What's new

Pakistani Forces against Militants.

Yeah it happens. And since its an ongoing operation it may not even be announced as it brings demoralization effects on the troops fighting in the area. Its a large number of troops at just the start of the operation.

Information management can achieve only so much. A steady rate of attrition over months as part of low grade sustained warfare cannot be hidden for long and corrodes morale over the long term. ISPR should be ready to pre-empt these effects which are inevitable in the face of such steady losses.
 
Yeah it happens. And since its an ongoing operation it may not even be announced as it brings demoralization effects on the troops fighting in the area. Its a large number of troops at just the start of the operation.
When I broke out this news to my family members, they started to search over the media outlets yet couldn't find anything. However, they know I can't be wrong and prayers were passed. This isn't the case out there, no one knows the price paid overnight for their cozy sleep.
 
When I broke out this news to my family members, they started to search over the media outlets yet couldn't find anything. However, they know I can't be wrong and prayers were passed. This isn't the case out there, no one knows the price paid overnight for their cozy sleep.

It is a double-edged sword. Hide the casualties and the nation will not know the sacrifices made for them by the soldiers, leading to estrangement. Report the casualties, and the extent of the disaster that has befallen the nation becomes painfully apparent. The brave soldiers pay the price either way. This is not a good situation.
 
Casualty figure give away the impression, operation is done in haste and badly planned. Just like the initial days of WoT when operation of such scale launched and PA used to face large casualty figure

Last week news disclosed that major high rise peaks and vantage points of Tirah valley are under control of TTP and Mengal Bagh.

Yet PA launched the ground incursion without securing peaks and vantage points through aerial bombardment like they did in Rah e Nijat and Rah e Rast ops
 
Soldiers carry National Flag wrapped coffin of Maj Mustafa Sabir on its arrival at Lahore Cantt. He embraced shahadat during an operation in Tirah valley.

67851_10151436148209735_718741405_n.jpg


:pakistan:
 
they need to court martial the major general in charge immediatelly and remove the brigadier incharge....post better trained ppl....
 
PESHAWAR: At least two security forces personnel were injured in a clash between militants and security forces in Dabori area of Orakzai tribal region.

Eight suspected militants were killed in retaliatory action by security forces, security sources told Dawn.com.
 
Pakistan's Ambitious Program To Re-Educate Militants


by Dina Temple-Raston

April 01, 2013


Pakistani men who worked for the Taliban attend a class at Mishal, an army-run rehabilitation center in Pakistan's Swat Valley, on July 5, 2011. This and similar centers are trying to re-educate men taken in by the Taliban, who ruled Swat before the military drove out the insurgents in 2009.

Pakistani men who worked for the Taliban attend a class at Mishal, an army-run rehabilitation center in Pakistan's Swat Valley, on July 5, 2011. This and similar centers are trying to re-educate men taken in by the Taliban, who ruled Swat before the military drove out the insurgents in 2009.

A Pakistani army officer named Col. Zeshan is giving a tour of a ****** rehabilitation center secreted in the hills of northwest Pakistan's Swat Valley.

"This place was also captured by the Taliban," he says, walking me around the heavily guarded complex. "The army took over this place from them ... when the war was going on."

“ When they are provided an opportunity to come back to the society where they have a livelihood and a family, what's the point in going back to [the Taliban]?

- Col. Zeshan of the Pakistani army

The war against the Pakistani Taliban in Swat began in 2009. It was a military offensive that took a year to drive most of the Pakistani Taliban out of the valley. And while the military action is considered a success, even today the Taliban's ghostly presence is everywhere in Swat.

Last year, Taliban militants stopped a bus just outside Swat's main city of Mingora and shot three girls returning home from school. One of them was Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old girl who has become a force for promoting girls' education.
Even today, for the young men of Swat there is the constant fear of Taliban fighters, who press whomever they want into service.

"The Taliban just grab these kids and take them into the hills," says Hussain Nadim, a professor at the National University of Sciences and Technology in Islamabad. He is part of an effort to re-educate these young men at a number of ****** rehab centers in the valley.

"These kids have no exposure, they have no education, there is no media to speak of, and the lack of these types of things in Swat breeds ignorance ... and fear," Nadim adds. "It makes it easy for the Taliban to recruit them and radicalize them."
Vocational School For Jihadis

That explains why the Pakistani army decided to make Swat ground zero for a quiet experiment: a little-known program aimed at re-educating thousands of young men who were taken in by the Taliban.

Classes such as this one at the Mishal center in Swat on July 5, 2011, teach former jihadis skills that will help them return to their families and be productive members of society.

Using international funds and a contingent of army officers, Pakistan has tried its hand at turning would-be terrorists into law-abiding citizens. It has opened two ****** rehabilitation centers — one called Mishal, for teenage militants, and another called Sabaoon, for younger ones — to see if they can return the young men of Swat back to their families.

The two campuses are like vocational schools for jihadis — only with high walls, barbed wire and armed guards.

Zeshan takes me into an electronics class — it looks like a high school science lab, all electrical meters and alligator clips. A computer lab has rows of flat-screen PCs.

"We teach them very basic things, like how to use MS-Word and things like that," Zeshan says. I ask if they go on the Internet, and Zeshan looks surprised, saying, "Yes, of course."

Before coming to the army centers, very few of the young men even knew what the Internet was. Parts of the Swat Valley are that cut off from the rest of the world. And that isolation, rehabilitation center officials say, is one of the reasons the Taliban prey on young men from this area.

"We bring them here to make them productive members of society," says Zeshan. "The Taliban has put ideas in their heads, and we work to undo that and set them right."

There are different theories on how to re-educate violent jihadis and an even greater number of doubts about whether reverse indoctrination actually works. In Saudi Arabia, a 12-step program includes art therapy and helping young men find a job and a wife. In Singapore, jihadis are taught less violent interpretations of the Quran.

But in Swat, the approach is different — and simpler.

Schoolgirls pray for Pakistan's child activist Malala Yousafzai in Mingora in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley on Nov. 10. The teenager was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls' education.

The focus at the centers is not specifically about jihad. Instead, it is more about skills.

"We tell them, you need to get your life back in order. We tell them that their mothers or their sisters are at home waiting for them ... waiting for them to take care of them," Nadim says. "We don't confuse them with ideas of what is a good jihad or a bad jihad. We tell them their focus should be on their families."

'The Taliban Had Misguided Me'

Farooq, 24, is a typical charge. I met him in a wood-working classroom at Mishal. He was putting the finishing touches on a wooden rubab, a Pakistani musical instrument that resembles a lute. He had graduated from Mishal only a couple of months earlier; now the army employs him as a wood shop teacher at the center.

It was the rubab that got Farooq involved with the Taliban in the first place, he says.

"I was playing it outside my shop, and they said it was haram [forbidden] to play this," Farooq says. "And this is how they caught me and then they forced me to join their ranks. The Taliban just took me away."

The Pakistani Taliban considers music evil. Farooq's punishment for his rubab playing: to run errands for the group for years. Eventually, the Pakistani army captured him and transferred him to its school at Mishal. After six months of classes, Farooq says he now understands that the Taliban used him.

Sabaoon, another center for re-educating former militant recruits, was held by the Taliban before the Pakistan army took it over during the offensive to clear the Taliban from Swat.

"The Taliban had misguided me," he says. "They told me I had to wage jihad against the Pakistani army. But now I understand that they used me. They told me lies. The army and this school helped me understand that."

For the most part, these men — like Farooq — aren't driven by religious fanaticism. They stayed with the Taliban because they didn't know any better.

"The Taliban told me that the Pakistani army was just a puppet of the United States," Farooq says. "They said that we should fight the Pakistani army, wage a jihad against them. And so we did."

Since 2010, several thousand young men — and a handful of women — have graduated from the program. The funding for Mishal, Sabaoon and a couple of other rehab centers in Swat comes from the Pakistani army and from international aid groups. Zeshan says the recidivism rate is near zero.

"When they are provided an opportunity to come back to the society where they have a livelihood and a family, what's the point in going back to those people?" says Zeshan, referring to the Taliban.

A ****** On Parole
The army offered several handpicked graduates for interviews, but we wanted to find one independently. We met him in a Pashtun house in the middle of a field, hours from Mishal.
Newly constructed, the house was made of solid brick on three sides, with glass facing into a courtyard. The front door was made of steel.

We were escorted to a room where the men of the house sleep. Five double beds were pushed against the walls, and a single candle flickered on a table. There was no electricity. The recent graduate — who said his name was Fandula — came in from the darkness wearing a soft wool hat and a cape.

"I stayed with the army for two years, and I was accused of being one of the accomplices for the Taliban," he said in Pashtun.
Two years is a long time in the army's rehab program, and it suggests that Fadula was a hard case. He said that in addition to taking vocation classes and sitting down with a psychologist at the center, he was asked to talk to religious leaders.

"In the afternoon, the religious men told us whatever happened in the past was not good and killing in the name of religion is not good," Fandula said. "I know what they were trying to do: They were trying to undo what the Taliban did."

We asked if it worked. He nodded.
"Yes," he said quietly. "It worked."

Fandula checks in with the army once a week. He's on a kind of ****** parole. And he says he isn't tempted by the Taliban or the group's ideas anymore. He said he occasionally sees some of the students who were with him at the center, and, he says, they don't have any interest in the Taliban now, either.
 
AP ENTERPRISE: Pakistan army tries to win over local population in war-torn tribal region.


(B.K. Bangash/ Associated Press ) -

In this Thursday, March 28, 2013 photo, a Pakistani internally displaced girl Amina Bibi attends class at a school rebuilt by the Pakistani army, in Tank, the bordering town of South Waziristan, the Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan attends. After battling Taliban militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan for over a decade, the Pakistani military is engaged in a new fight. This time it’s for the hearts and minds of the people who are returning to the region after living for years as refugees in their own country and harbor a longstanding mistrust of the central government.

• By Associated Press,

Apr 10, 2013

SARAROGHA, Pakistan — Driving through high mountain passes with mud brick houses perched on cliffs overhead and caves down below where Taliban fighters used to hide, Brig. Hassan Hayat talks excitedly about the Pakistan army’s latest operations in these long-hostile tribal areas.

“Now we are getting into the olives,” he said as the road passed through groves of trees, explaining how the military has been bringing in Italian olive trees to graft onto local growers’ trees to improve production. “Some 400 trees we’ve already done.”
He had wanted to plant daffodils, he mentioned at another point in the trip. But it turned out the flowers would be too hard to export. Bee farms have proven more productive.

After battling Taliban militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan for over a decade, the Pakistani military is engaged in a new fight, aiming to win over a population who are returning to their homes in the region after years living as refugees in their own country and who harbor a longstanding mistrust of the central government.

The military is rebuilding infrastructure and setting up economic and job projects for the population in South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan. It’s a classic counterinsurgency tactic similar to that used by the U.S. military — with mixed results — in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aim is to decrease support for militants and bring peace to a troubled region — in this case, tribal areas that have long been sanctuaries for the Taliban and other militant groups fueling instability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Once the people are more aware, more educated, they will not take up arms but go for the development and be a positive contributor in society,” said Hayat.

With a month to go before nationwide elections that will see a transfer of power from one elected government to another for the first time in Pakistan’s history, security will be a major campaign issue. Since many of Pakistan’s security problems are linked to what happens in the tribal regions, the success or failure of the counterinsurgency campaign could have major repercussions for the rest of the country.

Pakistan’s battle against the Taliban began after the U.S. invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, which pushed many militants across the border into the tribal regions of northwestern Pakistan. There, they found allies among a local population historically neglected by Pakistan’s central government. Much of the population is Pashtun, the ethnic group which has been the backbone of the Taliban. Working out of the tribal areas, the Pakistani branch of the Taliban launched a campaign of attacks inside Pakistan.

South Waziristan became the main sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban, until the army launched a large ground invasion in late 2009. Amid the assault, some 300,000 of the territory’s 545,000 people fled to other parts of Pakistan. Entire villages and towns were left virtually empty, particularly in the eastern part of the territory where fighting was heaviest. But the offensive largely broke the Taliban hold, with many fighters who survived going into hiding or fleeing into Afghanistan or the neighboring Pakistani territory of North Waziristan, which remains a militant stronghold.

“The population was hostage to these people,” said Hayat. “They had their own rule of law. Whatever they wanted they could do in this area.”

But many residents have a softer recollection of Taliban rule. Many said they didn’t have a problem with the Taliban and only fled because of the fighting.

The world’s unluckiest refugees might be the ones moving to, not out of, the war-torn country.

“During the Taliban time the situation was good generally. The Taliban have not done anything wrong to anyone. Pakistan and Taliban have the problem,” said Sami Ullah, who owns a hotel and restaurant that opened in late March in Sararogha, thanks to the army’s rehabilitation efforts.

The army, which essentially runs South Waziristan now, launched the rehabilitation and rebuilding program in 2010. It has grown since, mostly in the eastern part of the territory.

But major challenges remain. Only about 15 percent of residents who fled have been allowed to return, as the military lets them back only at the rate that their towns are rebuilt.

Many of those who have returned complain about lack of compensation and services. They chafe against military restrictions. The army, for example, has stopped mobile phone services, likely to prevent the Taliban from using them to communicate or detonate bombs. No one is allowed to carry weapons, angering tribesmen who consider their rifles a symbol of independence and pride. Anyone entering or leaving South Waziristan is checked against a database of who is allowed in and who is not.

It’s also unclear when, if ever, the military will be able to hand over power to a civilian government in South Waziristan, a territory about the size of Delaware.

“The progress is slow,” said Abdur Rahim Khan, who is running in the May 11 election for a parliament seat in a South Waziristan district. His own village has not yet been resettled and most of his potential constituents are scattered around the country.

One of the military’s most high-profile projects is the roads being built in areas previously only accessible by four-wheel drive, camel or on foot. The U.S. government’s development arm is paying for most of the roads. Part of the plan is to open a new corridor to give traders easy access from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s central Punjab province, the heart of the country’s agriculture and manufacturing.

In Sararogha, local businessman Danet Khan said the new roads save time and money. On the gravel roads, the average vehicle only survived four or five years. Now the smooth two-lane highway through his village cuts travel time dramatically.

The military has built shopping areas where villagers now sell goods out of small shop fronts with roll-down metal doors painted with a green and white Pakistani flag. A barber — something forbidden under the Taliban — cuts hair in one of the stalls, though he says most residents don’t need a shave because they still prefer long beards. Hayat would like to bring in a CD shop, something also banned by the Taliban.

Soccer fields, schools, poultry farms and homes for widows have been built, and the military is trying to rehabilitate a leather factory sacked by the Taliban.

With few jobs at home, families here have historically survived on wages from family members sent to work in the Pakistani port city of Karachi or the Persian Gulf. So the army built a vocational school to teach local men skills like computers and electricity repair. Since many people also joined the militants simply because they paid well, the school potentially deprives the Taliban of new recruits.

“They don’t have any opportunities. They need something to live on. That’s why they joined the Taliban,” said one student studying to be an electrician, Sajjad Ahmed.

A cadet college run by Pakistani military officers was provided after requests from local residents who have been starved of quality schools and plagued by an absence of decent teachers.

In the long term, the future of this region will be influenced in large part by what happens in Afghanistan. American troops are scheduled to leave at the end of 2014. Pakistani military officials worry about a repeat of the civil war that followed the 1989 pullout of Soviet forces.

And the final goal of handing South Waziristan to a civilian government is a long way off.

“Right now we are ok and feel safe as long as the army is around, but I am not sure about the future,” said one local resident, Malik Fareed Khan.

The tribal areas, known as agencies, have historically been seen as a security buffer between Afghanistan and the rest of Pakistan, administered mostly by government officials appointed by Islamabad and following a different legal system from the rest of the country. That system left a legacy of neglect and a feeling among locals that they don’t answer to the central government.

But for real stability, the tribal areas need to be better connected with the rest of Pakistan.

“The military is playing its role but at the end of the day, you need to answer those questions to be successful in bringing total peace,” said Hayat.

Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud contributed to this report from Dera Ismail Khan.
Follow Rebecca Santana at http://www.twitter.com/ruskygal.
2013 The Associated Press
 
Something that many people including myself have suspected for a long time is now coming out in the open. After the Lal Masjid episode I was convinced that some elements in the ISI were in cohorts with the Lal Masjid thugs.

I hope that I am wrong but it insults my intelligence that TTP were able to carry out attacks Karachi corps Commander Convoy, Army GHQ, PNS Mehran & PAF Kamra and killing of Police cadets without active inside intelligence and support.

Once people go mad about religion and start thinking like the following post:

all kanjjars should be barred from holding political offices......why will a kanjjar man in his late 50's give life for his country sir??

all his life he earned haram ka maal and had illegal sex with women.........his real fun will start after 60...cause right now his secretary is watching...his boss is watching,,,,,his driver is watching,,,,,,his clients are watching.............a secular kanjjar who has built up foreign bank accounts.............and on saturday he is hosting a kanjjar party at his place.......on friday night the enemy attacks our country.......will the kanjjar make a decision to wage a war against the enemy?will he risk his life cause next day he is having a kanjjar party........he will run away....he will negotiate with enemy......he will switch sides......just save his life and his bank balance.
at the end of the day the kanjjar is a goof man who traded his wordly life of 60,70 years for a never ending life in hell fire.....


It is not surprizing that people with such mind-set will actively help TTP in anti-state activities, because in their mind this is Allah’s work and will hasten their entry to heaven. The editorial is noted below:


Quote
Inside job


Monday, April 15, 2013
From Print Edition


Chilling details have emerged how extremist groups, especially the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are now using serving policemen to eliminate their colleagues who are deemed as a threat to these anti-state organisations. The recent arrest of an inspector of the Anti-Violent Crime Cell in Karachi last week comes at a time when the entire country is on a high-alert because of the forthcoming general elections. The inspector, who is believed to be a supporter of the TTP, has confessed to killing an assistant sub-inspector and other fellow policemen. The ASI who was gunned down in January this year was actively involved in operations against militants. It has also been reported that the inspector has revealed during interrogations that several other policemen are also serving as moles for militant groups. It is a disturbing development because in their war against terror the last thing that our security agencies need is their own people carrying out ‘inside jobs’ on behalf of the militants.

The inspector’s arrest and his confession could be just the tip of the iceberg. There are fears that the infiltration of militants’ supporters and moles in the police ranks is quite deep. Stories of policemen becoming partners in crime are not new. It is an open secret that even in various gang wars that have seen several parts of Karachi being held hostage by criminals, bad cops siding with various warring groups have been involved. The cop-criminal nexus is a pressing issue that needs to be tackled on a war footing. The Supreme Court is playing its role by taking up the issue but a lasting solution to this problem can only be achieved if the concerned authorities carry out a ruthless ‘operation clean-up’ within the police ranks. Of course they would need the complete backing of the government and politicians to achieve this task. It won’t be an easy job but it is something that has to be done. Otherwise the chances of a police force infected by ‘black sheep’ crushing heavily-armed militants are bleak.


Inside job - thenews.com.pk

Unquote.
 
@niaz
Our pakistani society is divided along religous and seculer lines. I would not be surprised if religous elements within army are uneasy about policies of their own army. That adnan rasheed was in PAF , participated in failed musharaf assassination plan, got jailed and then got rescued by TTP and now with long hairs and wearing waziri cap, he is giving threat to musharaf in english in the video....
I dont know how ISI operates, we dont know whether it is official policy of agency or some "traitors" within ISI are operating on their own, to support "good talibans"...may be zia ul haq had founded secret islamic cell within ISI to make sure that islamic interests within and outside army are protected :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Pakistan needs to crackdown more harder on terrorists

Pakistan isn't much different than your country and most others do in the sense that it works with groups it deems non hostile and goes against those it deems as threat

Pakistan can simply not be fully stabilized when Afghanistan is in chaos.

As for jeehadi sympathizers in armed forces; there have been breaches in the past but id imagine the threat is taken seriously. At any rate some unruly low level people or even some Adnan Rasheed's (who violated their oath and obligations) have no influence over the direction or goals of the military

People often raise such speculation just to create confusion or to malign the Army - as they are paid to do
 

Latest posts

Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom