Asia & Pacific
To fight the Taliban, Pakistani military turns to unorthodox but simple tactics
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Pakistani soldiers train to fight small groups of terrorists - The Washington Post (video)
Pakistani soldiers train to fight small groups of terrorists(1:33)
Tucked in a national forest in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, Pakistan’s military has built a sprawling base to train soldiers in how to fight small groups of terrorists. (Tim Craig/The Washington Post)
By
Tim Craig April 16 at 3:30 AM
KHARIAN, Pakistan — Pakistan’s army is finally making significant gains in its campaign against Islamist militants, and some of the success can be traced back to unlikely sources: paintballs and bird calls.
Here, tucked in a forest, Pakistan’s military has built a sprawling base to train soldiers in how to fight small groups of terrorists. The National Counterterrorism Center Pabbi is one of a half-dozen training sites in Pakistan, but military leaders say 65 percent of the troops
fighting militants in the northwest have been trained at this facility in Punjab province.
Earlier this month, the Pakistani military took The Washington Post on a rare public tour of the 2,500-acre facility, which opened in 2009 and resembles a hunting ranch on the scrublands of Texas.
The training, which includes some unorthodox methods, is designed to make Pakistani troops more proficient in face-to-face combat. Although the troops have gained experience fighting in harsh terrain over the past few decades, they are still largely geared for a tank-on-tank war with arch-rival India.
“After 9/11, it’s now a new world, and with this new world, we are gearing up for our responsibility,” said Brig. Abrar Ali, commander of the center. “In our experience, this is not a battle with large forces. We have to learn how to fight in very small teams.”
a recent report by the Congressional Research Service. The State Department recently approved a $950 million
arms sale to Pakistan, including 15 Viper helicopters, 1,000 Hellfire missiles and new radios.
But Pakistani commanders and troops say the training conducted at the National Counterterrorism Center Pabbi is what is really allowing them to gain the upper hand against Islamist militants. Since the army
launched a major operation in June, soldiers have cleared most of North Waziristan. They are now trying to drive the extremists from their final hiding places in the Tirah Valley, in adjoining Khyber Agency, commanders say.
“These Taliban are dug in the caves, so you can’t do it by aerial bombardment,” said Javed Ashraf Qazi, a retired general and former head of Pakistan’s intelligence service. “You have to go in there and physically dislodge them.”
[After years of delays, Pakistan cracks down on violent Islamists]
As many as 3,000 soldiers arrive each month for two dozen training scenarios, some of which are staged in a set made to look like a typical village in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The mock village includes nearly a dozen one- and two-story stone and mud structures, as well as a network of underground tunnels.
“This is a complete architectural rendition, from the interior to the exterior to the foxholes, of what you would see in FATA,” Maj. Nauman Mushtaq said as he led a reporter through a muddy tunnel that started in one house and ended in another.
Although the training includes some live-fire exercises, the army relies heavily on paintballs for its simulated war games.
an enemy who will probably always have some advantage when fighting in Pakistan’s tribal areas. He notes that many militants use the same stealth tactics that they or their fathers perfected as mujahideen fighters who resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“The only specialized training they need is how to make” bombs, Ali said.
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To fight the Taliban, Pakistani military turns to unorthodox but simple tactics - The Washington Post
Pakistani soldiers train to fight small groups of terrorists - The Washington Post
