Operation Rah-e-Nijat (South Waziristan)

[Xeric]

i was critical of that and the subsequent deployment of air and armor-artillery assests in the campaign on own citizens

Ok, another propagandist in our files....!!

 

[salman nedian]

Mullah Umar has already announced that he or his Afghan Taliban has nothing to do with Pakistan, directed the taliban in Pakistan to focus their energy in fighting in Afghanistan not PA. That was the reason that TTP was created to distinguish it from Afghan Taliban. The Wazir tribe who are not part of TTP, have taken the brunt of the drone strikes as they are more interested in fighting Americans & supporting Afghan Taliban. The TTP got a very small, negligible share of the drone strikes, which also started very recently due to the immense pressure from Pakistan.

If you see the map of the current operations area, its specifically targeted at the Mehsud tribe area, who make the base of TTP & have given refuge to the most brutal militants Chechen, Uzbek, Arabs etc who were evicted by the Wazir tribe from their area due to their disassociation with Afghan War, who terrified the locals & were involved in attacking PA rather then fighting the American Forces in Afghanistan.

This operation has nothing to do with the Afghan taliban or local people who support their brethren in Afghanistan. TTP does not support the Afghan War, they say they do but in reality they don't.

So this fight is with the people who are against Pakistan nor against those who are fighting the American occupational forces.


I don't understand why is it so hard for some of the guys on this forum to understand & differentiate between who our enemy is & who is not.

Agreed with most of the points but my concern is why don’t we specifically mention the root cause? Why don’t we say that’s its RAW and MOSSAD?

It’s not hard to differentiate but is it worthwhile to conduct a operation here and the root remains in Afghanistan?We also need to promote the thought of good and bad Taliban to nullify the propaganda affect and clear the doubts in people’s minds. We also need o differentiate Taliban sympathizers and terrorists sympathizers and we must not call TTP ‘Taliban’.

 

[Xeric]

Then what else would you call it ?? What is battle experience by the way, the ability of soldiers & officers to work under fire & make tactical decisions in pressure. Experience of conducting warfare under hostile fire & in hostile area.

Yes, its different then conventional warfare, but the troops after taking part in these operations would be coming out totally different. Dear, when someone is firing at you or when artillery shells are exploding near you, the situation is totally different. The ability to lead by the officers & his troops under fire makes them better soldiers then those who just do training on firing ranges.

I am saying this due to my little experience, recently the 2 days back suicide explosion around 150 meters away from my home made me go through the experience of how it feels under such circumstances. Another experience came when was standing on the terrace of my home & came the sound of rocket zooming pass right above my head & landing about half kilometer away, literally i could not move on hearing the sound of the rocket zooming overhead, i was in total shock.

Many times when troops come under ambush or hear the first sound of fire, they go into a shock not able to move which many times result in casualties.

Would like to narrate a story here, when my dad was commanding a FC formation in tribal area, he was on sick leave, when some problem arose with some local miscreants, FC troops were dispatched, as my dad was in hospital, the 2IC was going to the trouble spot in a convoy & they got ambushed, within seconds the soldiers sitting in the vehicle carrying the 2IC were out of their vehicle & taking positions as they were experienced in coming under fire & doing battles while the 2IC was still in the vehicle & was in shock, couldn't move, then the troops had to get him.

So, crux is, the officers & troops will come experienced & a new breed of officers experienced in some kind of warfare will arose from it.

Well atleast it is better than 'counting' the rusted artillery shells that were by fired by indians at Siachen, where you know exactly where it would land at that particular point of time, as you are so enemy savvy that the entire 'War' seems to be a controlled and planned Collective Training!

Guess what, this battle hardening would come handy if we have to use it against the indians, though the tactics would differ, but experience, live fire, real time blood shed, actually fighting the weather, terrain and circumstances, feeling the death of a comrade first hand, and accepting and then appreciating the pressure in actuality have NO ALTERNATIVE-no simulators and no written exercises comes even close!

 

[waraich66]

Mullah Umar has already announced that he or his Afghan Taliban has nothing to do with Pakistan, directed the taliban in Pakistan to focus their energy in fighting in Afghanistan not PA. That was the reason that TTP was created to distinguish it from Afghan Taliban. The Wazir tribe who are not part of TTP, have taken the brunt of the drone strikes as they are more interested in fighting Americans & supporting Afghan Taliban. The TTP got a very small, negligible share of the drone strikes, which also started very recently due to the immense pressure from Pakistan.

If you see the map of the current operations area, its specifically targeted at the Mehsud tribe area, who make the base of TTP & have given refuge to the most brutal militants Chechen, Uzbek, Arabs etc who were evicted by the Wazir tribe from their area due to their disassociation with Afghan War, who terrified the locals & were involved in attacking PA rather then fighting the American Forces in Afghanistan.

This operation has nothing to do with the Afghan taliban or local people who support their brethren in Afghanistan. TTP does not support the Afghan War, they say they do but in reality they don't.

So this fight is with the people who are against Pakistan nor against those who are fighting the American occupational forces.


I don't understand why is it so hard for some of the guys on this forum to understand & differentiate between who our enemy is & who is not.

Cheema Chattai khan nu wakh u wakh ,larun nu khatai.

Taimikhan , this is famous punjabi saying similarly these talaban have their own areas of operation and control during peace time but if some one attack they support eact other for their servival .

I dont know why dont you understand simple things and making them complex.

 

[batmannow]

Well atleast it is better than 'counting' the rusted artillery shells that were by fired by indians at Siachen, where you know exactly where it would land at that particular point of time, as you are so enemy savvy that the entire 'War' seems to be a controlled and planned Collective Training!

Guess what, this battle hardening would come handy if we have to use it against the indians, though the tactics would differ, but experience, live fire, real time blood shed, actually fighting the weather, terrain and circumstances, feeling the death of a comrade first hand, and accepting and then appreciating the pressure in actuality have NO ALTERNATIVE-no simulators and no written exercises comes even close!

d, xeric sir,
i guss, its hard to understand, for the genrl peoples, though , it will remain a hard fact , that this all war on terror, infact a real battle experince for PAKARMY , will make it strong & it will boost its , moral, its capabillities in every way, when that matters most.
thanks, best wishes to you , & the brave son of soils.(pakarmy)
well, its time for lock & load, & FIRE!

 

[Hellfire]

Then what else would you call it ?? What is battle experience by the way, the ability of soldiers & officers to work under fire & make tactical decisions in pressure. Experience of conducting warfare under hostile fire & in hostile area.

Suggest you take the whole post in context of the quoted text and not isolate and vivisect the post. Battle exposure to deal with external threats?

Yes, its different then conventional warfare, but the troops after taking part in these operations would be coming out totally different. Dear, when someone is firing at you or when artillery shells are exploding near you, the situation is totally different. The ability to lead by the officers & his troops under fire makes them better soldiers then those who just do training on firing ranges.

Am sure PA conducts battle inoculation still as part of annual training exercises..... a very valid concept. On the other hand I am really interested in what "battle" exposure are your air support and armour units getting? kindly elucidate

I am saying this due to my little experience, recently the 2 days back suicide explosion around 150 meters away from my home made me go through the experience of how it feels under such circumstances. Another experience came when was standing on the terrace of my home & came the sound of rocket zooming pass right above my head & landing about half kilometer away, literally i could not move on hearing the sound of the rocket zooming overhead, i was in total shock.

I can correlate with this. Experiences have been aplenty courtsey PA in LoC region .......

 

[Hellfire]

TK - its a bit difficult for some (across the border) to digest the fact that the army has had success in their recent efforts in Swat/Malakand and hopefully in SWA also !

Difficult to digest? you pound the hell out of talibs using the full array of your weapons and say others cant digest the success? Obviously you will succeed!! and there is no question about not being able to digest that .........

the issue with Hellfire is that he seems to be a intelligent guy but his MO is to bait people all the time!

thanks for your assessment .......

and MO is usually the same for all ..... and the best thing where you get uncomfortable to do is, is to call the post baiting ........!!!!

 

[Hellfire]

If you have missed the videos of PAF doing precision strikes, would advice to watch them. Then may be you realize what experience PAF is getting. Plus, the newly inducted drones are also being used giving a lot of experience to PAF in using them & making tactics which would be used in other areas too. And this is a long war. PAF & PA have now better coordination doing air strikes, which as said can be used on other fronts too.

same as firing on ranges that you denounced earlier ... you have no enemy who is firing back at you with the adequate AD assets/counter measures ......... again pure target practise

On the contrary, I would say its your posts which are useless with no substance as you have no understanding about the operations being conducted & how armies can get experience through different kind of warfare.

really????? am awaiting your instructions in mountain and CI warfare .... please be my guest here ..... I really would like to re-learn things

 

[Hellfire]

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.


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.


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

as for the first portion, you are right, variable response is there to that

as for C3I, I beg to differ as Sun Tzu aptly said "engage the enemy long enough, it adapts and starts matching you soon enough" or something to that effect

as for example of Israel ..... its at peace with majority of nations ....... and Syria is militarily no match for Israel which has overwhelming support from US ....

On the other hand ... again the same issue ...... they are gaining experience in firing at premitive target in Gaza .... and the complete character will change with a professional armed force coming into play ....

Your assertion about inter-operability is correct ..... as also lessons for the CI grid in open terrain .....

But all along I have questioned the need for employment of overwhelming force thus forcing the Talibs to move to more urban areas as the result willl be seen further in coming weeks ....

 

[Hellfire]

Ok, another propagandist in our files....!!

was labelled that long back ......

 

[Zee-Gen]

Explaining to ignorant is always worthless than moron because moron knows that he is a moron and ignorant thinks that he is a genius……….!!!!

Think thousand times before and once decided, stay on it like a man…….PA has to do this or that is not important at this time……because the decision has been made and implemented and now it is a time of stay with PA like a man (people who are against the decision are not man enough to stand against the raging bull of our adversaries).

And our army is meant to be fighting the enemy…………either in the form of TTP or India (or to some ignorant people of this forum)……what else you people expect from army to do?????

The true identity of soldier is battlefield……not the barracks………..!!!!

 

[dabong1]

Did baitullah or hakimullah ever fight a single russian or NATO solider in there lives

Have they done a single thing yet to help there "brothers" in afganistan

Do the real taliban with mullah omar support there terror attacks against the pakistani state

 

[MZUBAIR]

Todays news GEO camera caught something new...USAF f18 in Waziristan operation...Good to see US are helping PAF for operation clean up...

Any source !!!!!

 

[dabong1]

If USAF will support PA ,it means it is a US war?

May Allah give us hadayat ,

Ameen

Did you have a problem with the US helping the mujahdeen during the russian invasion?

 

[air marshal]

Pakistan starts offensive against Taliban, Al Qaeda
October 17, 2009

ISLAMABAD, (DPA): A senior Pakistani official said Saturday government forces had started a much-awaited ground offensive against Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents in the lawless South Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border.

‘Our ground troops have started action in various areas of South Waziristan. They are being supported by the air force,’ Sama television quoted Tariq Hayyat Khan, the security head of the tribal region of which South Waziristan is a district, as saying.

The offensive will continue until the terrorists are eliminated, he added.

Thousands of families were fleeing the conflict. According to the UN, some 80,000 people had so far been displaced since May, when the Pakistani jets started airstrikes to soften militant positions.

Humayon Khan, the commissioner of Dera Ismail Khan district that borders South Waziristan, said the government expected the numbers of internally displaced people might reach 120,000.

‘We have set up four centres in Dera Ismail Khan where the (refugees) are being registered,’ he added.

The operation comes after a series of suicide attacks at security installations across the country that left more than 160 people dead, many of them civilians, in less than two weeks.

The army says about two divisions totalling 28,000 soldiers were pitched against 10,000 to 15,000 well-trained and well-equipped guerrilla fighters in the rugged mountainous district.

An intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery, were moving from three sides towards the insurgent strongholds in the area.

‘Taliban have also taken positions in the mountains and they are targeting our troops from underground bunkers in the forests,’ he added.

A roadside bomb exploded next to an army convoy in the Jandola area of South Waziristan, killing one soldier and injuring two more, the intelligence official said. A similar blast killed two troops and injured three in neighbouring North Waziristan district.

The offensive is aimed at fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the former Taliban chief who died in a US drone strike in early August.

Mehsud’s men are believed to be behind dozens of suicide attacks on civilian and government targets in Pakistan over the last two years.

---------- Post added at 01:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 PM ----------

Pakistani security forces make advances in South Waziristan
October 18th, 2009

By Ians

WANA: The security forces claim to have taken control of the Spankai and Ghazai areas of South Waziristan along the restive border with Afghanistan, while Pakistan Air Force (PAF) combat jets pounded Taliban positions, killing 12 terrorists and demolishing several hideouts during a military operation that began late Saturday, a media report said.

Two security personnel were killed and five injured in two separate attacks in the region, which is the stronghold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Geo TV reported Sunday quoting sources.

The migration of civilians from different parts of South Waziristan is underway, and an indefinite curfew has been clamped on parts of the region, the sources added.

A security man was killed and three others were injured when a bomb detonated by remote blew up their vehicle in the Karkunray area near Jandola town. PAF jets pounded the area in retaliation, killing 11 terrorists and injuring eight others and destroying two militants’ hideouts.

PAF planes also targeted suspected Taliban positions in the Ladha and Sarvekai sub-districts of South Waziristan.

The militants attacked a paramilitary Frontier Corps convoy in the Razmak area, killing one security man and severely wounding two more.

An official said soldiers have begun an operation against the Taliban from three fronts, adding that over 4,000 to 5,000 terrorists are suspected to be in South Waziristan, most of them in the Mehsud area.

The Mehsud area was the stronghold of TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in a US drone strike last month. His deputy, Hakimullah Meshud has taken his place.

The latest offensive comes after the security forces cleared four districts, including Swat, of the Malakand division in the North West Frontier Province of the Taliban. The militants, in a desperate bid to stave off the current operation, had attacked the Pakistani military headquarters Oct 10 and three police establishments in Lahore Oct 15. Forty-four people were killed in the two assaults.