Security concerns: Navy battleships moved away from Karachi

[Arsalan]

Lets never blow smoke each other's way - why was the move necessary? Pakistan's biggest city is not safe for her own armed forces, especially the navy - that's the reality - instead of counting on Pakistani civilians for support, the Navy, like the Air Force and the Army, finds that the Islamist insurgency has robbed them of that support.

So, yeah, new bases, blessing in disguise and all that - sure - but reality, that's a a tough....

sir, we don't live in an ideal world.
we cannot count of civilians for security of military bases. anyone can take advantage of routine heavy activity with in the military premises and therefore such assets are to be moved to places where strict guard can be maintained.

what happened at PNS Mehran was tough but we cannot sit and wait of any such incident to happen again just because we want to show we are very brave.
this is not courage, it is madness!

 

[Jango]

sir, we don't live in an ideal world.
we cannot count of civilians for security of military bases. anyone can take advantage of routine heavy activity with in the military premises and therefore such assets are to be moved to places where strict guard can be maintained.

what happened at PNS Mehran was tough but we cannot sit and wait of any such incident to happen again just because we want to show we are very brave.
this is not courage, it is madness!

There has been way too much integration of civilians in military bases. Dont know about now, but two years back, there were all kinds of civilians at Aviation bases (not going to name it). Dhobis, cooks, waiters, NCB, and all kinds of people. If in Karachi, the civilians increase manifold.

An example is the ISI HQ in Isl. The rear wall adjoins an auto market. The sentry on the wall is within talking distance!!. So a good step IMO to move these facilities away from populated areas.

 

[Aamir Hussain]

The issue is not the integration of civilians, their involvement in US, UK, and German armed forces is much more than what it is in our armed forces. The issue is the realization that this is "Real" and "Our" war conducted by our people, living among us. Slack security protocols, cursory security background checks etc. have permeated our defense establishment.

We have been fighting this war since end of 2006, in earnest. It was just recently (after PNS Mehran) that the Navy woke up and started putting concertina/razor wire on top of perimeter security walls and started manning the watch towers!!!!

 

[Aamir Hussain]

The warehouse/engineering facility is SW of the three block building, about 0.2KM away.

 

[Jango]

The issue is not the integration of civilians, their involvement in US, UK, and German armed forces is much more than what it is in our armed forces. The issue is the realization that this is "Real" and "Our" war conducted by our people, living among us. Slack security protocols, cursory security background checks etc. have permeated our defense establishment.

We have been fighting this war since end of 2006, in earnest. It was just recently (after PNS Mehran) that the Navy woke up and started putting concertina/razor wire on top of perimeter security walls and started manning the watch towers!!!!

The situation with europe is completely different to ours. They hold a different image of their armed forces whereas we hold a different one. It is much easier to get a Pakistani to conduct some recce for a terror organization rather than a european.

The Air HQ and Naval HQ in Isl are well guarded IMO. The main gates are as if they are a fort. Dont know about other installations.

 

[Aamir Hussain]

IMHO it has nothing to do with who can do recon on whom. In the days of cold war, Europe was under constant pressure of espionage by the soviet block. There were security breaches but by and large, things were under control since there was an acceptance and appreciation of the level of threat and the response needed to fight the threat.

On the other hand, in our country, there is general lack of acceptance of the ground reality that we are at war. Once we are in a self denial mode things like these naturally occur. Intelligence failures, security breaches, and the "Mitti Pao" attitude. It is daily witnessed in our civilian population and in the military which can not escape the spill over effect of the beliefs of the larger population.

The need is to galvanize the larger population on a Jihad, a Jihad against the enemies of Pakistan -- the ones within. The ones outside our borders can be sorted out once we put our own house in order.

 

[Proud to be Pakistani]

Jinnah Naval Base is operational since long (ormara), so what is the concern!
Better the Navy be at Ormara than Karachi !

 

[Hammy007]

Jinnah Naval Base is operational since long (ormara), so what is the concern!
Better the Navy be at Ormara than Karachi !

but dear sir karachi is also part of pakistan!!

 

[Proud to be Pakistani]

but dear sir karachi is also part of pakistan!!

Yes, true but a Commercial port should never be a Navy Port also!
It was only like this because pakistan didnot had any port other than karachi built for 50 years capable of harbouring a Naval Ship. Now we have at Ormara and that is one of the biggest deep sea ports in the world.

Karachi is quite unsuitable as a naval port. To start with, its shallow approaches require a long entrance channel which has to be dredged frequently and which is easily susceptible to mining. Even more undesirable from a naval point of view, the Pakistan navy has to share it with the commercial navy.

 

[Hammy007]

Yes, true but a Commercial port should never be a Navy Port also!
It was only like this because pakistan didnot had any port other than karachi built for 50 years capable of harbouring a Naval Ship. Now we have at Ormara and that is one of the biggest deep sea ports in the world.

Karachi is quite unsuitable as a naval port. To start with, its shallow approaches require a long entrance channel which has to be dredged frequently and which is easily susceptible to mining. Even more undesirable from a naval point of view, the Pakistan navy has to share it with the commercial navy.

every city requires esp cities like karachi some navy back up for its safeguard esp an imminent enemy attack from sea!!

esp karachi is closer to india and the biggest financial city than ormara