrorists had moved rapidly after jumping the 11-foot wall around the base. They first faced a patrol of Garud commandos from a contingent of 24 men who had come in the night before with the Commander-in-chief of the Western Air Command, Air Marshal S B Deo.
The Garuds, the Air Force’s in-house commando force, opened fire near the military engineering service’s mechanical transport facility, and claim to have injured one terrorist standing near the perimeter wall. In the exchange of fire, Garud Corporal Gursewak Singh was shot dead.
Following this exchange of fire, the terrorists ran into the DSC mess. It was then that they killed the cook, Chand. Subsequently, Kulwant Singh, an unarmed guard, tried to grapple with one of the terrorists, but was shot and killed in the unequal struggle. Three other DSC guards were killed, claimed by a grenade the terrorists threw as they ran into the building.
Soldiers climb up the stairs of a residential building outside the Indian air force base in Pathankot on Sunday evening as the gunbattle continued. (AP Photo) Soldiers climb up the stairs of a residential building outside the Indian air force base in Pathankot on Sunday evening as the gunbattle continued. (AP Photo)
Large swathes of the airbase, home to families and unarmed personnel, had been left unguarded, simply because no one thought the terrorists would be able to penetrate the perimeter with such ease.
The Army says, in private, that it had thousands of armed personnel available who could have been drafted in to secure the premises — men who would, moreover, have then been available to lock down the base once the firing began. No one, though, had ever planned or prepared for such an assault, a mistake that had cost five men their lives.
4.00 am: Hide and seek
THE National Security Guard joined battle, sources familiar with the operation say, inside minutes. They first engaged the terrorists near the base’s bakery, known to generations of military families in Pathankot for its cookies and cakes. The terrorists, though, melded away just as contact began. This began a lethal game of hide and seek, with forces trying to pin down the terrorists and force them to expend their ammunition — and the terrorists darting away, to avoid just that outcome.
For the NSG and the small Army Special Force contingent, the first task now was to ensure the the terrorists didn’t make their way north, towards the Air Base’s family housing, or south and south-east, where combat jets, helicopters and air-defence missile batteries were housed. The gates to the hangers were less than 500 m away.
Inside hours, both the terrorists who had stormed the DSC mess were dead. “We were pretty sure that they had not infiltrated the technical area”, an Air Force officer said, “because if they had they’d have been blowing up aircraft by then”.
pathankot1Fighting broke out again at around 10.00 a.m., after more terrorists were spotted near the Airmen’s billet-the third point of contact. The army’s special forces, reinforced by several more columns who had been called in once the fighting broke out, had located the group.
“We did the search but once contact was made, we were told to hand over to the NSG”, said a military official present at the base. The official said that though this was done as seamlessly as possible, it slowed operations down, as the terrain and location of the terrorists had to be explained to the NSG’s officers.
The fighting dragged on. At one stage, the forces contemplated bringing down the airmen’s billet, using explosives. The option, though, was rejected after it turned out there were still airmen trapped inside. In the afternoon, the Army had covered the evacuation of the Air Force personnel inside, firing from a BMP2 armoured personnel carrier, and a Casspir mine-proof vehicle. Soon afterwards, explosives tore the building apart.
Late that afternoon, the Air Force Flew Mi-35 attack helicopters low over the base, their armour-plating protecting them from fire, to make sure all was well. Two more terrorists were detected at 3.30 pm, near a patch of elephant grass. The men were engaged, once again — and killed.
Even though the army has said, in public, that there was “excellent synergy” between the multiple forces involved in the operation, and that the decision was taken after consulting the Army chief, private assessments by serving officers are less emphatic.
“The NSG has never been trained to go after terrorists inside the semi-rural setting of a large military camp”, one officer said. “We do it all the time in Kashmir. Last year, we did an operation in Arnia. Five terrorists had were detected inside the the camp around 3 am, and by 10.30 am it was all over”.
In fairness, it had taken just three and a half hours longer for the Pathankot operation to come to an end — and that over considerably greater terrain. Bar the NSG’s Lieutenant-Colonel Niranjan Kumar, who died when he moved a body under which the terrorist had left a grenade as a booby trap, there were no fatalities after the initial contact.
3.00 pm, January 4: Recrimination
Eighty four hours after it began, late on Tuesday afternoon, Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar was finally able to address the press. Behind the scenes, though, the recrimination had begun. The Air Force was less than happy that the seniormost officer at the base, Air Marshal Deo, had no role in operations. Brigadier G S Belvi, in charge of the army contingent, only had to defer to a military colleague, Major-General Dushyant Singh — but it still ruffled military feathers since his boss, the Director-General of the NSG, is a police officer.
The essence of the Army’s critique is that there was no reason why, with nearly 15,000 troops present just around the Air Base, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had to call in the NSG. Like all hindsight, this criticism seems fair because the hunt went on for so long — but had hostages been taken, the failure to have the NSG on hand would also have been an issue.
Far more important are the larger lessons. Had the Intelligence Bureau not intercepted telephone conversations by the terrorists, and set off the alarm, it is possible the terrorists would have managed to enter deeper into the base, hit aircraft, unchallenged, or inflict heavier casualties.
There has been no explanation of just why a vital base didn’t have better perimeter security, and electronic surveillance systems, even though similar attacks on bases just across the border in Pakistan had lead to the losses of multi-million dollar combat assets.
Had a proper lockdown system been planned and rehearsed, moreover, the lethal hide and seek at the base wouldn’t have gone on for quite so long. In this sense, it’s clear military planners didn’t learn important lessons from 26/11, where forces had to respond on the fly — with far from optimal consequences. Pathankot was an embarrassment, not a 26/11-type catastrophe, as some have claimed. It could, only too easily, have proved otherwise.
(Tomorrow: Meanwhile, in Delhi)
Reported by: Kamaldeep Singh Brar and Navjeevan Gopal in Pathankot; Kanchan Vasdev and Nirupama Subramanian in Chandigarh; Deeptiman Tiwary, Sagnik Chowdhury, Pranav Kulkarni and Praveen Swami in New Delhi
Here's the problem: Gen. Panag was a part of the Army for such a long time; did he do anything about this "rag tag" DSC? Lots of Army bases and facilities are guarded by DSC too; so, during his rise up the chain, he must have had DSC guarding his installations. Did he remove them and replace them with something else? That's probably a rhetorical question, because I'll bet good money that he did not. If they were good enough for him and his installations, why aren't they good enough for AFB Pathankot?prahaar wrote:rajanb wrote:With full due respect to the retired General, it was not very responsible of him to call DSC a rag tag force. If this is how a retired general describes his own ex-servicemen, betrays some attitude problems.
So you think the Garuds are poorly trained? Do you have any evidence to back it up? Does he?chetak wrote: absolutely nothing wrong with what General HS Panag has said. He could have been a bit more diplomatic about it but it is difficult to sugar coat the truth which is often bitter.
Yes, but when bullets are cooking off outside the barrel, they are much less lethal, as they don't develop enough velocity to even penetrate a cardboard box. The explosive materials are a different cup of tea, but most of the modern ones are surprisingly stable and burn slowly when heated. People don't walk around carrying nitroglycerine because it has a nasty habit of exploding with even slight shocks, that's why they carry plastic explosives instead, which need to be hooked to a detonator to go boom. Soldiers in Vietnam were known to use C4 as a fuel to cook food and heat up coffee and it worked great even in rainy weather. The iffy one might be grenades.Singha wrote:
vayu, even bullets can cook off if thrown into a fire. throwing IED/grenade into a flame sounds like a bad idea to me. use a armoured bulldozer of the type that was trucked into the base to push them into a pit and then burn them. the dozer blade will easily protect from a explosion. the cabs also have armour and BP glass sometimes. israelis use it extensively.
https://c3.staticflickr.com/3/2900/1474 ... a38a_b.jpg
here you see slat armour as they use it on the front, but for us not needed.
chetak, they want us to move beyond chai biscoot talks and make tangible concessions on siachen, joint admin of kashmir and similar kite flying. they know our talks otherwise, with this admin, are not worth a darn and Modi/Doval will not give up J&K. Hence this pressure.chetak wrote:we were already at the negotiating table. NSAs and FSs were getting chummy, Modi had already payr cho--oed good sharif's mummy. FMs were already on first name terms.Karan M wrote:Shastri ji, what data? Which data? Does Pakistan even give out any data?
What we do know is that each time we have responded, the Pakistani Army or its proxies like the Pakistan rangers have come to us, tail between their legs.
So quite frankly, this is wrong: "We have lost more soldiers and civilians due to shelling and firing across the border. " The Pakistanis lose more soldiers than we do, when we hit back hard.
Which is why events like Pathankot are their attempt to score one and force us to the negotiating table.
or are you saying that they mean, put cashmere on the table ASAP and loose the rest of the agenda??
rajanb wrote:A very simple question which needs a very large detailed answer. .... And ensure that each one of them has the character, integrity and attitude, not to push for the glory of their parent organisations, but to be a well oiled composite team.kvraghav wrote:Rajan..what would you have done if PM of india? Just curious
(breathe) (breath) (breathe) (breath) Usual IAF ranks.Sid wrote:Btw, do Garud force have any ranking scheme. All news seems to refer them as Garud commandos only.
forgot why suicide attackers carry this..something about fragrance of paradise blah blah..eklavya wrote:IE: Probing Pathankot attack: All alert, all caught unawares — luck their strongest allyvials of perfume
---After the terror attack at Pathankot airbase, news has been circulating about about two more suspected Pakistan-trained terrorists trying to attack a key military facility in Gurdaspur raising concerns of security forces.
As per media reports, the two suspected militants in army fatigues were spotted moving suspiciously near the Gurdaspur Army Cantonment by locals.
After the locals informed the police and military, an Israel-trained SWAT team has been deployed to bring the militants out in the open. While the area is being manned through aerial surveillance, troop movement is also on.
Meanwhile, one more witness has claimed to have seen two suspected terrorists who had asked him about Indian ‘platoon’ position near Tibri cantonment.
This was when the army and the police have launched a manhunt to nab the suspected cross border infiltrators. Lovepreet Singh, 24, of Tibri said on 7 January two persons dressed in army fatigues asked him to “ruka, ruka” and “tumhari platoon kahan bethi hai.” (They asked him about the army’s cantonment or platoon position)
The two suspects were wearing were dressed in long jackets and camouflage pants. I couldn’t understand their language which raised my suspicion, he said.
Around a 1000 Army soldiers were also deployed to the base.Prasad wrote:Couple of questions that come to mind reading various versions of what happened -
Why didn't they use more infantry to guard the base? A handful Garuds, DSC personnel (numbers?) and 168 NSG to guard a sprawling base seems inadequate given that you would need to engage anyone entering at the perimeter itself rather than let them in and fight inside. (Hindsight I know but when 2 cols were deployed, why not more?)
When base as target was identified, were the surrounding civilian areas under lock-down with police and/or military patrols done? Even at night. Not saying this would've definitely id'd the buggers outside itself but still. Another layer.
