Rahul Shukla wrote:Tribal revolt pushes Pakistan to brink (Scotland Sunday)IN AUGUST, militants in Pakistan's wild tribal region on the border with Afghanistan surrounded and captured more than 200 soldiers. Three were subsequently executed and the rest are still being held in a remote hideout in South Waziristan.
This would be a crisis for almost any nation, but in Pakistan, attention is focused on the drama of the political crisis in the pristine capital Islamabad, not the takeover of the rugged hills of Waziristan by religious fanatics. Even the hostage-takers have grown frustrated by the lack of attention. Their spokesman, Zulfiqar Mehsud, said last week that the government was "not serious" about negotiating hostages' release.
A full-scale insurrection is taking hold in Waziristan, the most restive part of the tribal region which lies on the border with Afghanistan. It is an uprising not by a few foreign Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters, but the local population. "Tomorrow they may declare the Islamic emirate of Waziristan," said Talat Masood, a retired general. "This is the greatest challenge since 1971 [when East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh]."
Last week, the tribal belt erupted into a full scale conflict between militants and Pakistani forces, claiming 250 lives. In a massive escalation of the confrontation, Pakistani jets bombed civilian areas around the town of Mir Ali, in North Waziristan, where rebels were thought to be hiding. According to a local member of parliament, Maulana Nek Zaman, 55 civilians were killed. "We know it because we buried them," Zaman said last week. No official figures were provided for civilian casualties.
General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president and army chief, is embroiled in a different battle, for political survival. As the president, army commander and head of state, power currently resides with one man. Since March, when Musharraf tried unsuccessfully to sack the country's chief justice, his moral authority and popularity have been sinking fast, while he grapples for a strategy to prolong his rule. He has battled the country's lawyers and Supreme Court, which may yet rule against his plan to remain president in the next few days. He saw off his greatest political threat, exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was not allowed to return to Pakistan last month - the deportation of Sharif will also be shortly challenged in the courts.
All year, Musharraf has been involved in painstaking negotiations with another exiled former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, over a power-sharing agreement. It seemed that he managed to finally cut a deal with Bhutto earlier this month, when he agreed to drop corruption charges against her, but the legality of that move has also been taken to the courts. Bhutto has announced that she will return to Pakistan this week. With the verdict of the Supreme Court still hanging over him, Musharraf has now been reduced to publicly begging her to delay her arrival. Meanwhile, Washington has been bearing down on Musharraf, pressing him to take action against militants in the tribal belt and pushing him to restore democracy through a deal with US-friendly Bhutto.
The former head of Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, General Hameed Gul, said that it is the Pakistani leader's attempt to "please" America which led to the insurgency in Waziristan. "He went too far. Musharraf must learn to say no to America where our own interests are jeopardised," said Gul.
Pakistan's laws and its security forces have traditionally not been present in the fiercely independent tribal areas, which are ruled by local custom. The British Raj never managed to subdue the area in 200 years. The Russians were defeated by the same people across the border in Afghanistan - a country soaking up major Nato resources today.
It was only after 9/11, under massive American pressure, that the Pakistani army was sent into the tribal area, which had become a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fleeing from the US-led invasion of Kabul. Since then, it is increasingly the local Pushtun tribes, not foreign extremists, who have taken up arms against what they see as an invasion of their territory by the Pakistan army. It is a region where all men carry guns, usually a rifle or machine-gun slung over their shoulder, a weapon they will readily use. Telling militants from ordinary citizens is difficult.
Pakistan has tried several peace accords with tribal leaders, which allowed the army to pull out for periods, but according to Washington, these agreements only allowed the Taliban and al-Qaeda a safe area in which to regroup. In July the last such accord ended when militants unleashed a series of suicide bombings on Pakistani troops, following the bloody end to the siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, in which around 100 religious hardliners died. Despite US objections, the Pakistani army has said it will seek a new ceasefire deal.
The real danger of the situation in Waziristan is that the fighters and the fist-pounding mullahs could spread to the rest of the country, an outcome that would plunge nuclear-armed Pakistan towards civil war. Already, in the North West Frontier Province, which borders the tribal belt, militants are beginning to terrorise the population. In the last week, bombs have been placed in record shops and barbers, despised by Islamic extremists who regard music and clean-shaven men as Westernised heresy. They espouse the obscurantist creed of Wahhabi Islam preached by Osama bin Laden.
In the valley of Swat, in the North West Frontier Province, a religious fanatic, Maulana Fazullah, has taken over the area. The police are too afraid to patrol and the local administration has gone into hiding. Pakistani army battalions have been sent to the area but as yet they are still in camp, awaiting instructions to deploy. Fazullah issues decrees over his own FM radio station, his men have even taken over traffic control duties - errant drivers have a machine-gun pointed at them.
Analysts point out that the same Pushtun tribesmen are settled in Karachi, the massive port city in the south of the country. More than three million Pushtuns live there. If they, seeing their kinsmen in Waziristan under attack, were to turn against the state, a Beirut-like situation could follow in Karachi.
General Masood warned: "Pakistan is a very dangerous country. It can explode."
Pashtun Civil War
Talibunnies and Pakbunnies in the Video
( Today Kalia RIP)
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/ ... video.html
NEW VIDEO FROM TALIBAN IN WAZIRISTAN SENT TO PAKISTANI GOVERMENT part 1
Pakistani taliban new video INTIQAM(revenge)part1
NEW VIDEO from Pakistani taliban in Waziristan. In this video you can see the dead body of a Pakistani soldiers beheaded by fundamentalists among 16 Pakistani soldiers captured by the taliban
Here is a link where you can have a western news report and understanding of this video.
( Today Kalia RIP)
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/ ... video.html
NEW VIDEO FROM TALIBAN IN WAZIRISTAN SENT TO PAKISTANI GOVERMENT part 1
Pakistani taliban new video INTIQAM(revenge)part1
NEW VIDEO from Pakistani taliban in Waziristan. In this video you can see the dead body of a Pakistani soldiers beheaded by fundamentalists among 16 Pakistani soldiers captured by the taliban
Here is a link where you can have a western news report and understanding of this video.
x-post from TSP thread
Understanding Al-Qaeda's Pakistan PSYOP and Insurgency
Understanding Al-Qaeda's Pakistan PSYOP and Insurgency
AQ Targets Police for Violence and Army Soldiers for Influence
The al-Qaeda Information Operation (IO) is designed to support the insurgency’s incremental march on Islamabad.
It’s not that al-Qaeda and their indigenous Taliban allies cannot attack the Pakistani Army with expectations of success. They most certainly can and have.
First, the Interior Ministry is widely regarded as the one segment of the Pakistani government with unwavering loyalty to Musharraf, whom al-Qaeda has sought to assassinate several times.
Unlike the military and the military’s intelligence arm (ISI), the Pakistani police forces, constabularies and Frontier Corps of the Interior Ministry do not have historical ties to Islamist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Interior Ministry loyalty to Musharraf makes their ranks logical targets for the Islamists who seek to kill and replace Musharraf atop an Islamist-run Pakistani government.
Secondly, and most importantly, al-Qaeda at the same time seeks to avoid open bloody conflict with the Army. Not because it fears the deadly consequences of such a confrontation, but rather because al-Qaeda senior leadership wants the Pakistani military intact – for themselves. Ideally, they do not want to ultimately find Musharraf killed or oustered only to have the military splintered internally between pro-government and pro-al-Qaeda commanders. Al-Qaeda is executing an insurgency to gain control, not to touch off a civil war.
In the end, al-Qaeda’s design is also to co-opt an intact military in order to gain command of a military force with the assets of a state (aircraft, armor, etc.) and direct control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Recent reports of defections of Pakistani military elements since bin Laden’s latest message to them indicates a level of success in the al-Qaeda IO campaign targeting them.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 3vpget.asp
While Pakistan Burns
Al Qaeda regroups in the tribal areas, the government falters. What is to be done?
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
10/29/2007, Volume 013, Issue 07
If there were any doubt about the reach of militants in Pakistan, last week's events should have put them to rest. The ostentatious procession celebrating the return home of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was tragically cut short by twin bombs that killed over 130 and wounded several hundred more on Thursday night. The attackers almost succeeded in killing Bhutto as well. The blast shattered the windows in her vehicle and set a police escort car ablaze. The sophistication of the attack was apparent from the outset, and the bombs may have been accompanied by sniper fire.
But extremist violence in Pakistan is hardly news. The raids against the militant Lal Masjid mosque on July 11 occurred in Islamabad, the capital city. Supporters of al Qaeda exist in the military and intelligence services; indeed, there may prove to be a link between militant infiltrators of these institutions and the attempt on Bhutto's life. The mysterious fact that the streetlights were off and the phone lines dead during the attack further raises the possibility of collaboration with ideologically sympathetic low-level government officials. Still, the stronghold of militant activity in Pakistan is clearly the remote and mountainous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan has ceded more and more ground to al Qaeda and its allies over the past year.
The government's successive concessions to militants have not always been viewed as defeats; indeed officials tried to spin them as successes. A year ago, after the signing of one agreement, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States told a network reporter, "The Waziristan accord is not a good thing--it's a very good thing. It's a new step." Although the accords ceded control over significant portions of the FATA to tribal leaders aligned with al Qaeda and the Taliban, Washington was slow to sound the alarm. Some State Department officials defended the agreements, and President Bush himself offered tepid support during a September 2006 press conference with Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.
One year and three more accords later, all concede that the tribal areas are now the stronghold of al Qaeda's senior leadership--probably including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. As in Afghanistan under the Taliban, terrorist training camps operate freely, believed by U.S. intelligence to number almost 30. The 9/11 Commission Report warned that to carry out a catastrophic act of terror like 9/11, an organization requires "time, space, and the ability to perform competent planning and staff work," as well as "a command structure able to make necessary decisions and possessing the authority and contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials." Al Qaeda now enjoys both of these in Pakistan.
One result is the heightened terrorist threat manifest in the attack on Bhutto, but also in recent plots against the West. Last year U.S. and British authorities announced the disruption of an ambitious scheme to blow up airliners en route from Britain to the United States with liquid explosives. The operatives had trained at al Qaeda's FATA camps and met with high-level operatives Matiur Rehman and Abu Ubaydah al-Masri in Pakistan. Homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff recently told ABC News that the plot, if successful, would have killed thousands. One day last month, authorities in Europe arrested two terrorist cells in Denmark and Germany. Both cells were allegedly planning attacks; both were in touch with high-level extremists in Pakistan and had members who had trained there. While these arrests represent a success for law enforcement, they also signal al Qaeda's regeneration.
Al Qaeda's rebound was several years in the making. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 toppled the Taliban, most of al Qaeda's central leadership relocated to the FATA. Prompted by assassination attempts against Musharraf, Pakistan's military mounted a campaign to flush al Qaeda out of the tribal areas--but it suffered so many losses that by September 2006 Musharraf felt he had no option but to deal with his would-be killers. His solution was the Waziristan accords, peace agreements that essentially ceded North and South Waziristan to the Taliban and al Qaeda. As part of the accords, Pakistan's military agreed that it would no longer carry out air or ground strikes in the tribal areas, that it would disband its human intelligence network, and that it would abandon outposts and border crossings throughout Waziristan. The accords even allowed non-Pakistani militants to continue to reside in Waziristan if they made an unenforceable promise to "keep the peace."
The failure of these accords was predictable and almost immediate. Shortly after the accords were signed, a U.S. military official told the Associated Press that "American troops on Afghanistan's eastern border have seen a threefold increase" in cross-border attacks from Pakistan. Since then, Pakistan has entered into similar treaties over the tribal areas of Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand.
This leaves us with the present alarming picture: relative security for al Qaeda's senior leadership, greater instability in Afghanistan, a steady flow of skilled terrorists coming out of training camps, and a systemic risk of catastrophic attack reminiscent of the risk we faced before 9/11. This occurs against the backdrop of Musharraf's political impotence. Despite his electoral victory in October, Islamic extremists have sworn to topple him from power, and his clumsy handling of conflicts with his supreme court has destroyed his already dwindling support among liberal elites. Even the Bhutto assassination attempt has fueled anti-Musharraf propaganda, as rumors quickly spread that he was behind the attack--intending to use it as a pretext to impose martial law. Shadowy figures like Gen. Hamid Gul and Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, whose ideological sympathies lie with the Taliban and al Qaeda, lurk in the background. All of which conjueres up the "nightmare scenario": a nuclear-armed state openly aligned with our terrorist enemies.
Thus far, American policy toward Pakistan has amounted to unconditional support for Musharraf, coupled with occasional air strikes against high-level al Qaeda targets in the tribal areas. Emblematic of the latter is an October 30, 2006, strike against a madrassa in a Bajaur village that allegedly served as an al Qaeda training camp. While Zawahiri may have been the strike's target, the madrassa was affiliated with another key al Qaeda confederate, Faqir Mohammed, who had contracted a strategic marriage with a woman from the local Mamoond tribe. A U.S. Predator strike destroyed the school, but it hardly slowed down Mohammed, who gave an interview with NBC at the scene of the wreckage and later spoke at the funeral for the victims.
Nor is any satisfactory alternative military strategy on offer. One senior American military intelligence officer said it would take a sustained air campaign to deprive al Qaeda of its safe haven in the FATA. "We're talking about a Serbia-style prolonged campaign," he said. NATO's air campaign against Serbia's military lasted from March 24 through June 11, 1999, and comprised over 38,000 missions involving approximately 1,000 aircraft and a barrage of Tomahawk missiles. Such a campaign in Pakistan's tribal areas, the officer said, would "heavily degrade" but not eliminate al Qaeda. "Their camps won't be actively producing terrorists," he said, "but they'll survive the air campaign." Furthermore, a campaign on that scale might result in the toppling of Musharraf--who, in the vivid phrase of retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, is already "dancing on razor blades."
No analyst I spoke with thought we could do much better than the strategy of covert pinprick strikes that the United States and Pakistan are currently employing, wherein Pakistan frequently takes responsibility for U.S. strikes. This will not deprive al Qaeda of its safe haven, although it may occasionally yield important kills.
What about covert action? American Special Operations forces are already engaging in actions coordinated with the air strikes. The most notable achievement in this regard occurred in southern Afghanistan, where NATO and Afghan forces killed Mullah Dadullah Lang, the Taliban's top military commander, back in May. There are barriers, though, to expanding the Special Operations forces' role. The topography makes it difficult to insert and remove forces without being detected. Within the military, there is a real desire to avoid another Operation Eagle Claw--the ill-fated attempt to rescue hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran during President Carter's term.
Unfortunately, the potential for things going awry is high if Special Operations missions are increased. Special Operations forces act in small teams and are lightly armed, so could be overwhelmed by larger contingents of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Enemy forces in Pakistan are better armed and trained than the Somali forces in the Black Hawk Down incident, and they have SA-18 surface-to-air missiles capable of downing American helicopters.
There is always the option of a full-scale counterinsurgency operation in the FATA, including the insertion of American ground troops. Some commentators favor this approach. Steve Schippert, the managing editor of Threats-Watch, told me, "At the end of the day, there is no getting around that if al Qaeda is going to be defeated in Pakistan, it will take our boots on the ground." Military affairs analyst Bill Roggio agrees that in an ideal world we would conduct counterinsurgency operations jointly with Pakistan's armed forces, but deems this not feasible in the current political context: We lack both resources and the will to take the casualties it would require. Roggio is almost certainly right--and, again, the insertion of American ground forces would heighten the risk of Musharraf's being toppled from power.
Pakistan's military, meanwhile, does not appear to be up to the task of confronting the militants. It is unclear what level of casualties caused Musharraf to call off the attempt to control the tribal areas and make a deal with the extremists; the numbers are secret and estimates vary widely. Most observers believe Pakistan has lost about 1,000 men in its fight to control the FATA, but some believe it has lost more soldiers in this fight than the United States has lost in Iraq. Then, too, Pakistani soldiers have shown reluctance to fight their "Muslim brothers." This unwillingness was bolstered by a fatwa issued in 2004 by clerics Mohammed Abdul Aziz and Abdur Rashid Ghazi stating that Pakistani soldiers killed in South Waziristan deserved neither a Muslim funeral nor burial in a Muslim cemetery.
Where does the dearth of military options leave us? Pakistan's government could still play an important role despite its military's weakness. Seth Jones, of the RAND Corporation, argues that the centerpiece of U.S. strategy should be diplomatic pressure on Islamabad, once the political situation in Pakistan is calmer. "We need a clear diplomatic message," Jones said. "Al Qaeda is regenerated, and a number of recent terror plots are linked back to its tribal areas. Pakistan faces a choice not too different from what it faced on 9/11."
U.S. assistance, Jones says, should be tied directly to the arrest or killing of key al Qaeda leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri. "The threat then would be that if we can't get clear progress in a measurable timeframe, this would leave the United States in the unfortunate position of having to significantly decrease its assistance to Pakistan and move in the direction of India," he says. Jones thinks this pressure should be aimed at getting Pakistan's military and intelligence services to undertake a "clear and hold strategy" against al Qaeda safe havens--not as a military offensive, but a police and intelligence operation.
Others favor an even more aggressive Pakistani role, beginning with a declaration that the treaties concerning the tribal areas are dead. There is ample justification for renouncing the accords, which the Taliban violated from the outset by killing Pakistani troops, sending its fighters into Afghanistan to fight coalition forces, and setting up separate governmental entities.
If Pakistan nullified the FATA agreements, there are aggressive measures it could take without risking its troops in the tribal areas. Musharraf could treat the FATA as a hostile province and impede militants' movements by erecting fences along the perimeter (as Pakistan has done on parts of its border with India) and establishing an internal passport system. Anybody who traveled out of the FATA could be treated as though he were entering from an enemy nation, and would be subject to search and questioning. Impeding the movement of FATA-based extremists would not only hinder their efforts, but also help coalition forces in Afghanistan to track who had visited the high-risk FATA. As one senior American military intelligence officer put it, "FATA should become Taiwan to Pakistan's China."
The major problem with this approach is that it hinges on Musharraf. He was presented with a sterling opportunity to cancel the accords earlier this summer, after Pakistani forces raided the Lal Masjid. That mosque had been a center for the recruitment of fighters and suicide bombers to combat coalition forces in Afghanistan. Militants in the tribal areas responded to the raid with rage and vows of revenge. A number of attacks on Pakistani forces were launched from the FATA thereafter, in clear violation of the accords. Musharraf talked tough talk, but he never declared the accords dead--and ultimately reaffirmed his commitment to withdraw all Pakistani troops from tribal areas by year's end.
Musharraf's reluctance to abandon the accord framework does not mean he will never do so. The United States has not applied sustained pressure on this issue, and it should. It should develop a basket of incentives to persuade Musharraf to junk the agreements. Still, even as it hopes for the best from Pakistan, Washington should be prepared for continuing inaction.
American successes in Iraq over the past year may hold some lessons for tackling the problem in Pakistan. A critical factor in the turnaround during the tenure of Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Iraq has been our improved ability to align with tribal elements that oppose the brutality of al Qaeda. The Anbar Salvation Front--a collection of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others united in the goal of driving al Qaeda from their country--has been a vital ally in destroying the safe haven al Qaeda had enjoyed in Iraq's Anbar province. We won't quickly find an ally in Pakistan as capable as the late Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, who led the Anbar Salvation Front, but the broader lesson is the need to understand local actors and rely on more than our sheer military might.
One expert on irregular warfare who frequently consults with the federal government argues that the Anbar Salvation Front model should be considered for Pakistan. Though her ideas are "the starting point for a conversation" rather than a well-developed proposal, she notes surface similarities between Iraq and Pakistan. "You have multiple tribes," she said, "some of which have been in conflict and some of which have been aligned. The way people make their living is also similar. There are settled tribes that live by agriculture, and tribes that have lived by smuggling, banditry, and tribal warfare." The Pakistani tribes apparently differ in their approach to al Qaeda, too, the northern tribes being more welcoming than the southern tribes.
"There are people within the Pakistani tribes who don't buy into the Taliban's concept of Islam," this analyst said. "They don't believe this is the correct way to practice the religion. To me this suggests that there are fissures, both ideological and tribal, that can be exploited." But exploiting them will take a good deal of time, give our lack of cultural and institutional understanding. "Before you start getting involved in these situations," a senior American military intelligence officer told me, "you need to know who is whose enemy, which groups are backing the Taliban and al Qaeda. At the clan and tribal level, we don't have a good idea of this." Such knowledge could perhaps be gleaned from our Afghan allies, since neither Pashtun nor Baluch society recognizes the artificial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While working to develop local allies, the United States can also implement tactics other than pinprick bombing. This is especially important at a micro-level. Al Qaeda draws its strength from specific individuals and clans inside Pakistan, including powerful allies in the military and intelligence service, tribal sheiks, and figures in the underground economy. We need to better understand the patronage networks that al Qaeda and the Taliban benefit from, and undermine them.
On the one hand, the United States can use a variety of sticks. It can support tribal groups that oppose al Qaeda and the Taliban against rivals who favor them. It can work with Pakistani and other intelligence services to shut down the businesses of individuals involved in the financial apparatus that backs our enemies--such as organized crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim--obtaining blackmail information on them and arresting their operatives.
David E. Kaplan, who investigated the nexus between organized crime and terrorism for U.S. News & World Report, believes there is no easy way to stop the flow of money to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Although it is known that al Qaeda benefits from the drug trade, controlling smuggling routes from Afghanistan to Pakistan and taxing each shipment, a solution to regional drug trafficking remains elusive. "If you go after opium growers," he said, "you'll undercut [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai's government because a lot of these guys back him." Kaplan says attempts are being made now to go after factions involved in the narcotics trade that back al Qaeda and the Taliban rather than those that back Karzai, "but the lines aren't always clear. The narcotics industry is diffuse, with lots of different players."
Kaplan does think that attempting to shut down sources of al Qaeda and Taliban funding within Pakistan's underground economy holds promise, given the American authorities' experience with combating multinational criminal organizations. "Look at how we broke the U.S. mafia in the past twenty years," he said. "But the bad news is that these guys are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The DEA didn't even have an office in Afghanistan until after 9/11, so they have a lot of catching up to do."
The senior U.S. military intelligence officer quoted above believes we should be ready to undermine support for the Taliban and al Qaeda within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military. "A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed," he said. "What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money, empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative--sending U.S. forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign--is worse."
Seth Jones of RAND is cautious about this approach because of the heavy support for the Taliban within the ISI. He notes that militants are supported not just by rogue elements but seemingly at the top levels as well. Certainly top leaders of ISI show little interest in arresting their own.
Not only sticks, of course, but also carrots could be used to entice actors in Pakistan to turn against al Qaeda. For example, the United States could enhance the prestige of commanders and units within Pakistan's military who willingly cooperated in efforts to root out extremism in the tribal areas. America could make sure they had the best equipment by earmarking aid for specific regiments or commanders. Similarly, U.S. military training could focus on units and commanders who had demonstrated their willingness to undertake military or policing efforts against extremist groups.
Whatever road we take in Pakistan will involve a substantial time commitment, and progress is likely to be slow. American policymakers and analysts still have a state-centric orientation, and have poorly incorporated non-traditional actors into their strategic thinking. The long process of improving our understanding of the Pakistani political scene at a granular level is essential to success.
Every option for moving forward has its associated challenges and pitfalls. But, contrary to some pessimistic views, we do have options. We are not doomed to remain on our present course--supporting Musharraf no matter what he does and bombing targets of opportunity, with no plan for destroying al Qaeda's new safe haven. That course is plainly ineffective. Worse, it may be preparing the way for another catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States--an attack that would inevitably lead to major military action. Rather than continue to drift toward a wholesale air campaign or ground invasion that threatens to bring still greater instability and danger, we would do far better to act now, using every means at hand to craft an alternative strategy.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the author of My Year Inside Radical Islam. He is grateful for the assistance of Joshua Goodman in the preparation of this article.
While Pakistan Burns
Al Qaeda regroups in the tribal areas, the government falters. What is to be done?
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
10/29/2007, Volume 013, Issue 07
If there were any doubt about the reach of militants in Pakistan, last week's events should have put them to rest. The ostentatious procession celebrating the return home of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was tragically cut short by twin bombs that killed over 130 and wounded several hundred more on Thursday night. The attackers almost succeeded in killing Bhutto as well. The blast shattered the windows in her vehicle and set a police escort car ablaze. The sophistication of the attack was apparent from the outset, and the bombs may have been accompanied by sniper fire.
But extremist violence in Pakistan is hardly news. The raids against the militant Lal Masjid mosque on July 11 occurred in Islamabad, the capital city. Supporters of al Qaeda exist in the military and intelligence services; indeed, there may prove to be a link between militant infiltrators of these institutions and the attempt on Bhutto's life. The mysterious fact that the streetlights were off and the phone lines dead during the attack further raises the possibility of collaboration with ideologically sympathetic low-level government officials. Still, the stronghold of militant activity in Pakistan is clearly the remote and mountainous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan has ceded more and more ground to al Qaeda and its allies over the past year.
The government's successive concessions to militants have not always been viewed as defeats; indeed officials tried to spin them as successes. A year ago, after the signing of one agreement, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States told a network reporter, "The Waziristan accord is not a good thing--it's a very good thing. It's a new step." Although the accords ceded control over significant portions of the FATA to tribal leaders aligned with al Qaeda and the Taliban, Washington was slow to sound the alarm. Some State Department officials defended the agreements, and President Bush himself offered tepid support during a September 2006 press conference with Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.
One year and three more accords later, all concede that the tribal areas are now the stronghold of al Qaeda's senior leadership--probably including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. As in Afghanistan under the Taliban, terrorist training camps operate freely, believed by U.S. intelligence to number almost 30. The 9/11 Commission Report warned that to carry out a catastrophic act of terror like 9/11, an organization requires "time, space, and the ability to perform competent planning and staff work," as well as "a command structure able to make necessary decisions and possessing the authority and contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials." Al Qaeda now enjoys both of these in Pakistan.
One result is the heightened terrorist threat manifest in the attack on Bhutto, but also in recent plots against the West. Last year U.S. and British authorities announced the disruption of an ambitious scheme to blow up airliners en route from Britain to the United States with liquid explosives. The operatives had trained at al Qaeda's FATA camps and met with high-level operatives Matiur Rehman and Abu Ubaydah al-Masri in Pakistan. Homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff recently told ABC News that the plot, if successful, would have killed thousands. One day last month, authorities in Europe arrested two terrorist cells in Denmark and Germany. Both cells were allegedly planning attacks; both were in touch with high-level extremists in Pakistan and had members who had trained there. While these arrests represent a success for law enforcement, they also signal al Qaeda's regeneration.
Al Qaeda's rebound was several years in the making. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 toppled the Taliban, most of al Qaeda's central leadership relocated to the FATA. Prompted by assassination attempts against Musharraf, Pakistan's military mounted a campaign to flush al Qaeda out of the tribal areas--but it suffered so many losses that by September 2006 Musharraf felt he had no option but to deal with his would-be killers. His solution was the Waziristan accords, peace agreements that essentially ceded North and South Waziristan to the Taliban and al Qaeda. As part of the accords, Pakistan's military agreed that it would no longer carry out air or ground strikes in the tribal areas, that it would disband its human intelligence network, and that it would abandon outposts and border crossings throughout Waziristan. The accords even allowed non-Pakistani militants to continue to reside in Waziristan if they made an unenforceable promise to "keep the peace."
The failure of these accords was predictable and almost immediate. Shortly after the accords were signed, a U.S. military official told the Associated Press that "American troops on Afghanistan's eastern border have seen a threefold increase" in cross-border attacks from Pakistan. Since then, Pakistan has entered into similar treaties over the tribal areas of Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand.
This leaves us with the present alarming picture: relative security for al Qaeda's senior leadership, greater instability in Afghanistan, a steady flow of skilled terrorists coming out of training camps, and a systemic risk of catastrophic attack reminiscent of the risk we faced before 9/11. This occurs against the backdrop of Musharraf's political impotence. Despite his electoral victory in October, Islamic extremists have sworn to topple him from power, and his clumsy handling of conflicts with his supreme court has destroyed his already dwindling support among liberal elites. Even the Bhutto assassination attempt has fueled anti-Musharraf propaganda, as rumors quickly spread that he was behind the attack--intending to use it as a pretext to impose martial law. Shadowy figures like Gen. Hamid Gul and Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, whose ideological sympathies lie with the Taliban and al Qaeda, lurk in the background. All of which conjueres up the "nightmare scenario": a nuclear-armed state openly aligned with our terrorist enemies.
Thus far, American policy toward Pakistan has amounted to unconditional support for Musharraf, coupled with occasional air strikes against high-level al Qaeda targets in the tribal areas. Emblematic of the latter is an October 30, 2006, strike against a madrassa in a Bajaur village that allegedly served as an al Qaeda training camp. While Zawahiri may have been the strike's target, the madrassa was affiliated with another key al Qaeda confederate, Faqir Mohammed, who had contracted a strategic marriage with a woman from the local Mamoond tribe. A U.S. Predator strike destroyed the school, but it hardly slowed down Mohammed, who gave an interview with NBC at the scene of the wreckage and later spoke at the funeral for the victims.
Nor is any satisfactory alternative military strategy on offer. One senior American military intelligence officer said it would take a sustained air campaign to deprive al Qaeda of its safe haven in the FATA. "We're talking about a Serbia-style prolonged campaign," he said. NATO's air campaign against Serbia's military lasted from March 24 through June 11, 1999, and comprised over 38,000 missions involving approximately 1,000 aircraft and a barrage of Tomahawk missiles. Such a campaign in Pakistan's tribal areas, the officer said, would "heavily degrade" but not eliminate al Qaeda. "Their camps won't be actively producing terrorists," he said, "but they'll survive the air campaign." Furthermore, a campaign on that scale might result in the toppling of Musharraf--who, in the vivid phrase of retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, is already "dancing on razor blades."
No analyst I spoke with thought we could do much better than the strategy of covert pinprick strikes that the United States and Pakistan are currently employing, wherein Pakistan frequently takes responsibility for U.S. strikes. This will not deprive al Qaeda of its safe haven, although it may occasionally yield important kills.
What about covert action? American Special Operations forces are already engaging in actions coordinated with the air strikes. The most notable achievement in this regard occurred in southern Afghanistan, where NATO and Afghan forces killed Mullah Dadullah Lang, the Taliban's top military commander, back in May. There are barriers, though, to expanding the Special Operations forces' role. The topography makes it difficult to insert and remove forces without being detected. Within the military, there is a real desire to avoid another Operation Eagle Claw--the ill-fated attempt to rescue hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran during President Carter's term.
Unfortunately, the potential for things going awry is high if Special Operations missions are increased. Special Operations forces act in small teams and are lightly armed, so could be overwhelmed by larger contingents of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Enemy forces in Pakistan are better armed and trained than the Somali forces in the Black Hawk Down incident, and they have SA-18 surface-to-air missiles capable of downing American helicopters.
There is always the option of a full-scale counterinsurgency operation in the FATA, including the insertion of American ground troops. Some commentators favor this approach. Steve Schippert, the managing editor of Threats-Watch, told me, "At the end of the day, there is no getting around that if al Qaeda is going to be defeated in Pakistan, it will take our boots on the ground." Military affairs analyst Bill Roggio agrees that in an ideal world we would conduct counterinsurgency operations jointly with Pakistan's armed forces, but deems this not feasible in the current political context: We lack both resources and the will to take the casualties it would require. Roggio is almost certainly right--and, again, the insertion of American ground forces would heighten the risk of Musharraf's being toppled from power.
Pakistan's military, meanwhile, does not appear to be up to the task of confronting the militants. It is unclear what level of casualties caused Musharraf to call off the attempt to control the tribal areas and make a deal with the extremists; the numbers are secret and estimates vary widely. Most observers believe Pakistan has lost about 1,000 men in its fight to control the FATA, but some believe it has lost more soldiers in this fight than the United States has lost in Iraq. Then, too, Pakistani soldiers have shown reluctance to fight their "Muslim brothers." This unwillingness was bolstered by a fatwa issued in 2004 by clerics Mohammed Abdul Aziz and Abdur Rashid Ghazi stating that Pakistani soldiers killed in South Waziristan deserved neither a Muslim funeral nor burial in a Muslim cemetery.
Where does the dearth of military options leave us? Pakistan's government could still play an important role despite its military's weakness. Seth Jones, of the RAND Corporation, argues that the centerpiece of U.S. strategy should be diplomatic pressure on Islamabad, once the political situation in Pakistan is calmer. "We need a clear diplomatic message," Jones said. "Al Qaeda is regenerated, and a number of recent terror plots are linked back to its tribal areas. Pakistan faces a choice not too different from what it faced on 9/11."
U.S. assistance, Jones says, should be tied directly to the arrest or killing of key al Qaeda leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri. "The threat then would be that if we can't get clear progress in a measurable timeframe, this would leave the United States in the unfortunate position of having to significantly decrease its assistance to Pakistan and move in the direction of India," he says. Jones thinks this pressure should be aimed at getting Pakistan's military and intelligence services to undertake a "clear and hold strategy" against al Qaeda safe havens--not as a military offensive, but a police and intelligence operation.
Others favor an even more aggressive Pakistani role, beginning with a declaration that the treaties concerning the tribal areas are dead. There is ample justification for renouncing the accords, which the Taliban violated from the outset by killing Pakistani troops, sending its fighters into Afghanistan to fight coalition forces, and setting up separate governmental entities.
If Pakistan nullified the FATA agreements, there are aggressive measures it could take without risking its troops in the tribal areas. Musharraf could treat the FATA as a hostile province and impede militants' movements by erecting fences along the perimeter (as Pakistan has done on parts of its border with India) and establishing an internal passport system. Anybody who traveled out of the FATA could be treated as though he were entering from an enemy nation, and would be subject to search and questioning. Impeding the movement of FATA-based extremists would not only hinder their efforts, but also help coalition forces in Afghanistan to track who had visited the high-risk FATA. As one senior American military intelligence officer put it, "FATA should become Taiwan to Pakistan's China."
The major problem with this approach is that it hinges on Musharraf. He was presented with a sterling opportunity to cancel the accords earlier this summer, after Pakistani forces raided the Lal Masjid. That mosque had been a center for the recruitment of fighters and suicide bombers to combat coalition forces in Afghanistan. Militants in the tribal areas responded to the raid with rage and vows of revenge. A number of attacks on Pakistani forces were launched from the FATA thereafter, in clear violation of the accords. Musharraf talked tough talk, but he never declared the accords dead--and ultimately reaffirmed his commitment to withdraw all Pakistani troops from tribal areas by year's end.
Musharraf's reluctance to abandon the accord framework does not mean he will never do so. The United States has not applied sustained pressure on this issue, and it should. It should develop a basket of incentives to persuade Musharraf to junk the agreements. Still, even as it hopes for the best from Pakistan, Washington should be prepared for continuing inaction.
American successes in Iraq over the past year may hold some lessons for tackling the problem in Pakistan. A critical factor in the turnaround during the tenure of Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Iraq has been our improved ability to align with tribal elements that oppose the brutality of al Qaeda. The Anbar Salvation Front--a collection of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others united in the goal of driving al Qaeda from their country--has been a vital ally in destroying the safe haven al Qaeda had enjoyed in Iraq's Anbar province. We won't quickly find an ally in Pakistan as capable as the late Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, who led the Anbar Salvation Front, but the broader lesson is the need to understand local actors and rely on more than our sheer military might.
One expert on irregular warfare who frequently consults with the federal government argues that the Anbar Salvation Front model should be considered for Pakistan. Though her ideas are "the starting point for a conversation" rather than a well-developed proposal, she notes surface similarities between Iraq and Pakistan. "You have multiple tribes," she said, "some of which have been in conflict and some of which have been aligned. The way people make their living is also similar. There are settled tribes that live by agriculture, and tribes that have lived by smuggling, banditry, and tribal warfare." The Pakistani tribes apparently differ in their approach to al Qaeda, too, the northern tribes being more welcoming than the southern tribes.
"There are people within the Pakistani tribes who don't buy into the Taliban's concept of Islam," this analyst said. "They don't believe this is the correct way to practice the religion. To me this suggests that there are fissures, both ideological and tribal, that can be exploited." But exploiting them will take a good deal of time, give our lack of cultural and institutional understanding. "Before you start getting involved in these situations," a senior American military intelligence officer told me, "you need to know who is whose enemy, which groups are backing the Taliban and al Qaeda. At the clan and tribal level, we don't have a good idea of this." Such knowledge could perhaps be gleaned from our Afghan allies, since neither Pashtun nor Baluch society recognizes the artificial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While working to develop local allies, the United States can also implement tactics other than pinprick bombing. This is especially important at a micro-level. Al Qaeda draws its strength from specific individuals and clans inside Pakistan, including powerful allies in the military and intelligence service, tribal sheiks, and figures in the underground economy. We need to better understand the patronage networks that al Qaeda and the Taliban benefit from, and undermine them.
On the one hand, the United States can use a variety of sticks. It can support tribal groups that oppose al Qaeda and the Taliban against rivals who favor them. It can work with Pakistani and other intelligence services to shut down the businesses of individuals involved in the financial apparatus that backs our enemies--such as organized crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim--obtaining blackmail information on them and arresting their operatives.
David E. Kaplan, who investigated the nexus between organized crime and terrorism for U.S. News & World Report, believes there is no easy way to stop the flow of money to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Although it is known that al Qaeda benefits from the drug trade, controlling smuggling routes from Afghanistan to Pakistan and taxing each shipment, a solution to regional drug trafficking remains elusive. "If you go after opium growers," he said, "you'll undercut [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai's government because a lot of these guys back him." Kaplan says attempts are being made now to go after factions involved in the narcotics trade that back al Qaeda and the Taliban rather than those that back Karzai, "but the lines aren't always clear. The narcotics industry is diffuse, with lots of different players."
Kaplan does think that attempting to shut down sources of al Qaeda and Taliban funding within Pakistan's underground economy holds promise, given the American authorities' experience with combating multinational criminal organizations. "Look at how we broke the U.S. mafia in the past twenty years," he said. "But the bad news is that these guys are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The DEA didn't even have an office in Afghanistan until after 9/11, so they have a lot of catching up to do."
The senior U.S. military intelligence officer quoted above believes we should be ready to undermine support for the Taliban and al Qaeda within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military. "A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed," he said. "What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money, empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative--sending U.S. forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign--is worse."
Seth Jones of RAND is cautious about this approach because of the heavy support for the Taliban within the ISI. He notes that militants are supported not just by rogue elements but seemingly at the top levels as well. Certainly top leaders of ISI show little interest in arresting their own.
Not only sticks, of course, but also carrots could be used to entice actors in Pakistan to turn against al Qaeda. For example, the United States could enhance the prestige of commanders and units within Pakistan's military who willingly cooperated in efforts to root out extremism in the tribal areas. America could make sure they had the best equipment by earmarking aid for specific regiments or commanders. Similarly, U.S. military training could focus on units and commanders who had demonstrated their willingness to undertake military or policing efforts against extremist groups.
Whatever road we take in Pakistan will involve a substantial time commitment, and progress is likely to be slow. American policymakers and analysts still have a state-centric orientation, and have poorly incorporated non-traditional actors into their strategic thinking. The long process of improving our understanding of the Pakistani political scene at a granular level is essential to success.
Every option for moving forward has its associated challenges and pitfalls. But, contrary to some pessimistic views, we do have options. We are not doomed to remain on our present course--supporting Musharraf no matter what he does and bombing targets of opportunity, with no plan for destroying al Qaeda's new safe haven. That course is plainly ineffective. Worse, it may be preparing the way for another catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States--an attack that would inevitably lead to major military action. Rather than continue to drift toward a wholesale air campaign or ground invasion that threatens to bring still greater instability and danger, we would do far better to act now, using every means at hand to craft an alternative strategy.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the author of My Year Inside Radical Islam. He is grateful for the assistance of Joshua Goodman in the preparation of this article.
fascinating thread this thread.
being a newbie i have a few very fruity questions, nevertheless...
#1. are there any elements in TSP who can sacrifice the mush and the tush(bebo) to "save" the country? somebody who can do a mush-a-rough on mushy's musharaff? will this civil war peter out if sharief come to power?
#2. with sunni and pashtun groups refusing to fight, how do they anticipate shia battalions(?) to solve the problems? will it not open up a whole new orchestra which, inshahallah, will play out even in areas east of the sindhu?
#3a. these are all once in a yuga type of alignments. what can india do? are there any short term( dawood etc) and long term(?) gains for india. ultimately, i dunno if we ever want to integrate so many brainwashed folks ever back into bharat, so can we use this period to do psyops that the islamic utopia is pipedream? is their any media man in des with reach who can start a dialogue with - 60 years on, wither pakistan? keep the wound fresh. as fragile as things stand, can basic existential questions be asked?
#3b. can we do a psyops on bdesh- this is what happenned to tsp - you think you are any better?
#4. what is the effect of all these developments on the SIMI kinds? how to hammer them now?
being a newbie i have a few very fruity questions, nevertheless...
#1. are there any elements in TSP who can sacrifice the mush and the tush(bebo) to "save" the country? somebody who can do a mush-a-rough on mushy's musharaff? will this civil war peter out if sharief come to power?
#2. with sunni and pashtun groups refusing to fight, how do they anticipate shia battalions(?) to solve the problems? will it not open up a whole new orchestra which, inshahallah, will play out even in areas east of the sindhu?
#3a. these are all once in a yuga type of alignments. what can india do? are there any short term( dawood etc) and long term(?) gains for india. ultimately, i dunno if we ever want to integrate so many brainwashed folks ever back into bharat, so can we use this period to do psyops that the islamic utopia is pipedream? is their any media man in des with reach who can start a dialogue with - 60 years on, wither pakistan? keep the wound fresh. as fragile as things stand, can basic existential questions be asked?
#3b. can we do a psyops on bdesh- this is what happenned to tsp - you think you are any better?
#4. what is the effect of all these developments on the SIMI kinds? how to hammer them now?
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
N^3:
TSP soldiers are laying down arms in front of loosely equipped guerrilla Talibs. What would motivate them to fight much better equipped Indian forces, who are anyway baying for their blood? The unity of command within TSPA is broken with Muskrat enacting the drama of resignation and appointing his confidant as TSPA chief. The command is split between Army chief and Muskrat. If muskrat declares war against India, wouldn't his situation approximate that of Saddam Hussien just before Gulf War II? How long will such an army's discipline last? India's main concern would be the dirty bombs and M11 missiles parked with their strategic commands.
TSP soldiers are laying down arms in front of loosely equipped guerrilla Talibs. What would motivate them to fight much better equipped Indian forces, who are anyway baying for their blood? The unity of command within TSPA is broken with Muskrat enacting the drama of resignation and appointing his confidant as TSPA chief. The command is split between Army chief and Muskrat. If muskrat declares war against India, wouldn't his situation approximate that of Saddam Hussien just before Gulf War II? How long will such an army's discipline last? India's main concern would be the dirty bombs and M11 missiles parked with their strategic commands.
N3 agree with you. It appears very imminent and somebody (including mush) will prolly do exactly that. That is clearly a way out.
In one of the threads Shiv said that the key to nyukleeyar deterrence lies in that you can go rogue unilaterally and nobody will/can do anything about it. Rogue as in show the middle finger to massa on the west and open the eastern front to divert adbul’s attention and get some morale shots for RATS.
They will need a pretext and that is where doing a mush-a-rough comes in. Are Ajmer/Hyderabad long shots at creating a pretext or a foment in India that will distract its own Abduls – count your blessings, see how good we have in the land of the puke type of psyops?
Also they prolly have a short window before winter sets in.
Apart from that what prevents TSP from going rogue right now? How much leverage does massa really have on TSP? Can they get to ISI or even gola and other biggies’ accounts? Even if they can, will they? Especially given that I will eat grass but do the … attitude.
Anant, from what i read here, RATS did not surrender because of morale issue it was because of biraderi issues. But with beheadings and mutilation on the western front, gola talk, TSA negotiation efforts etc.. perhaps some amount of dejection has set in, hopefully inshaallah. but nothing a nice short war against infidels/yindoos and a few patriotic songs cannot fix.
In one of the threads Shiv said that the key to nyukleeyar deterrence lies in that you can go rogue unilaterally and nobody will/can do anything about it. Rogue as in show the middle finger to massa on the west and open the eastern front to divert adbul’s attention and get some morale shots for RATS.
They will need a pretext and that is where doing a mush-a-rough comes in. Are Ajmer/Hyderabad long shots at creating a pretext or a foment in India that will distract its own Abduls – count your blessings, see how good we have in the land of the puke type of psyops?
Also they prolly have a short window before winter sets in.
Apart from that what prevents TSP from going rogue right now? How much leverage does massa really have on TSP? Can they get to ISI or even gola and other biggies’ accounts? Even if they can, will they? Especially given that I will eat grass but do the … attitude.
Anant, from what i read here, RATS did not surrender because of morale issue it was because of biraderi issues. But with beheadings and mutilation on the western front, gola talk, TSA negotiation efforts etc.. perhaps some amount of dejection has set in, hopefully inshaallah. but nothing a nice short war against infidels/yindoos and a few patriotic songs cannot fix.
-
Schär
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
Ananth, agree with you on the TSPA's condition, but their morale shoots up temporarily as they go charging on their tanks into India.
Hitler tried this in what ended as the Battle of the Bulge. Saddam lost it all because he didn't use his Republican Guard as anything other than B-52 targets. Ayub tried it as Operation Nitwit or whatever in what became Asal Uttar and ended at Khemkaran. Yahya tried it in Chaamb and in Longewala.
Why wouldn't Mush try it? It's the only hope.. and Pakis NEVER lose hope to take over Srinagar and Delhi.
Hitler tried this in what ended as the Battle of the Bulge. Saddam lost it all because he didn't use his Republican Guard as anything other than B-52 targets. Ayub tried it as Operation Nitwit or whatever in what became Asal Uttar and ended at Khemkaran. Yahya tried it in Chaamb and in Longewala.
Why wouldn't Mush try it? It's the only hope.. and Pakis NEVER lose hope to take over Srinagar and Delhi.
Any far possibilityof JDAM going kabbom in Afghanistan?enqyoob wrote:Ananth, agree with you on the TSPA's condition, but their morale shoots up temporarily as they go charging on their tanks into India.
Hitler tried this in what ended as the Battle of the Bulge. Saddam lost it all because he didn't use his Republican Guard as anything other than B-52 targets. Ayub tried it as Operation Nitwit or whatever in what became Asal Uttar and ended at Khemkaran. Yahya tried it in Chaamb and in Longewala.
Why wouldn't Mush try it? It's the only hope.. and Pakis NEVER lose hope to take over Srinagar and Delhi.
Certainly, and not a distant possibility... Bagram is an attractive target. Access is easy, relatively speaking. It is only a question of whether that would have the appropriate impact in terms of both casualties, media outcry from the West and Afghan reaction... I mean, who's to say that a JDAM retaliation will not occur on the Islamagood/Rawalpindi axis? Of course, the latter issue would not figure in any calculation on a JDAM boom, pretty much anywhere... Pakisatan would be in the crosshairs wherever it goes off.
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
I don't know about JDAM as a component of Jehad. For one thing, of course, the retaliation may be a bit too easy for the kufr, since they have 1,000,000,000,000,000 atom-bums vs. maybe 100 total (imagined) for the Faithful, which will be down to about 5 inside 15 minutes of the first JDAM.
For another, there is no Islamic lore to provide the right philosophical context for a WMD. The Yehudi-Crusader kufr have it - the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - S & G sound very close to LaHore and Karachi in terms of the parties going on there. The Yindooo Kufr also have plenty of spine-tingling stories about WDM.
In Islam, "WMD" has been one throat at a time. None of this technological mass "cleansing". ATM has always instructed His followers to go slit the throats with sharp knives or swords, none of this push-button stuff. Actually I am very disturbed that the IED has not been declared unIslamic, but then, that may be a required release valve for the anger of those who have seen loved ones and loved goats blown apart. Neat solution - hits the kufr, releases the anger and gets rid of the angry jehadi, all in one package. And no one left to interrogate and spill the beans.
The question I am trying to answer is "why has there NOT been a JDAM yet?"
1. Consideration for the kufr? Certainly not - look at all the terrorist acts. They love that - the only trouble with a bum is that it takes all the fun out of slitting throats and other tender parts and hearing the screams and moans and gurgles.
2. Lack of JDAMS. Let us put this one on hold, because it is simply incredible, UNLESS of course TSP is COMPLETELY nuke-nude.
3. Not enough provocation from the kufr to justify a proportionate response?
Well.. think about it. 120,000 + pest-e-sha'eed in Afghanistan. 30000+ in Kashmir (I mean the pest-e-sha'eed - the rest of the 60,000 dead are innocents or the security guys and gals trying to protect the innocents). 2 million Faithful shaheed in Iraq. Maybe 250,000 around Israel and in Lebanon. Not to forget: The BABRI MASJID! And the Gujarat riots - 700 killed. Now some 10,000 killed and 100,000 maimed in FATWA. The LAL MASJID massacre!
There is no lack of provocation from the Jehad perspective.
Now add to that all the horrors visited upon the Faithful at Guano Bay and Bagaram and all those Russian and Polish and Czech and Jordanian CIA torture chambers.
Some numbers in Thailand, Phillippines. Huge numbers in Bosnia-Serbia.
4. Fear of retribution on the Jehad.
Hardly. I mean, can it that worse than what happened to Tora Bora or Mir Ali or Wana or the Lal Masjid? And anyway, consider that these ppl have no trouble finding suicide bombers for such minor Houristan-ticket actions as inflating a military checkpoint with 3 guys standing around.
5. Which brings us to the only reason I can imagine: The Jehad is truly run out of some place which DOES care about retaliation against their near and dear and their property. Pakistan Army HQ / ISI HQ. Or maybe Jeddah - but those buggers don't want to see the West destroyed, any more than Dubya does. In a true Shariyah, their "mijjiles" would be first to go.
So the entire JDAM calculation has to be revised to the certainty that it is no different from a PDAM. If this is the case, the Americans (who should know, because they lovingly brought up the PA and all its nuke programs, and funded all the baksheesh bank accounts and facilitiated the coups) have the strategy and tactics right - hold the Paki Generals close, real close, from behind... with all that it implies. And keep jerking them forward and back, until they manage to destroy themselves as they are doing now. IOW, the American pressure to the TSPA to go into the FATWA is part of the strategy to grind the TSPA down along with any hope of reviving a united Pakistan under a nuke-armed Army in future.
**********
The ONLY hope for the TSPA to break free and still retain some hope of controlling what remains of TSP, is still to attack India. War with India would drive the Yankees out swiftly - they don't want their people caught on the ground with a viable air force and missile force raining death down on the TSP, and they don't want to be anywhere around if said conflict goes nuclear. ******************
But then again, Indian planners should note the lesson above: Make the strategy very very clear - NO PAKI General or his property will survive an attack on India. The response will be focused on the Paki Generals' property, not on TSP's missiles or planes or anything else. Remember how the TSPAF calmly sat out the Kargil war?
For another, there is no Islamic lore to provide the right philosophical context for a WMD. The Yehudi-Crusader kufr have it - the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - S & G sound very close to LaHore and Karachi in terms of the parties going on there. The Yindooo Kufr also have plenty of spine-tingling stories about WDM.
In Islam, "WMD" has been one throat at a time. None of this technological mass "cleansing". ATM has always instructed His followers to go slit the throats with sharp knives or swords, none of this push-button stuff. Actually I am very disturbed that the IED has not been declared unIslamic, but then, that may be a required release valve for the anger of those who have seen loved ones and loved goats blown apart. Neat solution - hits the kufr, releases the anger and gets rid of the angry jehadi, all in one package. And no one left to interrogate and spill the beans.
The question I am trying to answer is "why has there NOT been a JDAM yet?"
1. Consideration for the kufr? Certainly not - look at all the terrorist acts. They love that - the only trouble with a bum is that it takes all the fun out of slitting throats and other tender parts and hearing the screams and moans and gurgles.
2. Lack of JDAMS. Let us put this one on hold, because it is simply incredible, UNLESS of course TSP is COMPLETELY nuke-nude.
3. Not enough provocation from the kufr to justify a proportionate response?
Well.. think about it. 120,000 + pest-e-sha'eed in Afghanistan. 30000+ in Kashmir (I mean the pest-e-sha'eed - the rest of the 60,000 dead are innocents or the security guys and gals trying to protect the innocents). 2 million Faithful shaheed in Iraq. Maybe 250,000 around Israel and in Lebanon. Not to forget: The BABRI MASJID! And the Gujarat riots - 700 killed. Now some 10,000 killed and 100,000 maimed in FATWA. The LAL MASJID massacre!
There is no lack of provocation from the Jehad perspective.
Now add to that all the horrors visited upon the Faithful at Guano Bay and Bagaram and all those Russian and Polish and Czech and Jordanian CIA torture chambers.
Some numbers in Thailand, Phillippines. Huge numbers in Bosnia-Serbia.
4. Fear of retribution on the Jehad.
Hardly. I mean, can it that worse than what happened to Tora Bora or Mir Ali or Wana or the Lal Masjid? And anyway, consider that these ppl have no trouble finding suicide bombers for such minor Houristan-ticket actions as inflating a military checkpoint with 3 guys standing around.
5. Which brings us to the only reason I can imagine: The Jehad is truly run out of some place which DOES care about retaliation against their near and dear and their property. Pakistan Army HQ / ISI HQ. Or maybe Jeddah - but those buggers don't want to see the West destroyed, any more than Dubya does. In a true Shariyah, their "mijjiles" would be first to go.
So the entire JDAM calculation has to be revised to the certainty that it is no different from a PDAM. If this is the case, the Americans (who should know, because they lovingly brought up the PA and all its nuke programs, and funded all the baksheesh bank accounts and facilitiated the coups) have the strategy and tactics right - hold the Paki Generals close, real close, from behind... with all that it implies. And keep jerking them forward and back, until they manage to destroy themselves as they are doing now. IOW, the American pressure to the TSPA to go into the FATWA is part of the strategy to grind the TSPA down along with any hope of reviving a united Pakistan under a nuke-armed Army in future.
**********
The ONLY hope for the TSPA to break free and still retain some hope of controlling what remains of TSP, is still to attack India. War with India would drive the Yankees out swiftly - they don't want their people caught on the ground with a viable air force and missile force raining death down on the TSP, and they don't want to be anywhere around if said conflict goes nuclear. ******************
But then again, Indian planners should note the lesson above: Make the strategy very very clear - NO PAKI General or his property will survive an attack on India. The response will be focused on the Paki Generals' property, not on TSP's missiles or planes or anything else. Remember how the TSPAF calmly sat out the Kargil war?
-
Malayappan
- BRFite
- Posts: 462
- Joined: 18 Jul 2005 00:11
The Fall of Northwestern Pakistan: An Online History
By Bill Roggio
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... zirist.php
At the end of the article there is a long list of articles with links. Titles like
Pakistan Unraveling
Pakistan's Decline...
..... South Waziristan falls
The Taliban Consolidates Power in Pakistan...
May all these feature in all searches and lead to enlightenment, and greater interest. And above all I wish some Experts from US and UK get involved and advise Pakis how to handle the situation!
By Bill Roggio
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... zirist.php
At the end of the article there is a long list of articles with links. Titles like
Pakistan Unraveling
Pakistan's Decline...
..... South Waziristan falls
The Taliban Consolidates Power in Pakistan...
May all these feature in all searches and lead to enlightenment, and greater interest. And above all I wish some Experts from US and UK get involved and advise Pakis how to handle the situation!
-
vivek_ahuja
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 2393
- Joined: 07 Feb 2007 16:58
You know, the recent news coming forward about the Paki Army's combat tactics against the militants in the outlying regions is extremely interesting to say the least. it might be worthwhile to look at these.
For example, it is now being reported that the Paki troops are being airlifted via helicopters to the hill tops around any area of Operation. for example, given that a village is to be targetted, the paki troops are not doing the direct assualt but are occupying positions on the hills nearby. this too in clear view of the residents of the village. they are thus simply saying that we are occupying the high ground in the battlefield. true enough so far.
nevertheless, it means that not only are you telling the enemy that "we are digging in, so if you want us out, come and throw us out", but also giving away the initiative to the Militants, who can now decide when and where to attack. In my opinion, this is the primary cause of the failure of umpteen Paki Army operations in these areas. further, since there is total transperency in thier operations, the Militants inside the said target zone simply then begin to gather up and execute any symbol of Government authority. it can be anyone from the policemen and paramilitary forces to the local tax collector. all this happens literally under the eyes of the Paki troops in the hills outside the village. this is a example of the shambles which the Paki high command staff is in.
normally the idea is: Offence in Defence. the Opposite is also true: Defence in Offense. As far as the Pakis are concerned, it means: Virtual Offense and Non-Existant Defence.
The airlifted Paki troops are ostensibly on the offensive, heading out into the lawless regions using advanced weaponry and support. but once they put their feet on the ground, their first action is alomost always to start digging in. this is true even in cases where whole Infantry Divisions simply dig trenches around their base perimeters in an effort to keep the enemy from pouring in, instead of going out on patrols to protect their own civilians in the nearby villages.
Under this kind of warfighting mentality it is in my opinion that the Paki army is never going to win the hearts and minds of its own citizens and will lose this support rapidly. furthermore, they are, as a result of this strategy, continuing to lose villages and towns by the numbers. perhaps it has failed to dawn on their commanders that in this kind of warfare, you simply cannot hand over urban centres to the enemy where they will never be rooted out from. compared to clearing out cities and towns, house by house, clearing the hills using modern weapons is childs play.
it is also obvious that the Paki army has inadvertently committed itself to a seige-war by putting its own feet in cement. Of course, it was never good at maneuver warfare anyway, going by past records.
Victories and defeats mean a lot. And in this kind of warfare, it can never be defined in absolute terms. there is no concept of holding ground as the good old days. The enemy does not retreat, he simply melts away into the civilians. Victories as well as defeats in such situations are more in the mind that in physical terms. For example, for every Paki soldier that bites the dust, the MIlitants claim a victory. and yet the converse is not true for the Paki army. this is because the Nation expects more of them. it expects them to be a omnipresent force behind the government. in defining its combat role by digging in and committing to not engage the militants offensively, the Paki army is now an impotent arm of the government.
the results of the army's impotency has many interesting results. For example, the MIlitant force can no longer be considered as a rebel force or a guerilla force. It is now assuming the proportions of an army. whether in reality or not, the fact is that it is now considered more potent than the national army. The best part is that the average civilian now recognizes this fact.
in effect, more than the militants taking it away, the Paki army has given its game away more than anything else. If such a combat strategy is pursued unabated, the day when it loses its grip altogether cannot be far off, if not already so.
For example, it is now being reported that the Paki troops are being airlifted via helicopters to the hill tops around any area of Operation. for example, given that a village is to be targetted, the paki troops are not doing the direct assualt but are occupying positions on the hills nearby. this too in clear view of the residents of the village. they are thus simply saying that we are occupying the high ground in the battlefield. true enough so far.
nevertheless, it means that not only are you telling the enemy that "we are digging in, so if you want us out, come and throw us out", but also giving away the initiative to the Militants, who can now decide when and where to attack. In my opinion, this is the primary cause of the failure of umpteen Paki Army operations in these areas. further, since there is total transperency in thier operations, the Militants inside the said target zone simply then begin to gather up and execute any symbol of Government authority. it can be anyone from the policemen and paramilitary forces to the local tax collector. all this happens literally under the eyes of the Paki troops in the hills outside the village. this is a example of the shambles which the Paki high command staff is in.
normally the idea is: Offence in Defence. the Opposite is also true: Defence in Offense. As far as the Pakis are concerned, it means: Virtual Offense and Non-Existant Defence.
The airlifted Paki troops are ostensibly on the offensive, heading out into the lawless regions using advanced weaponry and support. but once they put their feet on the ground, their first action is alomost always to start digging in. this is true even in cases where whole Infantry Divisions simply dig trenches around their base perimeters in an effort to keep the enemy from pouring in, instead of going out on patrols to protect their own civilians in the nearby villages.
Under this kind of warfighting mentality it is in my opinion that the Paki army is never going to win the hearts and minds of its own citizens and will lose this support rapidly. furthermore, they are, as a result of this strategy, continuing to lose villages and towns by the numbers. perhaps it has failed to dawn on their commanders that in this kind of warfare, you simply cannot hand over urban centres to the enemy where they will never be rooted out from. compared to clearing out cities and towns, house by house, clearing the hills using modern weapons is childs play.
it is also obvious that the Paki army has inadvertently committed itself to a seige-war by putting its own feet in cement. Of course, it was never good at maneuver warfare anyway, going by past records.
Victories and defeats mean a lot. And in this kind of warfare, it can never be defined in absolute terms. there is no concept of holding ground as the good old days. The enemy does not retreat, he simply melts away into the civilians. Victories as well as defeats in such situations are more in the mind that in physical terms. For example, for every Paki soldier that bites the dust, the MIlitants claim a victory. and yet the converse is not true for the Paki army. this is because the Nation expects more of them. it expects them to be a omnipresent force behind the government. in defining its combat role by digging in and committing to not engage the militants offensively, the Paki army is now an impotent arm of the government.
the results of the army's impotency has many interesting results. For example, the MIlitant force can no longer be considered as a rebel force or a guerilla force. It is now assuming the proportions of an army. whether in reality or not, the fact is that it is now considered more potent than the national army. The best part is that the average civilian now recognizes this fact.
in effect, more than the militants taking it away, the Paki army has given its game away more than anything else. If such a combat strategy is pursued unabated, the day when it loses its grip altogether cannot be far off, if not already so.
AN excellent presentation on Pashtunistan by Anthony H. Cordesman of CSIS. Originally posted by S-2 on WAB.
The Struggle for Pashtunistan
The Struggle for Pashtunistan
do you think unkil would allow this? Not out of any love for India mind you, but just to keep TSPA's focus on the Afghan front where unkil wants it.enqyoob wrote:Shaardula:
It's the question u didn't ask that worries me:
What is the one thing Mush can do to hush up this stuff?
Pakistan Dictator Cycle Step 11:
War with India.
http://www.chowk.com/articles/12844
Voice from Waziristan
Me: What is government doing about it? After all, army is deployed in the area?
Atif: Yaraji, even a simpleton like me understands that it is the government itself, which is responsible. They have allowed them to grow to show the world that there is problem in these areas. Sometime, to show the world they attack them and then go about shouting about it. They do not even hesitate to sacrifice their own poor soldiers in the process. Tell me, if ISI is not helping them, then how come they have all the latest weapons except tanks and armored vehicles. Now, they have even acquired some armored vehicles also after kidnapping army convoy and are roaming around in it. Almost every single Taliban commander, however small and insignificant he may be, possesses four wheelers and roams around with the escort of bodyguards. Part of the money that is coming to combat terrorism is actually used to help them.
Me: So, the ISI is behind that?
Atif: Yes; most definitely they are. They even have suicide training camps in Waziristan where they train young boys from the age of twelve to sixteen. They brainwash them and make them believe that this is real Jihad, and when they will die in their cause, they will go straight to Jannat.
Voice from Waziristan
Me: What is government doing about it? After all, army is deployed in the area?
Atif: Yaraji, even a simpleton like me understands that it is the government itself, which is responsible. They have allowed them to grow to show the world that there is problem in these areas. Sometime, to show the world they attack them and then go about shouting about it. They do not even hesitate to sacrifice their own poor soldiers in the process. Tell me, if ISI is not helping them, then how come they have all the latest weapons except tanks and armored vehicles. Now, they have even acquired some armored vehicles also after kidnapping army convoy and are roaming around in it. Almost every single Taliban commander, however small and insignificant he may be, possesses four wheelers and roams around with the escort of bodyguards. Part of the money that is coming to combat terrorism is actually used to help them.
Me: So, the ISI is behind that?
Atif: Yes; most definitely they are. They even have suicide training camps in Waziristan where they train young boys from the age of twelve to sixteen. They brainwash them and make them believe that this is real Jihad, and when they will die in their cause, they will go straight to Jannat.
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
The airlifted Paki troops are ostensibly on the offensive, heading out into the lawless regions using advanced weaponry and support. but once they put their feet on the ground, their first action is alomost always to start digging in. this is true even in cases where whole Infantry Divisions simply dig trenches around their base perimeters in an effort to keep the enemy from pouring in, instead of going out on patrols to protect their own civilians in the nearby villages.
Vivek:
Thanks for that fine info on the TSPA's tactics. This is
as Yogi Berra said.deja vu all over again,
In 1970-71, TSPA did the same in East Pakistan. Except that was in the "cantonments". Did not dare to come out except in daytime, and eventually even lost courage to do even that.
Common factor is they have started off by piss*ng off the locals with their aerial bombing, strafing of homes and village markets, and general obnoxiousness. So they have no hope of "clearing out" any part of any town or village, because there is no one on their side. So they lose patience and go massacre a whole village, like they did in Baluchistan. Again, VERY bad tactics.
Now here, these clowns are entirely dependent on helicopter or convoy resupply. The tribals have full freedom of movement in the valleys and plains, with the TSPA imagining themselves to be in superior positions on the "high ground". They are dreaming. The tribals will be seen when they WANT to be seen.
At some point, the tribals can shoot down the helicopters that come for resupply and ambush the convoys, so these guys are going to be out of luck, and will end up with head and torso in different geographical coordinates. Right now, the tribals seem bent on doing it the clean way - let the Pakis watch the policemen and captured TSPA men being beheaded, and let them watch the bodies rotting in the sun....
Surrender with safe conduct back to Pakjab is the best that the TSPA can hope for. Already several groups of paratroopers have been found in pieces, and been buried in mass graves.
N^3,The ONLY hope for the TSPA to break free and still retain some hope of controlling what remains of TSP, is still to attack India. War with India would drive the Yankees out swiftly - they don't want their people caught on the ground with a viable air force and missile force raining death down on the TSP, and they don't want to be anywhere around if said conflict goes nuclear. ******************
The only viable scenario where TSPA is trying hard to portray itself on the loosing end is let a nodong convoy drive around with the earnest expectation that it will be captured for replacing a mosque minaret it demolished during the recent strafing campaign. The talibun gets a moral booster , keeping the US worried until is gets launched with the coordinates set for India while TSPA feigns innocence.
As Vikram Sood has raised the pin prick up a notch by mentioning they now need to display good behaviour. But good behaviour is to be displayed by those who are under their control. Running towards the border is not a solution, so is the occasional blasts not going to move India to the border, only a broken arrow can make that happen.
Where did we see these tactics before? Someplace beginning with a 'K', under Jernel whatshisname... oh yes Musharaf the Commando.vivek_ahuja wrote:
For example, it is now being reported that the Paki troops are being airlifted via helicopters to the hill tops around any area of Operation. for example, given that a village is to be targetted, the paki troops are not doing the direct assualt but are occupying positions on the hills nearby. this too in clear view of the residents of the village. they are thus simply saying that we are occupying the high ground in the battlefield. true enough so far.
So, are we looking at an army led by a one-trick pony?
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
We will do well not to overstimate the damage to the Paki state's fabric with developments in NWFP. The PA deployments are all still facing east. heavy weapons like APCs, Tanks, Field art etc. are not being used so far.
Their policy in deployment of these troops must be similar to our policy in J&K where the paramilitaries and the RR(spinoff of IA) have been in the forefront. None of the RAPIDS units in the plains were disturbed in India's case.
In Pakistan all the core army units are where they were ie in Lawhore, Multan, Kharian etc. So far all the action in the NWFP has been with the Frontier corps and the rangers. I would like to see more PA involvement wherin these units are forced to move westwards to take on the Pakhtuns.
I have not read any reports of tanks, APCs, etc. being moved to support FC. Unkil is providing a helping hand by giving helos so that PA does have to use it's core assets.
Until the PA moves into the fray in a big way, I would say nothing much has changed......It is just tamasha.
Their policy in deployment of these troops must be similar to our policy in J&K where the paramilitaries and the RR(spinoff of IA) have been in the forefront. None of the RAPIDS units in the plains were disturbed in India's case.
In Pakistan all the core army units are where they were ie in Lawhore, Multan, Kharian etc. So far all the action in the NWFP has been with the Frontier corps and the rangers. I would like to see more PA involvement wherin these units are forced to move westwards to take on the Pakhtuns.
I have not read any reports of tanks, APCs, etc. being moved to support FC. Unkil is providing a helping hand by giving helos so that PA does have to use it's core assets.
Until the PA moves into the fray in a big way, I would say nothing much has changed......It is just tamasha.
-
vivek_ahuja
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 2393
- Joined: 07 Feb 2007 16:58
Something like that, yes. The resemblance is striking. And it is a reasonable expectation that the end-result will be the same as well for both cases.Where did we see these tactics before? Someplace beginning with a 'K', under Jernel whatshisname... oh yes Musharaf the Commando.
So, are we looking at an army led by a one-trick pony?
The idea is to evolve your tactics as you head along with time. And evolving comes about when you look back and see the past mistakes. That is where you learn new lessons, and that is where the Pakis are lacking. they have been brought up on a sea of denial. As far as their minds go, there was no defeat at Kargil. There was in fact only victory at Kargil. If that is the case, then why shouldn't the same tactics bring another victory here as well?
and that is about the crux of it. the past mistakes have been covered up because of the legend that the Paki generals have created for themselves in front of their public: they make no mistakes. Period.
Notice that they are also one of the few nations in the world to use heavy support fire and air-strikes against their own population centres and civilians. The army of Allah is now demolishing Mosques with Mortar fire and calling out words such as a 'Fake-Jehad'. in case they haven't realized, their only bastion has been built up on the very foundation of Jehad and Religion. by commiting the acts as above, they are literally shoving Dynamite sticks into that very foundation. The only thing that Musharraff and his generals can use to draw people towards their side is being demolished by their own hands.
the Day they do end up demolishing the myth that they are Allah's army and prove to their own people that they are just a national army (and worse, an army fighting for the Americans) like any other country in the world is the day the lamp posts will be feeling the weights of the Corps commanders of the Paki army.
To be quite honest, I have never seen anybody on such a path of self destruction before. It really is quite astonishing!
-
vivek_ahuja
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 2393
- Joined: 07 Feb 2007 16:58
Well, you are right about the heavy ground equipment facing east. nonetheless, bear in mind that this war will never be fought using these weapons. the Militants will never allow themselves to be cornered that way. more to the point, you must keep in mind that these are the same people that the PA had trained to fight the Soviet ground forces during the 1980s. these guys have faced the most powerful of ground weapons that the soviets could throw at them and still come out on top. There is no reason to believe the same won't happen again. it will draw out the campaign more than it will as it stands now, but that's about all that would happen.We will do well not to overstimate the damage to the Paki state's fabric with developments in NWFP. The PA deployments are all still facing east. heavy weapons like APCs, Tanks, Field art etc. are not being used so far.
then there are other aspects. for example, what are you going to use tanks against, anyway? what destructive power you need is the Helos and the Artillery that are now being used indepth for the war. other than that tanks are just going to be nice juicy targets for the RPGs. furthermore, there is the question of the image of the war itself. if the Pakis start using tanks and APCs within their own towns and villages, what kind of suggestion does that give out to the world? that Pakistan is a stable country with minor problems or a rapidly destablizing state with nucelar weapons under threat of a civil war. the West might then be forced to take action that might not sit well with the Paki Generals.
it is involved in a big way. its just that you shouldn't expect the Media to come out with stories that directly say that. The PA PR group led by our favorite Major-General Waheed or whatever will make sure that you will never hear such things. You have to read between the lines of the stories that do manage to come out in order to get the scale of the operations.Until the PA moves into the fray in a big way, I would say nothing much has changed......It is just tamasha.
-
Amarjeet Cheema
- BRFite -Trainee
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 07 Nov 2007 10:35
You are a favourite contributor of mine.vivek_ahuja wrote: never allow themselves to be cornered that way. more to the point, you must keep in mind that these are the same people that the PA had trained to fight the Soviet ground forces during the 1980s. these guys have faced the most powerful of ground weapons that the soviets could throw at them and still come out on top. There is no reason to believe the same won't happen again. it will draw out the campaign more than it will as it stands now, but that's about all that would happen.
I have read that the primary reason why Mujahedin beat the Soviets in Afghanistan was that they had the Pakistani hinterland to fall back on, and that through the use of Stingers, they effectively denied the Soviets the primary weapon that can be deployed in such a terrain - close air support using military helicopters.
While Afghanistan is a possible hinterland here (only an imperfect one given that the Taliban are under some pressure there too), but precisely how many SAMs do the Taliban have ?
I am just trying to say that the situation is not really the same, and PA has a lot more freedom of action than the Soviets did (militarily - politics is a different matter).
Please do not forget that stingers and other MANPADs have to be periodically maintained and batteries changed and it has been years now instead of the mandatory 6 month check ups. And the technology has also become old. My guess is that the seekers would be very degraded by now. So Stingers are not really a threat. Am i right?Amarjeet Cheema wrote:You are a favourite contributor of mine.vivek_ahuja wrote: never allow themselves to be cornered that way. more to the point, you must keep in mind that these are the same people that the PA had trained to fight the Soviet ground forces during the 1980s. these guys have faced the most powerful of ground weapons that the soviets could throw at them and still come out on top. There is no reason to believe the same won't happen again. it will draw out the campaign more than it will as it stands now, but that's about all that would happen.
I have read that the primary reason why Mujahedin beat the Soviets in Afghanistan was that they had the Pakistani hinterland to fall back on, and that through the use of Stingers, they effectively denied the Soviets the primary weapon that can be deployed in such a terrain - close air support using military helicopters.
While Afghanistan is a possible hinterland here (only an imperfect one given that the Taliban are under some pressure there too), but precisely how many SAMs do the Taliban have ?
I am just trying to say that the situation is not really the same, and PA has a lot more freedom of action than the Soviets did (militarily - politics is a different matter).
-
vivek_ahuja
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 2393
- Joined: 07 Feb 2007 16:58
I have read that the primary reason why Mujahedin beat the Soviets in Afghanistan was that they had the Pakistani hinterland to fall back on, and that through the use of Stingers, they effectively denied the Soviets the primary weapon that can be deployed in such a terrain - close air support using military helicopters.
While Afghanistan is a possible hinterland here (only an imperfect one given that the Taliban are under some pressure there too), but precisely how many SAMs do the Taliban have ?
I am just trying to say that the situation is not really the same, and PA has a lot more freedom of action than the Soviets did (militarily - politics is a different matter).
Well, sure, you are right about what all you said. In the context of what I was saying, I merely meant to point out the resilience of the people in the face of overwhelming military threat at the tactical level, not at the strategic one.
In other words, I was talking about how these people used the terrain and their knowledge of the land to break the soviets. Countless soviet assaults were broken when they attempted to use tanks and heavy armor in a role that wasn’t meant to be. And this is the same when it comes to the Paki army if they try to use their heavy armor on the streets within these lawless regions. It is quite astonishing how even a simple IED can be used to disable a tank (especially of the T-series and their Chinese derivatives) or even blow the turret off if used cunningly. (Say a suicide bomber with heavy explosives strapped to his body coming out of a crowd and jumping on to the tank hull before detonating) you do not need modern technology to beat the conventional army of today. That is what asymmetric warfare is all about.
In other words, the Mujahideen do not need an inventory of modern RPGs and SAMs and such like when there are other cunning ways of doing the same. Why do you want to fight an enemy on his terms? If they had done that, the soviets would still be in Afghanistan.
Another factor was the terrain. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen fought the soviets as much in the hills as they did in the towns and cities, albeit in different capacities. Here, in Pakistan, the situation is somewhat different. Since the soviets were on occupied land not originally their own, retaliations like wiping out entire villages using SU-24s and so on were commonplace. Here, the PA is fighting for its own towns and cities, and such attacks are not possible. And the militants realize that. This means that they run their main operations from within the cities and towns and that in itself will eliminate the threat of PAF attacks. Further, if the PA loses the towns as it is continuing to do, the war is already lost.
Bear in mind here that this is not a conventional war. There are no marked battlefronts. Its all about the urban centers. The Taliban will never come out and declare the Independent region of Swat, but it will be known as that nonetheless since all the towns and villages will be under their control, and all the PAF gunships will be able to do is sit and wait for these militants to come and fight for the hills and so on. It kind of reduces the potency of the PAF straight away, don’t you think?
This is not to say that technology doesn’t help. It does. It’s just that if the enemy is smart, it won’t be the only factor that limits his actions when the same is denied, but it will certainly assist his objectives if it is indeed available.
Most important of all, don't forget the money factor. It is not like the Talibunnies have a robust financial supply chain, not subject to disruption. This is in marked contrast to the Saudi/US/Sundry charities that fuelled the anti-Soviet Jihad... The Talibunny financial supply chain is subject to repeated and sophisticated disruption.
It is primarily political resistance that has to be overcome, as well as a certain inertia where mass casualties are concerned. The Pakistani army does not have the right leadership for this campaign, or at least it hasn't found the right people yet.
It is primarily political resistance that has to be overcome, as well as a certain inertia where mass casualties are concerned. The Pakistani army does not have the right leadership for this campaign, or at least it hasn't found the right people yet.
Nope.Indo-Pak conflict has been jointly ruled out,with Kabul-based Unkil mediating.enqyoob wrote:Shaardula:
It's the question u didn't ask that worries me:
What is the one thing Mush can do to hush up this stuff?
Pakistan Dictator Cycle Step 11:
War with India.
TSPA has left the frontiers and moved in to aid the marital law,with assurance of non-interference from India.
We have fortified the border,just in case.
Having declared Emergency,The General needs to ban the fundamentalist parties,who have supported suicide attacks on him, from fighting elections.
If there are protests to this decision,label them as 'Afghani terrorists' and have them dealt with.He can then engineer another suicide attack on himself,for greater public sympathy,you know...hand in cast etc.
Force PML[Q] to forge a power sharing alliance with Bhutto,in which Shaukat Aziz is deputy Prime Minister.Then call Sharif to do whatever he wants.
If Bhutto or Sharif backtrack,re-open corruption cases.
Elections for an interim government need to be announced as being held near Eid-ul-Adha [Dec 20th].
Otherwise,two options remain.
A) UN moves in and ensures free and fair elections,with a peacekeeping force from 'moderate' Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia,Egypt.
The other is that Musharaf formalizes the role of the army in Pakistani politics once and for all.
B)Making the Pakistani COAS, the ex-officio Pakistani President as well.
This shouldn't be a problem as a president is a figure head in national politics.However; he has effective control and over all army appointments and more importantly the ISI.Also,President has veto powers in matters of internal security and defense.Moreover,he gives up the uniform after two years of office term -He personally selects the new COAS and Vice President,while the government nominates his successors. The nominees cannot be his relatives.
This removes the need for a coup as the President has the power to remove governments on unconstitutional grounds,only when accusations have been proven in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
*Conditions Apply:
All of the above is possible assuming that Musharaf has the army 100% with him and the ISI helping him in the cleanup.Their support is waning.
Sonar Deshi,
The UNO is not going to get involved in Pakistani politics.
They are still traumatised by the suicide truck bomb that wiped out Sergio de Mello and the mission to Baghdad in August 2003.
The Salafi Jihadi movement is unutterably hostile to non-Muslim international organisations, whether inter-governmental or non-governmental. They started killing aid workers in Peshawar back in the 1990-91, and then repeated the same pattern in Bosnia, Chechnya, etc. Iraq simply raised the carnage to a new level.
For that matter given the stakes for Musharraf -ie the impossibility of his winning a free and fair election- he wouldnt be very sorry if a cement mixer somehow slipped past the security cordon and took out the UN delegation and the building they're in.
The UNO is not going to get involved in Pakistani politics.
They are still traumatised by the suicide truck bomb that wiped out Sergio de Mello and the mission to Baghdad in August 2003.
The Salafi Jihadi movement is unutterably hostile to non-Muslim international organisations, whether inter-governmental or non-governmental. They started killing aid workers in Peshawar back in the 1990-91, and then repeated the same pattern in Bosnia, Chechnya, etc. Iraq simply raised the carnage to a new level.
For that matter given the stakes for Musharraf -ie the impossibility of his winning a free and fair election- he wouldnt be very sorry if a cement mixer somehow slipped past the security cordon and took out the UN delegation and the building they're in.
None of the Afghan groups fighting at the time were willing to surrender - Massoud's organisation for example survived four massive Soviet campaigns in the Panjsher by that point, despite Pakistani attempts to choke him off - there was only a thin stream of supplies from European and American sources.vishnua wrote:please read charle wilson's war before comparing present situation to that of to 80's.
Afghans were pretty much done by 83 i mean willing to accept defeat and surrender but massa upped the antenna with cash and supplies. KSA was matching the donations wrt to cash.
The issue for Charlie Wilson was that although the war was stalemated in a place that although expensive for the Kremlin, it wasnt bleeding the Soviets fast enough, and it wasnt enough of a front page humiliation.
If you look at the statistics they tell another story (which is why the CIA at first regarded Wilson as a pest)
Year-Soviet Dead
1979-86
1980-1484
1981-1298
1982-1948
1983-1446
1984-2343
1985-1868
1986-1333
1987-1215
Soviet losses were very substantial long before the Americans really started pouring huge numbers of weapons in 1985, or before the stingers showed up in 1986.
Whether or not Charlie Wilson and his allies like Richard Perle and other future Neo-Conservatives had succeeded in their crusade against the CIA and DoS to escalate US involvement, Soviet withdrawal was inevitable.
The real long-term issue was not the Soviets, but the viability and resilience of the DRA/PDPA without the Soviet Red Army.
One of the *fundamental* problems was that the DRA Army was chronically undermanned, and suffered from terrible morale because not many wanted to serve, and desertions were massive and ongoing.
Even at the worst of times, the Afghan Mujaheddin had no real trouble maintaining numbers in the field, despite the Soviets massive depopulation campaign that pushed something like a third of the Afghan population in to Pakistan and Iran.
In fact even in 1985-86, when the Americans were upgrading the weapons mix of the Afghans up to the levels of a light infantry bn advised the Afghan groups to reduce the number of men fielded under arms at any one time from 400,000 to 100,000 because (a) they didnt want to spend the money (b) the increased firepower offset the lower numbers.
The PA now faces many of the same problems as the DRA Army
- inability to mobilise the population on their behalf
- instability and factionalism at the top political levels
- unwilingness to the point of desertion of most enlisted men and many officers to fight their ethnic kin
- massive, perhaps growing pool of combatants on the other side
- An enemy who has more than enough of the right kind of arms and ammunition to inflict significant, even unacceptable costs
- the draining effect of providing static security on potential for offensive operations
It is these weaknesses on the ground that encouraged the DRA like the Red Army, and later the PA to rely on the *punitive* use of airpower. In other words not to hit an identified concentration of enemy combatants as much as to punish an entire population centre that the insurgents are operating out of.
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
Genocide in Swat
SWAT, Nov 14: Security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, mounted severe attacks on Wednesday on positions of militants who are in control of the Shangla district headquarters Alipur. According to sources, 14 people, most of them militants, were killed and 21 others were injured.
An Inter Service Public Relation (ISPR) press release said the security forces had killed 16 militants in three different areas and arrested four militants.
(An AFP report quoted the army as saying that at least 33 militants and two troops were killed in fighting in the troubled region on Wednesday. Seventeen of the militants died when their vehicle, targeted by security forces, rolled down a hill, and the others were killed in separate clashes, military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said. He said the two soldiers were killed by a rocket fired at the Saidu Sharif airport.)
Mingora and others parts of the restive Swat district wore a deserted look on Wednesday because of a curfew which was imposed from midnight on Tuesday till Wednesday noon.
Witnesses said that the militants blew up a bridge at Baila Baba near Alpuri to stop the security forces advancing from Bisham, another major town of Shangla in the northeast of Alpuri.
They said that six militants were killed in a heavy exchange of fire with law-enforcement personnel near Alpuri.
Some people in Koza Bandai area, a stronghold of the militants, told Dawn that an artillery shell struck a house, killing a woman and injuring six other people. Another shell destroyed another house in the area, killing a boy and injuring five other people.
Intense shelling was continuing till midnight in Koza Bandai, Bara Bandai and Imam Dehri, all strongholds of Maulana Fazlullah.
During an exchange of fire near the Saidu Sharif airport, one member of the security forces was killed.
Witnesses said that four people, including a woman, were killed when helicopter gunships shelled Hazara Village. A minor girl was killed when her home was hit by a mortar shell in Shakardara area of the Matta tehsil.
The ISPR refuted the claim and said that four militants had been killed when the gunships engaged them and targeted their positions in the Hazara village.
The ISPR press release also said that six militants were killed when security forces bombed positions of the militants.
It said that four militants had been arrested by security forces at the Hazara Bridge checkpoint. A large number of hand-grenades and mobile telephone sets were seized.
The press release said that six militants were killed when they tried to attack the checkpoint to get their accomplices freed.
Local people said that helicopter gunships hit a car which overturned and fell into a ravine in Shangla Hill area, killing a man and injuring three other people.
Unconfirmed reports said that a vehicle carrying at least 17 militants overturned in the area, killing or injuring all occupants of the vehicle.
Prices of essential commodities have gone up in Mingora and adjoining areas because of the curfew. A large number of people have started leaving the affected areas.
According to reports coming from areas adjacent to the Shangla district, the native town of Federal Minister Amir Muqam, militants have been occupying government buildings including police stations for a couple of days. They also entered Lelonai Village near Alpuri, but withdrew after members of a local jirga told them to leave the area.
A local journalist told Dawn that armed militants had been patrolling all roads in Alpuri and they had destroyed the Baile Baba bridge, which connected Alpuri with Bisham and the Karakorum Highway (KKH).
although this was posted a few days back, I just have to reply to this one.
death sentence was very much there but only for very heinous crimes like treason whose punishment was death by burning .
Interistingly the so-called higher castes were expected to be more responsible and were meted out stricter punishments than the so-called lower caste people ! the only exceptions were "learned" brahmins.
that is absolutely not correct !I have personally argued that Kautilyas Arthashsastra with it's injunctions on Capital Puniishment is a first of it's kind. The maximum punishment doled out was exile.
death sentence was very much there but only for very heinous crimes like treason whose punishment was death by burning .
Interistingly the so-called higher castes were expected to be more responsible and were meted out stricter punishments than the so-called lower caste people ! the only exceptions were "learned" brahmins.
-
enqyoobOLD
- BRFite
- Posts: 690
- Joined: 09 Sep 2004 05:16
- Location: KhemKaran, Shomali Plain
OK, the third time the TSPA try this, they are going to get massacred. As it is, it sounds like they are taking heavy losses in ambushes from the mountains, and taking out their frustrations on the villages.
[quote]Troops make advance on Swat town
By Hameedullah Khan
SWAT, Nov 15: Security forces and militants fought ferocious battles in Shangla on Thursday as the army began advancing on Alpuri town to dislodge the fighters from their redoubts. The clashes left 18 militants and four soldiers dead. (that means about 80 soldiers and 4 senior Pakjabi officers killed, and some 20 old people / women/ children executed in revenge)
Locals said the security forces pounded militants’ positions and some villages after coming under fire in the Pagorai village. They said the militants had taken up positions on mountains overlooking a key road connecting Alpuri with Bisham, another major town in the district where the troops had started their advance on the militant strongholds.
They said the troops, backed by artillery and helicopter gunships, were advancing at snail’s pace because both sides were using heavy weaponry. The militants, according to them, had captured strategic hilltops and put up stiff resistance.
The Inter Services Public Relations said 20 militants had been killed – eight in Swat and 12 in Shangla. It denied the killing of any soldier.
“We have confirmed reports that eight militants were killed when gunships targeted militants’ positions north of Kabal and Kuza Banda,â€
[quote]Troops make advance on Swat town
By Hameedullah Khan
SWAT, Nov 15: Security forces and militants fought ferocious battles in Shangla on Thursday as the army began advancing on Alpuri town to dislodge the fighters from their redoubts. The clashes left 18 militants and four soldiers dead. (that means about 80 soldiers and 4 senior Pakjabi officers killed, and some 20 old people / women/ children executed in revenge)
Locals said the security forces pounded militants’ positions and some villages after coming under fire in the Pagorai village. They said the militants had taken up positions on mountains overlooking a key road connecting Alpuri with Bisham, another major town in the district where the troops had started their advance on the militant strongholds.
They said the troops, backed by artillery and helicopter gunships, were advancing at snail’s pace because both sides were using heavy weaponry. The militants, according to them, had captured strategic hilltops and put up stiff resistance.
The Inter Services Public Relations said 20 militants had been killed – eight in Swat and 12 in Shangla. It denied the killing of any soldier.
“We have confirmed reports that eight militants were killed when gunships targeted militants’ positions north of Kabal and Kuza Banda,â€