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Operation Zarb-e-Azb | Updates, News & Discussions.

Ground operation in shawal is not possbille until summer arrives, heavy snow falls makes it next to impossible for ground units to move.
What the point of doing OP there since taliban can easily cross the border, Need to bottleneck them before we move our ground units in shawal.
 
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Ground operation in shawal is not possbille until summer arrives, heavy snow falls makes it next to impossible for ground units to move.
What the point of doing OP there since taliban can easily cross the border, Need to bottleneck them before we move our ground units in shawal.

punish them and destroy their hideouts from the air....

mirali_mini.jpg

relaxing in mirali...
 
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Haqqani Leaders Detained in Persian Gulf, Not Inside Afghanistan

Detentions of Anas Haqqani and Hafiz Rashid inside Afghanistan Had Indicated Possible Shift in Attitude

By MARGHERITA STANCATI And EHSANULLAH AMIRI

Updated Oct. 19, 2014 12:57 p.m. ET
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Anas Haqqani, the second-in-command of the Haqqani network, is pictured in detention on Oct. 15. AFGHANISTAN
KABUL—The two recently captured top members of Afghanistan’s Haqqani network insurgent group were detained in the Persian Gulf and not inside Afghanistan, as Kabul had claimed, Taliban and foreign officials said.


The detentions of Anas Haqqani, the brother of the Taliban-affiliated group’s chief, and Hafiz Rashid, a powerful military commander, indicated a possible shift in attitude in a region where Afghan militants have long enjoyed freedom of movement.

The Haqqanis, while acknowledging the Taliban leadership’s authority, operate independently. Unlike the mainstream Afghan Taliban movement, the Haqqani network is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. The militants’ capture was touted as an important victory for the Afghan government.

The Haqqani network was behind many of the most spectacular attacks against foreign and Afghan targets in recent years. Mr. Haqqani and Mr. Rashid are now the most senior members of the network currently in Afghan custody.

When Afghanistan’s intelligence agency announced their arrest, it said they were held during an operation carried out in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, the group’s traditional powerbase. That account is now being disputed, with new information indicating the pair was actually picked up in a Gulf country and only later taken to Afghanistan.
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Hafiz Rashid, the military commander of the Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan, on Oct. 15. AFGHANISTAN
The Taliban, in a statement released in English on Saturday, said Mr. Haqqani and Mr. Rashid were arrested on Oct. 12 in Bahrain by U.S. forces. They claim the two were then taken to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before reaching Kabul. Several Western officials also said the arrests took place in the Gulf, but they were unaware of U.S. involvement.


A senior Afghan security official confirmed the two men were arrested abroad but declined to say in which country. He said the operation was led by Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, and that U.S. forces played no role.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said reports of Haqqani and Rashid in Afghan custody were “welcome.”

“These dangerous men are off the battlefield. We designated the Haqqani Network a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2012. It’s a lethal network that poses a significant threat to the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and our other partners and allies,” said the spokeswoman.

It is unclear what role, if any, authorities in Qatar, Bahrain or the U.A.E. played to facilitate the arrests. Officials from the three Gulf states didn't respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Members of the Afghan Taliban, including the Haqqanis, have long moved relatively freely in Qatar, which in the past has played a key role in mediating contacts between the U.S. and the militant group. The arrest of the two Haqqani leaders last week, however, may indicate that is changing.

“If they were important and that’s why they were arrested, it would mark a turning point for the Haqqanis and their ability to travel—and perhaps indicate a further erosion of their support and backing,” said Anand Gopal, an author and Taliban expert.

Better resourced than other Taliban factions, the Haqqani network has long represented one of the biggest threats to U.S. and allied interests in Afghanistan. U.S. and Afghan officials have said the group was behind some of the most spectacular assaults in Afghanistan in recent years, including a 2011 attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that killed 16 people, and another that same year on the city’s Intercontinental Hotel that left more than 20 dead.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency covertly backed the Haqqanis to extend its influence Afghanistan, an accusation Islamabad has repeatedly rejected.

While they still represent a formidable threat for foreigners and Afghans, the Haqqanis appear weaker now than they did in the recent past, partly due to the targeting of their leadership and to advances Afghan security forces made in their territory. “They are a shell of their former selves,” Mr. Gopal said.

The youngest son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the movement’s founder, Anas Haqqani rose through the ranks of the group after two of his brothers were killed, and was the second-in-command after his brother Sirajuddin Haqqani at the time of his arrest, according to Afghan officials. They say Anas Haqqani was in charge of fundraising for the network, which is partly financed by private donations from the Gulf.

The Taliban disputed this description of the younger Haqqani, saying he played no formal role in the organization, and that he was a final-year student of religious studies.

They said that before their arrest the two men had traveled to Qatar to visit Mr. Rashid’s brother: Mohammad Nabi Umari. Mr. Umari was one of five Taliban prisoners the U.S. released from Guantanamo Bay prison in May in exchange for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, whom the Haqqani held captive for five years. As part of the prisoner-swap deal, the so-called Guantanamo Five now live in Qatar.

The Taliban said the arrests of Messrs. Haqqani and Rashid was against the terms of that agreement.

“Both men were handed over to Kabul despite the freed Guantanamo detainees being assured that their relatives may visit them unharmed,” the Taliban statement said. “The American and Kabul administrations aren't bound by any international law when it suits their political objectives and neither are they truthful in their calls of peace and reconciliation.”

Last year, the Taliban opened a political office in Qatar to host peace talks with the U.S. and Afghan governments. While the office was shut down days after it opened as it got bogged down in controversy, many former Taliban officials still live in the Gulf state.

But with the rise of extremist groups like Islamic State in the region, Qatar may be less willing to tolerate militants, says Riad Kahwaji, a senior analyst with the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

“Qatar is the one that has the undeclared blessing of the U.S. to have ties with the Taliban,” Mr. Kahwaji said. “But any country in this period will be very sensitive and careful about what it allows when dealing with extremist groups.”

Qatar’s relations with its Gulf neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., have already suffered over the gas-rich emirate’s vocal support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, its links with radical groups in Syria, and its involvement in the Libyan conflict.

Separately, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Sunday said a senior member of al Qaeda who they identified as Abul Bara Al Kuwaiti was killed in an airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.


—Asa Fitch in Beirut contributed to this article.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/haqq...ersian-gulf-not-inside-afghanistan-1413733878

Taliban claims captured Haqqani leaders visited ex-Gitmo detainees in Qatar
By THOMAS JOSCELYNOctober 19, 2014


Anas Haqqani and Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari (a.k.a. Hafiz Rashid). NDS photos via Khaama Press.

The Taliban has released a statement concerning the recent capture of two Haqqani Network leaders, claiming that the Afghan government has lied about the circumstances surrounding the raid that netted them. The Taliban also claims that the pair had recently visited the senior Taliban leaders freed from Guantanamo earlier this year.

The Taliban's statement could not be independently verified.

On Oct. 16, the Afghan government announced the capture of Anas Haqqani, who is the youngest son of veteran jihadist leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari, the network's military commander for southeastern Afghanistan. They were detained on Oct. 14.

Omari is the younger brother of Mohammad Nabi Omari, a senior Taliban official who was held at Guantanamo from late 2002 until May when he, along four other Taliban commanders held in US custody, were exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The "Taliban Five," as they've been dubbed in the US, were transferred to Qatar, where they are supposed to live for one year after their release.

The Taliban says in its statement that the younger Omari had recently met with his more infamous older brother in Qatar.

According to the Taliban, Anas Haqqani had been in Qatar as well. Anas Haqqani was captured after "he embarked on his first foreign visit to meet the freed Guantanamo detainees after an invitation by the family of Mawlawi Mohammad Nabi Omari (former Guantanamo detainee)."

The Taliban claims that Omari and Haqqani were "returning home on 12th October after spending about a week." They were both allegedly "captured by the American forces in Bahrain from where they were sent back to Qatar and then handed over to Kabul via United Arab Emirates."

Relying on this version of events, the Taliban criticizes the US, arguing that it had no justification for detaining the two and that the Taliban Five were promised their family members would be allowed to visit them without interference.

The Afghan government's description of the pair's capture was entirely different, saying that the two were detained by intelligence officials in Afghanistan's national directorate of security (NDS). There was no mention of the US first detaining them.

The Taliban also seeks to downplay the significance of Anas Haqqani in its statement, whereas the Afghan government says he played a prominent role in the Haqqani Network.

Anas Haqqani was merely "a Talib-ul-ilm (student) in his last year of studies who does not have an affiliation with any current political movements," according to the Taliban.

The Afghan government describes Anas as an influential jihadist and deputy to his older brother, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who leads the Haqqani Network. Anas has "special" computer skills and "was considered one of the masterminds of this network in making propaganda through social networks," the NDS said, according to Khaama Press. Anas "was responsible for collecting and preparing funds from Arabic countries to carry out operations of this network."

The latter accusation is especially intriguing, as Qatar is a known hotbed for jihadist fundraising.

The Afghan government says that Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari was "a shadow governor" for the Haqqanis in "the Ismailkhil district of Khost province." He also oversaw suicide bombing operations.

A Haqqani leader who served multiple roles prior to detention at Guantanamo

The Taliban says that the family of Mohammad Nabi Omari, the ex-Guantanamo detainee, invited Anas Haqqani to Qatar. US officials found that Mohammad Omari was a well-connected Haqqani leader who worked with al Qaeda prior to his detention in Sept. 2002.

In a leaked memo dated Jan. 23, 2008, JTF-GTMO analysts recommended that the older Omari brother be held in "continued detention" by the Defense Department. Omari "was a senior Taliban official who served in multiple leadership roles," according to JTF-GTMO. Omari "had strong operational ties to Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) groups including al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), some of whom remain active in ACM activities."

Intelligence reports cited by JTF-GTMO indicate that Omari was a "member of a joint al Qaeda/Taliban ACM cell in Khowst and was involved in attacks against US and Coalition forces." Omari also "maintained weapons caches and facilitated the smuggling of fighters and weapons."

Prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Omari worked for the Taliban's border security and in this capacity had "access to senior Taliban commander and leader of the Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani." Haqqani was the Taliban Minister of Frontiers and Borders at the time and this is what gave Omari the opportunity to become Haqqani's "close associate," according to JTF-GTMO.

Thus, it is entirely possible that Mohammad Nabi Omari invited Jalaluddin's son, Anas, for a visit to Qatar given the two families' historically close ties.

One "sensitive contact" told authorities that Omari was one of "three former Taliban commanders loyal to Haqqani."

A source cited in the JTF-GTMO file told authorities that Omari participated in a Jan. 26, 2002 "planning session to identify a new Governor of Khowst and to propose a list of members for the Khowst City Shura Council loyal to Haqqani." Several other high-level Taliban and Haqqani officials attended the meeting. One of them "directed the group to reconvene after members discussed names with al Qaeda members in their provinces." The leaked JTF-GTMO memo notes: "The plan was to have all personnel identified and vetted to prepare for future al Qaeda control of the area under Jalaluddin Haqqani."

Beginning in February 2002, according to another intelligence report cited by JTF-GTMO, Omari and "three al Qaeda affiliated individuals held weekly meetings to discuss ACM plans and to coordinate Haqqani loyalists."

Then, in July 2002, an "Afghan government employee" reported that Omari had joined "a new Khowst province ACM cell comprised of Taliban and al Qaeda commanders who had operated independently in the past." The list of cell members provided by this source included not only Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, but also individuals affiliated with the HIG and the Haqqani Network.

The JTF-GTMO file includes an intriguing detail about one member of Nabi's cell - a Haqqani money courier named Malik Khan. "Ayman al Zawahiri, the number two leader of al Qaeda" at the time, and now al Qaeda's emir, "has stayed at Khan's compound located outside Miram Shah," Pakistan.

In August 2002, Omari reportedly helped two al Qaeda operatives smuggle "an unknown number of missiles along the highway between Jalalabad and Peshawar," Pakistan. The missiles were smuggled in pieces, with the intent of rebuilding them for attacks near the Jalalabad airport. On Aug. 28, 2002, JTF-GTMO analysts noted, "two Americans were killed during attacks against the Khowst, Gardez, and Jalalabad airports."

Omari was captured in September 2002, detained at Bagram, and then transferred to Guantanamo. Omari was transferred to Qatar earlier this year and, if the Taliban's statement is accurate, then he has been hosting other veteran jihadists.

Senior al Qaeda leader reported killed in US airstrike in eastern Afghanistan
By BILL ROGGIOOctober 19, 2014

The US is reported to have killed a senior al Qaeda leader in an airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar near the border with Pakistan's tribal agency of Khyber. Despite US military officials claims to the contrary, recent raids and airstrikes against al Qaeda show that the network is not limited to operating in the northeastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.

The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's intelligence service, reported that senior al Qaeda leader Abu Bara al Kuwaiti was killed in a US airstrike in Lal Mandi in the Nazyan district in Nangarhar, which is adjacent to the border with the Tirah Valley in Pakistan's tribal agency of Khyber, Pajhwok Afghan News reported.

The al Qaeda leader was at the home of Abdul Samad Khanjari, who is described as an al Qaeda military "commander," when he was killed, TOLONews reported. NDS officers raided Khanjari's home and seized weapons, a laptop, and documents.

Khanjari is also said to double as the Taliban's shadow governor for the Achin district in Nangarhar, according to Afghan Islamic Press. This is not uncommon, as members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are known to double as shadow governors in northern Afghan provinces. Additionally, al Qaeda leaders are also known to serve as Taliban commanders; the US military has described these commanders as "dual-hatted" leaders.

Al Qaeda has not confirmed the death of Abu Bara, nor have online jihadists known to be plugged into the network announced his martyrdom.

The NDS said that Abu Bara "had close relations with the family of Ayman al Zawahiri, the al Qaeda leader."

Abu Bara was likely a member of al Qaeda's General Command. He was known to be a "student" and "comrade" of Atiyah Abd al Rahman, al Qaeda's former general manager who was also known as Atiyah Allah and who was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in August 2011. Abu Bara wrote Atiyah's eulogy, which was published in Vanguards of Khorasan, al Qaeda's official magazine.

In the eulogy, Abu Bara notes several times that he had access to Atiyah's documents and was trained by the former al Qaeda general manager.

"I was able to know things from his numerous letters in which he advises [jihadists] to be patient, seek the refuge of Almighty God in harsh times, and trust God's promise of victory even in these ruthless times we are living," Abu Bara said in the lengthy eulogy for his former boss.

"He used to treat me like he used to treat his son," Abu Bara continued. "He was like a carrying father and an older brother by guiding me in all issues and teaching and advising me whenever it is possible. I learned from him several things, which he stressed on teaching me. My brother Abu al Hasan al Wa'ili, may God protect him, saw this. He taught me things in religion and life in general."

Additionally, Abu Bara said that Atiyah informed him that Abu Dujanah al Khurasani executed the Dec. 30, 2009, suicide attack suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost province. Seven CIA officers and guards were killed in the attack.

"He [Atiyah] told me all the details regarding this operation and the plan," Abu Bara said.

The death of Abu Bara, if confirmed, is the second major blow against the terrorist network in Afghanistan and Pakistan this week. On Oct. 14, the NDS captured Anis Haqqani, the son of the Haqqani Network''s leader and the brother of its operational leader, and Hafiz Rashid, the network's military commander for southeastern Afghanistan, during a special operations raid in Khost province, Afghanistan. [See Threat Matrix report, Afghan intel agency captures two senior Haqqani Network leaders.]

Al Qaeda not concentrated in Kunar and Nuristan

While US military and intelligence officials have repeatedly stated that al Qaeda is confined primarily to the northeastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, recent raids indicate that the jihadist group continues to operate in other eastern provinces.

"AQ [Al Qaeda] maintains a limited presence in the remote areas of eastern Afghanistan such as Kunar and Nuristan, and maintains a seasonal presence in other provinces," the US Department of Defense stated in the December 2013 edition of the Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan. [See LWJ report, US continues to claim al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan is minimal .]

Over the past year, five senior and mid-level al Qaeda leaders, in addition to Abu Bara, are reported to have been killed in Nangarhar and Paktika, and just across the border in Khyber. The jihadists were killed in December 2013, and September and October of 2014, indicating that their presence is more than just "seasonal."

Just over a week ago, the US killed Sheikh Imran Ali Siddiqi (a.k.a. Haji Shaikh Waliullah), in a drone strike in the Tirah Valley in Khyber. The strike took place right on the border with Nangarhar, and some reports indicate Imran was actually killed in Nangarhar.

Imran is a longtime jihadist who started his career with the al Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. His death was announced by Usama Mahmood, the spokesman for al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). [See LWJ report, US drone strike kills veteran jihadist turned senior AQIS official.]

Ayman al Zawahiri and other al Qaeda officials announced the creation of AQIS in early September, explaining that it was two years in the making. Mahmood said in his own statement at the time that AQIS was formed by gathering together "several jihadi groups that have a long history in jihad and fighting." Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, whose leader Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil is closely tied to the group and signed the 1998 fatwa that declared war on the West, is likely one of those groups.

Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen is currently running training camps in Afghanistan, the US State Department said in a update to the group's terrorist designation in September. [See LWJreport, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen 'operates terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan'.]

In mid-September, the US killed Aqalzadin and Ikramullah, two Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen/al Qaeda commanders, in an airstrike in Paktika province. The two commanders are members of the Badr Mansoor Group. Badr Mansour, the group's former leader who was killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan in February 2012, was identified in the documents seized at Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound as one of al Qaeda's "company" commanders. Mansour was also a Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen leader. [See LWJ reports, 2 al Qaeda commanders reported killed in US airstrike in eastern Afghanistan, Bin Laden docs hint at large al Qaeda presence in Pakistan and Al Qaeda asserts authority in letter to Pakistani Taliban leader.]

In December 2013, the US killed two al Qaeda military commanders, three members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, and two members of the Afghan Taliban, in an airstrike in the Lal Pur district in Nangarhar. The seven jihadists were reported to be traveling to Kunar for a meeting. [See LWJ report, 2 al Qaeda commanders reported killed in US airstrike in eastern Afghanistan.]

The two al Qaeda commanders were described as "close companions of Ilyas Kashmiri," the renowned Pakistani jihadist who was killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan in June 2011. Kashmiri rose through the ranks of the Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, or HUJI, led Brigade 313, and ultimately served as the leader of al Qaeda's Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, and as a member of al Qaeda's military shura at the time of his death.

The al Qaeda operatives killed in December 2013 were all commanders in the Lashkar al Zil, al Qaeda's paramilitary unit that fields forces in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and also embeds military trainers within Taliban units in both countries. These trainers provide instruction for battling security forces in local insurgencies, as well as knowledge, expertise, funding, and resources to conduct local and international attacks. [For more information on this unit, seeLWJ report, Al Qaeda's paramilitary 'Shadow Army,' from February 2009.]

Al Qaeda and its allies have been heavily targeted by ISAF in special operations raids over the past decade. ISAF publicized 338 raids from 2007 until the summer of 2013, when it ended reporting. Many senior jihadist leaders and operatives were killed or captured during those operations. Most of those raids took place outside of Kunar and Nuristan. [See LWJ report,ISAF raids against al Qaeda and allies in Afghanistan 2007-2013.]
 
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Militancy
  • On October 16, TTP Jamaatul Ahrar released a video of a former Pakistan Army doctor, Tariq Ali, in which he called upon military officers and soldiers to join the Pakistan Taliban and help in the enforcement of Shariah law. Ali further urged soldiers to leave the army and disobey orders to fight against fellow Muslims. Ali claimed he had served in the Balochistan Frontier Corps and the 80th Infantry Brigade in Siachen, and had also served twice in North and South Waziristan. Ali claims he left Pakistan for Britain but was later deported back to Pakistan. The doctor is reportedly known as Abu Obaida al Islamabadi in jihadi circles and is also the spokesperson for a London-based fundamentalist group called Shariah4Pakistan. According to The News, Pakistani military authorities have decided to investigate the claims made by Tariq Ali in the video.[7]
  • On October 17, TTP Jamaatul Ahrar released the first 55-page issue of its new English magazine, “lhya-e-Khilafat” on the group’s Facebook page. The magazine includes statements from the group’s leaders about the restructuring of the TTP, an interview with one of its leaders, Omar Khalid Khorasani, and a story authored by a British fighter called “Abu Okasha al Britani” about joining the group. The editor of the magazine, Dr. Abu Obaidah al Islamabadi claims that it is an endeavor by the group to “highlight the oppression unleashed by the Pakistani Army on Pakistani Muslims and to expose the un-Islamic nature of ‘Islamic’ Republic of Pakistan,” to an English-speaking audience.[8]
  • On October 17, eight militants and one soldier were killed in clashes as part of Operation Khyber I in the Aka Khel area of Bara sub-district, Khyber Agency. Security forces have seized the populated Mantalab area of Aka Khel. Armed clashes and mortar shelling have taken place in the Nala, Malik Din Khel, and Sipah areas. [9]
  • On October 18, security forces killed six militants as part of the ongoing Operation Khyber I in the Sipah, Malik Din Khel, and Aka Khel areas of Khyber Agency.[10]
  • As of October 19, security forces have killed 37 militants in Operation Khyber I, while at least 50 others have surrendered to security forces, during the operations first three days in the Khyber Agency.[11]
  • On October 20, a key Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) commander called Haji Faqeer and 80 of his men surrendered their weapons to security forces in the Shalobar area of Khyber Agency. Earlier, another LI commander called Malam Khan also surrendered along with several of his men. Militants later reportedly destroyed the homes of 30 LI activists who had defected.[12]
  • On October 19, security forces warned the tribesmen of Bara sub-district and the Tirah Valley, Khyber Agency via airdropped pamphlets not to harbor militants. The pamphlet stated that security forces have launched Operation Khyber I to target militants in Bara and the Tirah Valley who have committed acts of terror. Military helicopters also dropped leaflets in Bara and Jamrud sub-districts of Khyber Agency, giving 36 hours to militants in the area to surrender their arms to security forces and accept the writ of the state. Earlier, on October 18, security forces urged militants to renounce violence through announcements made from mosques in Bara.[13]
  • As reported on October 20 by The Express Tribune, security forces and Khasadar forces arrested five militants, including an unidentified important commander, during a search operation in the Bakarabad area of Jamrud sub-district, Khyber Agency.[14]
  • On October 20, 2014, militants kidnapped a Frontier Corps member from his home in the Aka Khel area of the Bara sub-district of Khyber Agency.[15]
  • As reported on October 17 by Dawn, senior Pakistani government officials say the next target of the Pakistan military in North Waziristan will be militants in the Shawal Valley. The military intends to enter the Shawal Valley and destroy militant hideouts before the beginning of December. Additionally, Pakistani officials denied that the Pakistan military is under orders not to target particular militant groups like the Haqqani Network.[16]
  • On October 17, security forces arrested 40 suspects in a search operation in Charbagh sub-district, Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.[17]
  • On October 18, in a roadside attack on a water tanker, an improvised explosive device (IED) killed two Frontier Corps personnel and injured two others in Salarzai sub-district, Bajaur Agency. TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid claimed responsibility for the attack.[18]
  • On October 20, a cross-border attack along the Pak-Afghan border in the Kakhi Pass area of Bajaur Agency injured three FC personnel.[19]
  • On October 18, members of the Mamund tribe’s anti-Taliban militia pledged to fight alongside security forces in a rally held in support of the Pakistan military in the Tani area of the Mamund sub-district, Bajaur Agency.[20]
 
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Zarb-e-Azb: Raheel Sharif’s doctrine of clarity
Special Report

Wajahat S. KhanThursday, October 09, 2014


ISLAMABAD: Days before the June 15 air strikes, which were followed by the June 30 ground offensive — official launch dates of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the Pakistani military’s long awaited, and currently out-of-focus, campaign in North Waziristan — General Raheel Sharif looked across his long commander’s conference room table.

There was Lt. General Khalid Rabbani, the Commander of Peshawar’s XI Corps, making a serious demand: two dedicated battalions from the Special Services Group would be required for the job in the initial stages. It was a tough ask. The SSG troops are crack commandos, difficult to maintain and expensive to deploy, and were already stretched onto other assignments for counter-terrorism duties across Fata and the mainland.

Sharif shifted his gaze further down the table, and made a snap decision that would be more strategic than tactical, addressing a more junior man, the General Officer Commanding of the SSG: “Forget the battalions. The entire SSG division will be dedicated if the need arises,” said the chief of the army staff. “And so will aviation. We will do, not what we can, but what we must, to win this.”

Frankly, all of the SSG didn’t — and, logistically, couldn’t — make it to North Waziristan. But Sharif’s decision was followed in spirit, if not letter; for the first time, in the extensive ground operations that were to commence, a detachment of SSG commandos would be embedded with regular infantry units at the platoon and even section level, ‘training by doing’ with regular troops to enhance the latter’s counter-insurgency (COIN) and counter-terror (CT) capacity. Besides shaking things up in the army’s conventionally static order of battle, Sharif’s move was also a crucial morale booster: it’s not a bad deal for a regular infantryman to have fully qualified special-forces commando with jump wings by his side in the heat of battle.

Five months into the much awaited, even delayed, military operation against the militants in North Waziristan — the ‘Hotel California’ of terrorists wanted by Beijing, Washington and everyone in the middle — the Raheel Doctrine, which is a hybrid of politicking, administrating, martialing, warfare and public relations, evolves: Take a big decision, in principle; figure out the details as you go along; be ambitious about the objective yet cautious about sharing it; and always take advantage of fluidity — politically, internationally, as well as militarily — if and when possible.

Since he’s assumed office, General Sharif has had a point to prove; most military analysts had taken it as a given that he was not ‘groomed’ by his predecessor, former army chief Ashfaq Kayani, to lead the world’s sixth largest standing army; that not only made him suffer through the labelling of being ‘the prime minister’s handpicked man’, but, as local pundits had diagnosed, he was going through the ‘beginner’s dilemma’ in his first year, where he had to work extra hard to be more than just the first among equals that are his powerful corps commanders and principal staff officers; his predecessors had experienced similar problems in their starts, but they had figured it out by engineering 10-year (for Pervez Musharraf) and six-year (for Kayani) tenures for themselves.

Sharif would not have — and for those who know him, did not want — those political luxuries; his commanders, in General Headquarters and in the field formations, were eager to move out of the Rah-e-Rast and Rah-e-Nijat hangovers that had become Swat and South Waziristan; the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had re-organised into a politically powerful and tactically potent force, despite losing Hakimullah Mehsud right around the time Sharif would be getting his fourth star; and he had one of his largest divisions, the 7th, sitting in a bunker in Miranshah, around 200 metres from where Mehsud’s residence had been, embarrassed into a self-inflicted siege, watching American drones and the Taliban play hide and seek around them, and only able to drive around once a week according to the terms of a limiting peace agreement that was in tatters anyway. Finally, 2014 was happening; there was a deadline to the Nato/Isaf drawdown that depended on securing the border, and Washington was shoving a stopwatch in Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s faces.

So, by late 2013, the Pakistan Army was looking, and ready, for some change and clarity; and its 15th chief, Sharif — never an intelligence officer, never in command on the western front, never the favourite amongst his contemporaries for the most powerful office in the land, more of an instructor than a doer, really — would bring it.

The intelligibility would come promptly, too. In the army, a “Quick Battle Order” is an immediate decision by a senior that has to be carried out by subordinates, usually always on the fly; planning is improvised, left to the men on the ground, but the essence defines the objective.

Early in his tenure, last December, General Sharif would give his first, serious QBO as army chief: A “Retaliate at Will” signal to his men in North Waziristan, who had been holed up in the tribal area, essentially blockaded, for years: that new space for action had led to a much publicised face-off in Mir Ali Bazaar, where the use of heavy firepower by quick reaction forces from Miranshah’s 7th Division against militants who had attacked a Frontier Corps check post, and were hiding among the civilian population, had ended up in a wintry media disaster for the military.

Sharif would use his spin-machine to fight off the public relations flak, but would effectively evolve the game of war he had started, optically and militarily: Where possible, use the air, surgically and/or aggressively; otherwise, use the ground, and if things got messy, control the information, down to a drip feed, or even nothing; but don’t relent in momentum or lose track of the big picture. It would be an approach that would resonate, as well as help create, the way his commanders would eventually run Zarb-e-Azb.

Over the early months of 2014, in the build-up to Zarb-e-Azb (or Op ZEA, as it’s now referred to), General Sharif would fine-tune his plans, essentially on the go: belligerent, tit-for-tat air strikes that would kill in the dozens, without much of a media fallout, thanks to an all-but-official information blackout from the region; an intelligence-based strategy that would loop in the civilian government to hold up the ‘talk to those want to talk’ narrative while allowing the military to play the ‘bomb those who don’t want to negotiate’ double-game. This would be, as a senior minister in the federal cabinet recently admitted in an interview, “a brilliant farce, designed to make the civilians look civilised, the army look gung-ho and actually confuse the terrorists, as a civ-mil divide was seen in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, but not felt on the ground in Waziristan.”

But those were optical illusions, engineered to create a national consensus by what was then a healthy relationship between GHQ and Raiwind; spring would see Raheel take further advantage of the civ-mil thaw as he prepared the battlefield, merging national politics with military kinetics.

In his speeches, General Sharif’s old and new school duality became the key: first, he would show off his democratic credentials; then, he would term the terror threat as existential; then he would remind all and sundry of Kashmir, calling it the jugular vein of the land. On the ground, he would start visiting his frontline troops, gearing up junior officers and senior commanders on both fronts while homing in the message;

get ready for a long haul, casualty-heavy engagement, out west. And don’t overthink it, too much.
As evidence of his seriousness, Sharif’s air assets would provide the pre-emptive lighting and thunder.

As for his faith in the negotiations, contrary to the views about Zarb-e-Azb having kicked off mid-summer, The News has learnt that pre-operational clearance strikes, by troops from South Waziristan’s crack divisions as well as Tarbela-based special forces, saw engagements building up to the north as early as March, concentrating on targets to block the region’s southern and eastern corridors in case the militants decided to move around too much within the badlands, or too far into the mainland.

Around the same time, the joint civil-military carrot of talks and stick of bombings, all driven by creative spy-games on the ground and in the media, would start creating splinter groups: The Mehsuds would walk, the Gul Bahadurs would balk, other factions born and older ones re-born.

Raheel’s generals would start identifying pockets for military as well as public-consumption purposes; North Waziristan would be taken in stages: first, by negotiations; then by the intelligence-led split-‘em-up game; then by softening up hard targets from the air; then, by ‘strangulation’ through curfews and cordons of relevant localities; then a random or a reasonable repetition of all of the above. The Karachi Airport attack in early June would provide a mere political tipping point for what had, essentially, already begun months before: a blitz in slow motion.

When the proceedings officially kicked off, for clearance and holding purposes on the ground, the NWA would be divided up into what some call the ‘Burger Battle’: the Mir Ali, Miranshah, Boya-Degan and Dattakhel Axes would form a neat, east-to-west centre, or the patty in the middle, of North Waziristan; next would be the south, also running east to west too, from around Razmak to Shawal, which would form the lower bun; later on, the north, up to Kurram, would be the eventual dressing, followed by sealing the border, the final bun on top.

Not unambitious, the selling price to both the government and the media would be several weeks of fighting, if not months, as well as a massive flux of internally displaced people. Units on the ground would get their holidays cancelled on similar timelines. What the army would conveniently forget to tell — and everyone would be too flummoxed to ask — would be that this was only Phase One of the operation: the patty bit, to secure the centre, the semi-urban meat, of the tribal agency.

Again, Raheel’s doctrine would form this ‘tell them what they need to hear’ approach. Here in the mainland, Phase One of Zarb-e-Azb would be sold as standardised and government-issued, conducted for operational as well as PR purposes. As a military source put it: “The psycho-social goals of taking on the big areas that everyone and their cousin had heard about, like Mike 1, Mike 2, Bravo-Delta and Delta Kilo (Miranshah, Mir Ali, Boya-Degan and Dattakhel) had to be taken, publicly and proudly, and so they were.”

Thus, July onwards saw the media-tap being opened: weapons caches, IED-factories, suicide-bomb training academies, literature and graffiti; the usual benchmarks of the newly captured badlands were displayed and aired. Success was declared with a thick skin, too; no heads of high-value targets were displayed on pikes, even as tough questions were raised about ‘safe passage granted’ to the ‘Good Taliban’ — those groups that are considered assets of the military intelligence apparatus, like the fearsome Haqqani Network — versus the ‘Bad Taliban’ i.e. factions at war with the Islamic Republic and its forces.

Meanwhile, Raheel’s course-mate, the retired yet high-profile Major General Athar Abbas, would, willingly or otherwise, come to the new chief’s aid by blaming the old chief, Kayani, for not having been decisive enough about North Waziristan, drawing a distinction between the inaction of the old guard and the dynamism of the new. Others would also chime in, agreeably. This would not be the first time in the summer when the former chief would be thrown under the bus, by sources privy or powerful, to separate Kayani’s regime from the incumbent one with a semi-colon of confidence.

But then, more politics happened. By late summer, the Dharnas started; Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri came to town, and the General Headquarters got pulled in — dutifully or otherwise — into the messy war of attrition that was launched by the cricketer-cleric combine — with what some would allege was operational advice from friends in high places, even as high as Rawalpindi and Dubai — against the Nawaz Sharif regime. All evidence of the military’s involvement in the scrimmage remained anecdotal.

The storm was weathered and piloted through by General Sharif, who kept calm and quietly changed the batting order at Aabpara, stemming possibilities of extensions and/or de-notifications (Army code for officer/s being fired) by playing fair, even tweeting his way out of the mess.

Yet, here was Zarb-e-Azb, with its Phase One hardly over, and a crisis threatening Pakistan’s polity becoming the national front and centre. The operational patty — taking on the major localities running from Bannu in the east to the border in the west — was not yet fully grilled before Islamabad started heating up. Thus, optically, Op ZEA went straight to the backburner of the national conversation. A popular daily ran the headline “Zarb-e-Azb: The Forgotten War”, as parliament, not precision air strikes, became the key phrases of drawing rooms and news studios.

Meanwhile, the drone programme, suspended for several months since last winter, would restart; the border with India would start heating up as a new thaw with New Delhi would set in; and the Afghans would remain suspended in their own political deadlock, creating doubts about the future of US forces on the ground in Afghanistan, which always makes dollars and sense in Pakistan. But these would be gaps, mere distractions that Raheel and his men would take advantage of on in the ravines of Waziristan. For, come this autumn, Zarb-e-Azb continues to roll on, into its second, more decisive phase.

“No time sensitivity please, this isn’t fast food,” explained an officer from Peshawar’s XI Corps, involved in ground operations in North Waziristan. “This is fine dining, a 20 course dinner, and right now, you’re on the fourth or fifth course. If you want to enjoy your meal, you will need the evening off.”

Soldiers love food metaphors and, like journalists, they don’t like deadlines. While a Dharna-affected Pakistan has led to the national limelight moving away from Zarb-e-Azb, the ambitiously named (“Strike of the Prophet’s Sword”), even overdue military foray into North Waziristan — ground zero for the many terror groups which operate in the region — the Pakistani military has taken advantage of the broader political space carved out for it as a natural consequence of the ongoing anti-government crisis to figure the way forward for this war, as well as hone and enhance its own counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism (CT) skill sets.

“There’s more elbow room on the dining table today than we had earlier in the year,” said the officer, pushing the war-as-a-meal symbolism. “It’s not relevant how the extra political leverage was created, but it’s very relevant how we will utilise it in [Zarb-e] Azb.”

Translated, troops on the ground as well as their generals in General Headquarters now clearly reckon that Op ZEA (the Army’s new abbreviation for Zarb-e-Azb) is a long-term, ambitious engagement.

The campaign is going to haul beyond this winter, as new towns one may never have heard off — Tapi, Spalgha, Panda — are captured to ring across the national conversation; it’s going to extend into stages, with just the clearing and holding bit taking up to “a couple, maybe more, years”, according to an officer, before the building and transferring to the civilian-run administration even begins. Interestingly, there are abstract views about the return date of the internally displaced local population back into North Waziristan (generally, senior officers in the Army are not too keen on IDPs returning soon).

Moreover, Op ZEA is being seen as an eventually strategic game-changer for the region, which culminates with laws enacted, roads built, model villages constructed and borders sealed to buffer the endangered (Pakistan) from the embroiled (Afghanistan), finally de-hyphenating the American-manufactured security equation that is Af-Pak.

With key built-up areas (the towns of Mir Ali, Miranshah, Boya-Degan and Dattakhel) now taken, on-the-fly operations, air strikes, explosives/ordnance hunts and firefights continue, even as Phase Two of the operation officially begins.

Minor operations will also roll on through the so-called ‘non-fighting season’ of winter. “Why fight an unconventional war via the conventional ways,” asked an officer in explanation, further claiming that “we are geared up for the cold, but they [militants] are the ones who melt away when the chill arrives.”

Expect Shawal — a rugged no-man’s-land nestled between South and North Waziristan, with narrow alpine valleys and jagged peaks that rise up to 18,000 feet, as the next obvious target. Already being softened by both Pakistani air strikes as well as the CIA’s drones (which are back with a vengeance, though both sides have insisted in background conversations that Langley’s drone targeting is independent of Pakistani coordination), it’s where many militants have fled to since the fighting began, in earnest, last spring. The plan, simply, is to pound the locality hard and then take it by next spring. Thus, there is a long-term, almost relaxed, pace to the army’s operations, resonant in conversations on the ground in Waziristan and in the GHQ.

“The key difference in fighting COIN [counterinsurgency] in a foreign land versus your own land is time and legitimacy,” explained an infantry officer stationed in Waziristan for months. “Foreign forces are expeditionary forces, always running behind schedule. They are subjected to a time window and legitimacy problem. We are not.”

Yet, despite of the military’s can-do swagger, serious questions remain about Zarb-e-Azb, the foremost being: why now, and not earlier?

“Strategic restraint”, explained one officer, referring to the criticism generated around the beginning of the operation by the remarks of the former army spokesperson, the retired Major General Athar Abbas, about former Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Kayani’s recalcitrance to launch an operation in the north soon after a 2010 campaign secured South Waziristan. Early summer saw those remarks create shockwaves against ‘Canny Kayani’, demarcating his style and intentions as clearly different from the incumbent Army Chief Raheel Sharif.

But, the officer continued, the pre-operational waiting game had more nuance to it: “Fata is not in a vacuum. The time Kayani took was for decisions that were linked to the Americans, to the Afghans, to 2014 and even to our own fatigue...Yes, we chose to remain under siege in North Waziristan, barely able to move. Yes, it was embarrassing. But those same bases where we were holed up for years are now providing the perfect jump-off points to launch full-scale offensives, are they not? So there is a dividend of patience we are enjoying operationally in North Waziristan.”

Other questions also arise. Have all the militants groups been unequivocally targeted, as the suave spokesperson of the Army, Major General Asim S. Bajwa, claims with his now famous “all colours and hues of terrorism will be eliminated” statements?

Moreover, that leads to another, even more serious question: Is this operation the real deal, the much awaited ‘clean sweep’, or a temporary push by the military to meet pending deadlines, like that of US/NATO/ISAF’s 2014 drawdown? Or worse, yet another ticked box to land defence deals while keeping the pot that is South Asian security simmering for attention and aid?

Like anyone else, soldiers don’t like being asked tough questions. But many officers on the ground admit that the “Haqqani Question” remains as unanswered for them as it does for the rest of the world: Where did the region’s deadliest militant faction, once cited as the “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus by an American military commander, and widely assumed to be based in North Waziristan, disappear to? Kurram? Quetta? Rawalpindi? Safe passage across the border?

Irrelevant, they say. What’s relevant is that a primary objective of counterinsurgency has been achieved: space, long ceded, has now been denied. The capacity of all and sundry groups to operate from the tribal agency has been reduced, as the rug of establishment — the ability to base — has been pulled from under them.

Yet, this was not always the case. In the initial stages of the campaign, when The News interviewed officers operating in North Waziristan, there was a lack of clarity about who to hit and who to spare. The situation earlier this summer, for example, with Hafiz Gul Bahadur — long considered a ‘Good Taliban’ tied up in a peace agreement since 2007/8 with the army was, as one officer put it, “dicey”. There were “mixed variables” that would not let the military unleash upon the southwest into Dattakhel and other areas dominated by Bahadur’s forces. Thus, those areas became safe havens, even as the operation continued elsewhere in the tribal agency.

Anxious to keep the momentum going — which had been built after they took Miranshah and Mir Ali — junior officers were getting impatient, too. As were the Americans, who restarted the drone programme mid-summer in zones like Dattakhel, where the Pakistani military was not yet fully engaging. Meanwhile, the locals had their own gripes: if the Dawars of Miranshah and Mir Ali were being targeted, why not the troublesome Wazirs of the southwest, too? If the Uzbeks were being hit, what about the Arabs? And the Afghan-centric groups, as well as suddenly “friendly” sub-commanders, who were retaining positions of safety in areas as south as Razmak?

Not any more. “GB [Gul Bahadur] is on the run, and it’s because we’ve decided to go for him... This whole ‘agreements’ and ‘proxy’ business makes life difficult in a full-fledged op,” said an infantry officer involved in the campaign.

“It isn’t like the old days,” confirmed a senior staffer in GHQ. “If I play double games with my juniors today, lives are affected tomorrow. We can’t be lying to ourselves when we are under a rocket-propelled grenade RPG attack that’s coming from the village of a so-called friendly fighter...Grays are becoming black and white for us when it comes to terrorism. Ten years of war can do that. Zarb-e-Azb is helping clean the slate for the Army.”

War is so fluid, this line of argument continues, that you can’t really pick one target or forego another when it comes to the heat of a contemporary joint-forces COIN operation and/or CT battle out in the badlands. As for the theories about the militants’ movements or migrations? Officers admit that it has happened before, and may well have happened again, though with some irreverence:

“With the Haqqanis, it’s a damned if we do and damned if we don’t narrative,” explained an officer involved in clearance operations. “Plus, some things are simply above our pay grade...But I’ll tell you something: We haven’t seen the Haqqanis being bussed out of here. We haven’t gotten orders saying ‘Don’t shoot at Haqqani, but do shoot at X, Y and Z’. That’s just not on. Not in a war like this one.”

A senior officer in GHQ had an even more candid take on the Haqqani question: “Of course, there are favourites. Every intelligence agency in the world works with bad guys. The CIA doesn’t work with Santa Claus, does it? Nor do our agencies...But forget the agencies for a minute, and look at the big picture. Look at how the state is committing itself. Look at the resources we’ve spent and lives we’ve lost for this area, and tell me if we can be blamed for a simple policy that works for us: that we won’t take everyone on at the same time...No, sir, we won’t. Now, even the Americans are understanding this policy.”

As for assessing gains and losses, amidst criticism from what one officer termed the “non-elimination mantra of the media”, that is the reproachful contemporary analysis that blames the Army for either having given enough warning signs to militants based out of North Waziristan to move out of the area before ground operations began in earnest — or worse, a safe passage — operational officers The News interviewed came up with broad, but similar, themes.

In a counterinsurgency, they surmised, a standing opposition in a pitched battle is a fantasy; so don’t expect big gains to be propped up on a regular basis. In the build-up and initial stages of the operation, officers admit, a lot of armed groups fled because they had better local intelligence — and, unlike Swat, more local help — than the Army. Officers also stressed the “success” of the massive aerial bombing campaign — which started in early spring and killed in the twenties and thirties whenever negotiations broke down or retaliation was in order.

Officers also emphasise that gains have to be measured in terms of ‘non-events’, too: The impressive capacity of the militants — improvised explosive device (IED)-manufacturing facilities, ordnance caches and distribution networks, for example — which was uncovered had to be understood before it was dismantled.

“Accumulated over three decades of a terror-driven economy, with wholesale markets of weapons and IEDs and sophisticated smuggling and storage links, cutting off Tango supply lines that run into the mainland was a major achievement,” claimed an officer involved in clearance operations, referring to the codename given to Taliban and other combatants by the Fata-based officers.

The fact that there has been little or no terror blowback in the mainland, Dharnas and all, with the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz’s “Fortress Punjab” not yet breached, despite promises of revenge attacks by militants — always an area of concern for the Lahore-centric government — is evidence of attainment too, claims this Army-driven perspective. The recent Quetta Airport/PAF Base attack, even the attempted mutiny to capture a Pakistan Navy frigate in Karachi, are seen as successfully quelled outliers in this line of argument.

“Zarb-e-Azb cannot be judged on a scoreboard, but a pendulum,” explained an officer who has conducted several ground operations in the larger campaign. “It’s about time versus space. We may have the momentum, but the enemy has the time. The key, for us, is to have both.”

[End of Part 2 of a series of special reports on Operation Zarb-e-Azb by the newspaper’s National Security Editor. Tweet to him at @wajskhan]
 
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Militancy
  • On October 21, militants based in the Bara sub-district of Khyber Agency warned local tribesmen against leaving the area in a bid to use the local population as human shields against a fresh Pakistani military operation. Militants reportedly threatened to blow up the houses of people who leave the area or support the government in the new offensive, titled Operation Khyber I.[1]
  • According to an Express Tribune report on October 21, the Pakistani military launched Operation Khyber I after Manghal Bagh, the chief of Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), refused to vacate three strategic positions in the Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. Security forces claim that LI militants were displaced from one of the positions in the first 48 hours of the offensive while operations continue in the other two positions. Government officials claim around 100 militants have surrendered since the offensive began on October 17.[2]
  • On October 21, Pakistani military airstrikes killed 30 suspected militants and destroyed four militant hideouts in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. The airstrikes reportedly killed a key Taliban commander called Daud Matta.[3]
  • On October 21, mortar shelling from across the border in Afghanistan killed one civilian and injured two in the Charmang sub-district of Bajaur Agency. Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency borders Afghanistan’s Kunar province and has a history of cross-border militant attacks.[4]
  • On October 20, cross-border firing by militants on a Frontier Corps (FC) check post in the Ghakhi area of Bajaur Agency injured three FC officials. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid claimed responsibility for the attack via telephone.[5]
  • On October 21, militants in Bajaur Agency distributed pamphlets warning polio workers against participating in polio vaccination drives and threatening attacks on all participating workers in the Khar area of Bajaur. Militants allege that polio vaccination is “anti-Islamic” and that the drives are a cover for espionage.[6]
  • On October 21, the U.S. Department of the Treasury added Pakistani national Sajna Mehsud, alias Khan Said, the head of the Mehsud branch of militants formerly part of the TTP, to the department’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. Meanwhile, late-TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud was deleted from the SDN list.[7]
 
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Militancy
  • As initially reported on October 21, militant commander Daud Wazir of Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s Group was one of those killed in an airstrike by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). The airstrike also killed 30 militants and injured over 12 in Madda Khel, Datta Khel, and the Shawal Valley in North Waziristan.[2]
  • On October 22, militants fired rockets on a fort, killing two security personnel and injuring three others in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.[3]
  • On October 22, military gunship helicopters targeted militant hideouts in Shalobar and Sipah areas of Bara sub-district, Khyber Agency.[4]
  • In the wake of Operation Khyber I, tribesmen from Bara and Tirah are fleeing their homes in increasing numbers and relocating to locations such as Peshawar, despite warnings of retaliation by militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI). Officials claim that 1,500 families have relocated from Bara while Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) officials claims between 20,000 and 30,000 tribesmen have relocated to Peshawar and the surrounding area.[5]
  • On October 22, a roadside improvised explosive device (IED) injured two Levies Force personnel and one other person in an attack on a polio vaccination team in the Dabara area of Mamund sub-district, Bajaur Agency. The blast comes at the end of a three-day campaign to immunize children against polio in Bajaur Agency.[6]
  • On October 22, a bomb disposal squad police defused a bomb found hidden in a computer monitor in a plaza near University Road in Peshawar.[7]
 
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Militancy
  • On October 22, eighteen people including two soldiers and five civilians were killed and 23 injured in clashes and airstrikes by Pakistani security forces in the Tirah Valley, as a part of the ongoing Operation Khyber I in Khyber Agency. According to security forces, airstrikes in Sepah, Akakhel and Tarkhus areas of the Tirah Valley killed eight militants and destroyed three militant hideouts. Further, clashes between security forces and militants killed three militants, two soldiers and injured three others at Sepah in the Spin Qabar area. Five civilians were also killed and 23 injured in shelling by gunship helicopters in Bara sub-district of Khyber Agency.[5]
  • On October 23, Pakistani security forces killed six suspected militants and injured seven in the Sipah area of Bara sub-district, Khyber Agency as a part of the ongoing military offensive, Operation Kyber I.[6]
  • On October 23, a militant attack on a check post of the Frontier Corps (FC) killed two FC soldiers and injured two in the Sipah area of Bara sub-district in Khyber Agency. The militants reportedly used heavy weapons in the attack. Security forces then launched a retaliatory operation against militant hideouts in Shalobar, Aka Khel, Yousaf Talab and Sipah areas, killing one and injuring two militants.[7]
  • On October 22, Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) spokesperson Saifullah Saif claimed that an attack by the militants on a convoy of security forces killed nine soldiers in the Sepah area of Spin Qabar in Khyber Agency. Security forces confirmed the attack on the convoy.[8]
  • On October 22, a rocket attack by militants on a military camp killed one civilian truck driver and injured another in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.[9]
  • On October 23, unidentified gunmen killed eight and injured six members of the ethnic Hazara Shia community when the gunmen opened fire on a bus in the Hazar Ganji area of Quetta. The members were returning from a vegetable market when they were intercepted by gunmen.[10]
  • On October 23, a roadside improvised explosive device (IED) killed two people and injured 14, including two Frontier Corps (FC) personnel, on Qambrani Road in Quetta. The IED detonated while an FC convoy was passing by, suggesting that the attack was targeting FC personnel. Gunmen also opened fire in the area after the explosion. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.[11]
  • In an update to a previous report from October 21, the U.S. Department of the Treasury added Pakistani national Sajna Mehsud, the head of the Mehsud branch of militants formerly part of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to the department’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. According to a U.S. State Department notification, Sajna was sanctioned mainly for his involvement in the May 2011 attack on Mehran Naval base Karachi and for masterminding the April 2012 Bannu jail break which freed 400 militants.[12]
 
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Militancy
  • On October 23, over the course of the day in separate clashes between security forces and militants, a militant commander, two civilians, and three soldiers were killed while at least 11 civilians were injured in clashes in Bara sub-district, Khyber Agency. In the Sepah and Aka Khel areas of Bara sub-district, tribesmen evacuating from Bara sub-district reported that bombers and heavy artillery injured at least 10 civilians and killed a militant commander while targeting militant hideouts. Additionally, Pakistani soldiers reportedly fired upon civilians they mistook for militants, killing two and injuring one, in Seyal Khan Killay, Aka Khel, Bara sub-district. Unidentified attackers killed a soldier in Aziz Market, Aka Khel, Bara sub-district. An improvised explosive device (IED) injured two soldiers in Seyal Khan Killay, Aka Khel, Bara sub-district. The Zakha Khel anti-Taliban militia set fire to the houses of 10 militants in Aka Khel, Bara sub-district.[2]
  • On October 24, police thwarted a militant plot when officers seized a vehicle containing 250 kilograms of explosives in Landi Kotal, Khyber Agency. Security officials believe that the vehicle was intended to be detonated in the Landi Kotal Bazaar and that it was intended to be retaliation for Operation Khyber I.[3]
  • On October 23, a suicide bomber killed one person and injured 22 in a blast targeting the vehicle of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman in Quetta. Rehman escaped unhurt from the attack. On October 24, police forces reportedly carried out raids in different areas of Quetta and arrested several suspects in connection to the attack.[4]
 
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Country Risk
Continuing military operation in North Waziristan likely to cause split between Afghan Taliban and Pakistan military
IHS Jane's Intelligence Weekly
17 July 2014

Pakistan Army soldiers at a militant compound in Miran Shah, North Waziristan, following a successful operation against extremists. Source: PA

Key Points
  • Pakistani media reported on 16 July that key jihadist figure Adnan Rasheed had been captured during the ongoing operation in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and two US unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in North Waziristan this week killed at least 35 militants. The success of the operation to date is putting increasing pressure on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's operational infrastructure.

  • The Pakistan Army's operation is driving militants from North Waziristan into neighbouring Khost, Kunar, and Paktika on the Afghan side of the border, where the Afghan Taliban has reportedly given refuge to these fighters.

  • The Afghan Taliban's support of the Pakistani Taliban is likely to drive a wedge in the former's traditional strategic relationship with the Pakistan military.
The most contentious issue will be over the Afghan Taliban's treatment of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). After six months of inconclusive negotiations following the attack on Karachi airport in June, the Pakistani government launched a full military operation in North Waziristan, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb. In addition to an extensive air and ground offensive, the operation has also coincided with a resumption of US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes in North Waziristan, indicating that despite the Pakistan government's official position of opposition to UAV strikes, there appears to be a great deal of collusion between the US and Pakistan military on such strikes.

Before the capture of Adnan Rasheed, the Pakistan Army had been unable to kill or capture any high value targets, and front-line commanders had admitted that most of the TTP leadership had crossed the border into Afghanistan to escape capture. Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, the head of the TTP, who assumed the leadership after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in 2013, has continued to mount operations against Pakistani targets from Kunar, an area that is under the control of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, another group that Indian and Afghan security forces have long alleged had close affiliations to Pakistan. Although the Afghan Taliban has always condemned attacks against the Pakistani military, it has not taken any measures to restrain Fazlullah. However, following the launching of the operation in North Waziristan, IHS' monitoring of jihadist social media has revealed that the Afghan Taliban has established refuges for TTP fighters escaping across the border from Pakistan. Seemingly in response to this, Pakistani media reported last week that Abdul Qayoom Noorzai, a senior Afghan Taliban commander, had been murdered in Kuchlaq, Balochistan. Kuchlaq, and other areas surrounding Quetta, had until then been considered safe for Afghan Taliban commanders.
IHS sources allege that the relationship between the Haqqani Network and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had also soured over the past year owing to the Haqqanis' continuous support for the TTP.

As a result, a number of increasingly accurate UAV strikes have reportedly virtually wiped out the Haqqani leadership, while one of Jalaluddin Haqqani's sons was assassinated by unknown gunmen on the outskirts of Islamabad in November 2013. The implication, according to IHS sources within the intelligence community in Pakistan, is that the ISI facilitated these actions against the Haqqanis in retaliation for their support for the TTP.
Rapprochement with Afghanistan?

Another key indicator of the Pakistan military's growing problems with the Afghan Taliban has been the Pakistan military's attempt to improve co-ordination with the Afghan government. Two weeks before the launching of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, both governments had been protesting cross-border firing incidents.

However, almost as soon as the operation was launched, Afghan National Security Adviser Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta arrived in Islamabad for his first ever visit, quickly followed by several high-ranking Afghan National Army commanders, who met the Pakistani military leadership. The Pakistani military also remained neutral during the Afghan presidential election, another indicator that Pakistan is likely to look for greater co-ordination with the Afghan government, now that Pakistan is faced with problems with the Afghan Taliban.

Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai has so far remained resistant to Pakistani demands, insisting that as a price for greater co-operation, Pakistan should disavow all contacts with Afghan insurgent groups, and that future co-operation should also include Indian and Chinese concerns in the region. However, it is likely that Karzai's successor, whether it is Abdullah Abdullah or Ashraf Ghani, will not take such a hard line with Pakistan.

Outlook and implications
As the Pakistan military continues to intensify its efforts against the TTP in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (the army is likely to expand its operations to the Bajaur Agency in the next few weeks), the existing friction between them and the Afghan Taliban will increase. If Fazlullah executes major retaliatory strikes in Pakistani cities, there will be greater pressure on the Afghan Taliban to hand over TTP militants sheltering in the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar, and Paktika. A refusal to do this will increase the likelihood of a split in the traditional alliance, increasing death and injury risks for Afghan commanders sheltering in Pakistan.

However, without the Taliban's support, Pakistan will not have a reliable proxy in Afghanistan, thus increasing political instability across the region. This is also likely to have a crucial impact on Chinese commercial interests in Afghanistan. China has made long-term investments in major projects such as the Aynak copper mine, content in the understanding that the Pakistan military could be used to intercede with the Taliban on its behalf after the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan in December 2014. If Pakistan's alliance with the Afghan Taliban continues to deteriorate, these projects will face increasing risks of attack.

FORECAST
As the Pakistan military continues to intensify its efforts against the TTP in the FATA (the army is likely to expand its operations to the Bajaur Agency in the next few weeks), the existing friction between them and the Afghan Taliban will increase. If Fazlullah executes major retaliatory strikes in Pakistani cities, there will be greater pressure on the Afghan Taliban to hand over TTP militants sheltering in the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika. A refusal to do this will increase the likelihood of a split in the traditional alliance, increasing death and injury risks for Afghan commanders sheltering in Pakistan.

However, without the Taliban's support, Pakistan will not have a reliable proxy in Afghanistan, thus increasing political instability across the region. This is also likely to have a crucial impact on Chinese commercial interests in Afghanistan. China has made long-term investments in major projects such as the Aynak copper mine, content in the understanding that the Pakistan military could be used to intercede with the Taliban on its behalf after the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan in December 2014. If Pakistan's alliance with the Afghan Taliban continues to deteriorate, these projects will face increasing risks of attack.

JDW
 
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Key commander among 20 militants killed in Khyber Agency

October 26, 2014 - Updated 1030 PKT
khyberoperation.20kill_10-26-2014_163698_l.jpg


KHYBER AGENCY: Security forces killed twenty militants, including key commander of banned Lashkar-e-Islam, in Khyber Agency last night, Geo News reported.
Security sources said military jets pounded hideouts of militants in various areas of tehsil Bara of the tribal agency last night, killing 20 terrorists and injuring several others.
Sources maintained that a key militant commander was among those killed in the air strikes, while five hideouts of the terrorists werre destroyed.
 
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Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claims attacks on Pakistani ships were more audacious than reported

By THOMAS JOSCELYNSeptember 29, 2014



The banner above advertises the latest statement by AQIS explaining its attacks on two Pakistani frigates on Sept. 6. The man pictured on the right is purportedly Zeeshan Rafique, whom AQIS says was a second lieutenant in the Pakistan Navy. He is pictured giving a "briefing" to the "leadership of the mujahideen on the plan of the operation."

Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the newest official branch of al Qaeda's international organization, has released a nine-page "press release" explaining its "targeting of [the] American and Indian Navies" on Sept. 6. The group says the operations were part of "a plan to strike America's military strength on the seas" that was prepared "on the orders of the respected [Emir], Shaykh Ayman al Zawahiri."

AQIS spokesman Usama Mahmood claims that the Pakistani government has covered up the extent of its planned operations and, he says, the media coverage thus far does not accurately reflect what transpired. Therefore, Mahmood has published al Qaeda's response on his official Twitter feed.

What follows is a summary of al Qaeda's version of events and is not an independent account. None of the purported details have been publicly verified by US intelligence officials.

All citations are from the statement released by Mahmood. AQIS is eager to claim that the operations caused more damage than the Pakistani government is letting on.

"The operation was portrayed as an attack on the naval dockyard by 'outsiders' who had infiltrated the facility," the AQIS document reads. But al Qaeda claims the "operation took place under the leadership of two brothers from Al Qa'eda in the [Indian] Subcontinent, namely Oweis Jakhrani (former Second Lieutenant in the Pakistan Navy) and Zeeshan Rafeeq (Second Lieutenant)."



The AQIS document includes photos of both Jakhrani and Rafeeq. Only Jakhrani was not an active duty officer at the time of the attacks, according to AQIS, as he "had only recently resigned from the Pakistan Navy due to his faith and zeal." All of the other al Qaeda operatives "who attained martyrdom during this operation were serving officers of the Pakistan Navy." (Emphasis in original.)

The goal of the operation was to take "control of two important warships of the Pakistan Navy," the PNS Zulfiqar and PNS Aslat. There "were several Mujahid brothers" aboard both ships and they were "provided with the necessary weapons and explosives required for this operation," AQIS says.

The first al Qaeda team was on board the PNS Zulfiqar, which departed Karachi on Sept. 3 and was allegedly scheduled "to be refueled by USS Supply," which "is one of the most important American naval ships after aircraft carriers."

While the PNS Zulfiqar was being refueled, "some of the Mujahid brothers present on board...were to target and destroy the American oil tanker [USS Supply] with the 72 mm anti-aircraft guns on their frigate."

In addition, other al Qaeda operatives on board the PNS Zulfiqar "would target the American frigate protecting USS Supply using four anti-ship guided missiles." If they were successful, the al Qaeda team would then use whatever weapons were left over to attack or "destroy any American or coalition warship present in the vicinity, and fight on until attaining martyrdom."

A second AQIS team was present on board the PNS Aslat "with weapons and explosives." According to the plan, the second cadre of AQIS jihadists was going to "take over" the PNS Aslat, which was "near the shores of Karachi," and "steer it towards Indian waters in order to attack Indian warships with anti-ship missiles." If any ships got in their way, including American warships, then the AQIS crew on board would use the PNS Aslat to attack them instead.

AQIS goes on to give a version of events that is substantially different from that told by official Pakistani sources.

The group claims that the PNS Zulfiqar departed Karachi on Sept. 3 and implies that the firefight between al Qaeda's men and others in the Pakistani Navy took place deep in the Indian Ocean. Pakistani sources have said that the attack occurred in the Naval Dockyard in Karachi.

AQIS questions the timing of the Pakistani Navy's announcement that the attack had occurred, saying it waited several days to publicly acknowledge it. The press release reads: "Is it [the supposedly delayed announcement] because it took three days to erase the evidence of the firefight aboard PNS Zulfiqar and the consequent damage to the warship? Or is it because it took three days for this frigate to return to Karachi after the battle had occurred on board?"

Similarly, AQIS claims that the attack on the PNS Aslat was an inside operation and it "was not attacked form the outside," as Pakistani officials have claimed. AQIS says that Pakistan "cover[ed] up the success of the Mujahideen and the moral and material losses and damage suffered by the enemies." Pakistan supposedly does not want the public to know that "the call to perform Jihad...has now started to appeal to even officers of the Armed Forces."

AQIS says that the Pakistani government is also hiding the identities of the other attackers from the public because it hopes to avoid any further embarrassment over "the fact that the rest of the martyrs were serving officers of the Pakistan Navy."

The preface to the AQIS press release explains its motivation behind its planned attacks on the two Pakistani frigates. The al Qaeda branch says that Pakistan takes part in the Coalition Maritime Campaign Plan (CMCP), making it part of the supposed global "crusade" against Islam.

In addition to securing "maritime trade routes for commercial shipping of America and other major powers of the believers," the CMCP participates "in the so-called war on terror (i.e. the American-led Crusade against the Muslim world" and prevents "possible attacks by the Mujahideen on the seas." The CMCP also provides "logistical support to the occupying American and allied forces in Afghanistan" and consolidates "their grip on Islamic waters" while "besieging the Muslim world from the seas."

The AQIS statement ends with several messages. The first is addressed to Muslims in Gaza, and repeats al Qaeda's standard call for "revenge" for the blood shed in the Palestinian-controlled territories. Other messages are addressed to the Muslim Ummah [worldwide community of Muslims] and the mujahideen. The latter should not forget "to make Jihad on the seas one of their priorities," AQIS says.

AQIS threatens America, "the Jews," and India.

And the final message speaks to the "Officers and Soldiers in the Armed Forces of Muslim Countries." AQIS holds up the Pakistani Navy officers responsible for the twin claimed attacks on Sept. 6 as examples for all Muslims serving in the armed forces. AQIS blasts the Pakistani Army, saying its generals demonstrate a "slave's loyalty to his master" and "have devoted the entire Armed Forces to the defense of American interests."

AQIS concludes by saying that all Muslims serving in the armed forces should join the jihad if they want to enter paradise and avoid hell. Thus, AQIS is attempting to recruit more officers and soldiers serving in the Pakistani military.

Additional photos included in the AQIS press release.

AQIS claims that one of its members monitored the movements of General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the former Pakistani Army Chief, as he visited an American warship. AQIS says that its operative tracked Kiyani "on the computer screen of the missile control system installed on the Pakistani warship." This is intended to show that AQIS has operatives inside the Pakistani Navy.



The photo below purportedly shows the USS Supply as it refuels a frigate at sea. AQIS allegedly planned to attack the USS Supply as it refueled a Pakistani frigate.



AQIS included the photo below of the PNS Aslat.




http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/al_qaeda_in_the_indi_1.php
 
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