Desperation as per you sir. The issue was always on the table, wherein they can not face the PA in open symmetric war, it was always on the anvil that the fight would turn urban and be waged in a densely populated area. They have no scruples for attacking public property and location with extensive collateral damage. At the end of the day, they are under the illusion that they are doing Allah the almighty's wish and anyone who opposes them (read sensible person) is a non-believer and needs to be done away with.
You are talking about a mindset that has been conditioned by reading Quran but with grossly mutilated interpretations being pounded into their heads day in and out.
And there are enough nutters to go down that path, whether you admit as such or not.
Why would I deny that? But what you've described are a portion of the foot soldiers. Other foot soldiers are simply thugs for hire. The commanders are not doing anything for the sake of Allah, and they know that. But that is a philosophical debate, unrelated to anything I said in my post, so I will not comment on that further.
There IS NO C3I acting in the classical sense which can be neutralised effectively. The only way is to slowly and steadily eradicate every volunteer/fighter/talib as now the effective modes of communications are verbal and in person and no more over electronic media.
As for leadership issues, everyone who survives a few months in face of mounting pressure from security forces, gets the ability to lead as he has the experience and necessary know how.
So as a result leadership is a redundant issue right now. The cadres are being trained to operate in isolated cells with eventuality of being cut off. And they are individually prepared for the same.
You are correct in your view that there is no conventional C3I, but that is where you stop being accurate. The command and control network can very much be destroyed simply by eliminating the main controlled areas, and by eliminating/capturing the leadership. The strategy, tactics and targets are all dictated through this network. Also, no, there are only a select number of people within the Taleban capable of leading it. Eliminate them, and what you have are a band of thugs and criminals, operating dispersed, not very difficult to control, contain or even convert.
Is that the best inference you could draw from my quoted reply with respect to the said post? I am amazed at that .... great "Battle Experience" PAF is getting .... shooting up caverns and hill sides!!!! And PA, they engage an enemy who melts into hills/townships upon protracted confrontation .... good one!
Well, the Israeli Defence Air Force is considered the most battle-hardened Air Force in the world, which makes it one of the most sought after for international military exercises (I'm not making this up, it's right out of the mouth of a Canadian Forces officer). But, when you think about it, all they have done since the last Arab-Israeli War is drop precision munition on targets, without facing any resistance at all. Even
during the Arab-Israeli war, the Arabic aerial efforts were pathetic. So what makes them so special? There must be
something they are gaining from their campaigns which the world values, right? And the answer: operational preparedness, battle testing and verification of tactics.
There is a great deal, in a very conventional sense, that the PAF and PA will be gaining from these operations, from target designation to precision bombing to battle planning to close air support to area clearing to area holding to inter-service coordination and so on. In unconventional warfare, well, we were always in a different league entirely, so it's not surprising that we're the ones rewriting the Asymmetric Warfare doctrine.
A NASA engineer was asked how he had developed a fix for a design issue with the Space Shuttle before the problem was even recognized by the designers, and he replied simply;
There is no substitute for experience
