The Battle for Bajaur - PA seizes control

[dr.umer]

Pakistani officials have acknowledged hundreds of militants cross the border every week to fight against the Nato-led force in Afghanistan. (When???)

Anyone having link of this acknowledgment?

 

[was]

YouTube - Battle for Bajaur tests Pakistan - 29 Sept 2008
http://edition.cnn.com/video/
http://edition.cnn.com/video/
good

 

[RabzonKhan]

Your choice to respond.

The "blame game" is put forward by media spinners looking to make copy. Reality on the ground dictates that both Pakistani and NATO patrols do intercept the flow of militancy across the border, but the cursory searches repeatedly fail to come up with evidence and just wave them on through. Do we choose to act to compensate for this shortcomming in meeting clear militant tactics or do we continue with the status-quo?

Come on my friend, Bush, Mullen, Gates and Obama do not work for the media.

There is sufficient technology available to be able to conduct a more complete check for traces of gun powder or explosives, but few if any of these devices are carried by the routine patrols that intercept drivers, or are available at check points.

Don’t you know that even a 12 year old Pushtun carries a gun, its part of their culture, so what good will those devices do?

1. Why not instead install Biometrics system at all border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan installs first biometrics system at border crossing with Afghanistan - International Herald Tribune

2. Partially fence and mine the 2,500km long border, don’t you think that will be more practical?

More immediately solveable, instead of simply sitting in bunkers and flying the flag, forces should aim to integrate directly with staged joint patrols, and do it daily. This is not without precedence, and has even been recently chaired again by the leadership. The amount of intercept incidents that could have resulted in legal detention of militant combatants if all parties are present, using all that could be placed at their disposal would be one significant and not overly costly step in the right direction.

Joint patrols idea is good, but do even have troops for that?

Pakistan has deployed more than 100,000 forces to monitor its 2,500km long border with Afghanistan. The troops have set up more than 900 check posts to prevent the cross-border movement of the terrorists. US, NATO and Afghans are always complaining that Pakistan has failed to stop cross-border infiltrations, which I don’t dispute, but then, why don’t they deploy at least 100,000 troops on the border to stop the infiltrations?

There are varied schools of thought in this, that range from complete chemical deforestation of entire sections of Helmand, poisoning the soil so that irreversible desertification sets in, through to destroying compounds during engagement and removing plantation communes, often with recompense paid to the locals in blood money, to the direct purchase of Heroin by ISAF to remove as much as possible from the market, up to more longer term goals with UN agricultural missions looking to replace Heroin with maize, saffron and olive crops and even the Turkish model which seeks to build a legitimate pharmaceutical industry from nothing over the course of the next twenty years.

Up to now the majority of NATO efforts have been focused on constructing and training an effective police force and ISAF while fighting the Taliban insurgency, which hampers a more singular focus on counter narcotics operations. Previous efforts focus almost exclusively on the production and have impacted negatively on the farmers, which has been far from successful. The Afghan government report about 70 ISAF and police deaths related to counter narcotic operations this year alone, this is a sustained figure.

An emerging strategy from the new command will be to dedicate more resources to counter narcotics operations but aimed instead at targeting the downstream chemical processing facilities.

Significant amounts of engagements in and around Helmand have been as a direct result of targeting the drugs industry, and it remains a primary long term goal to bring this particular aspect of the conflict to heel.

You have been there for 7 years and you are still planning? Some action here and there is not going to make any difference, the fact is Afghanistan under US/NATO has become a Norco-state, in 2001 opium poppy cultivation (under Taliban) was only 7,606 hectares and 185 tons of opium was produced, in 2006 it had reached 165,000 hectares and 6,100 tons opium. It is fuelling the Taliban insurgency, with the drug money they are buying weapons. Money is the lifeblood of terrorists, we cannot win the war on terror unless we stop the funding.

Sorry to say, but I don’t think US/NATO has the will or resources to defeat the Taliban and AQ, its all just big talk, little action.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Anyone having link of this acknowledgment?

An article posted earlier Dr. Umer sahib:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/war-terror/14394-battle-bajaur-4.html#post200232

http://www.defence.pk/forums/war-terror/14394-battle-bajaur-3.html#post200110

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

1. Why not instead install Biometrics system at all border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan installs first biometrics system at border crossing with Afghanistan - International Herald Tribune

2. Partially fence and mine the 2,500km long border, don’t you think that will be more practical?

Those are both good suggestions, the first one especially is feasible in a short/medium term timeframe, and it should be noted the it was the Afghan Govenment that refused to cooperate on both those initiatives.

I think Pakistan deserves an answer on why the GoA refused to implement these proposals.

One cannot argue for free movement betwen the two sides on the basis of 'Tribe' and then say that we need to restrict movement. If we are not checking everyone, and monitoring and restricting movement in some fashion across the board, then we might as well not monitor anything.

 

[Neo]

Terrorist Militants and Weapons pouring into Pakistan from Afghanistan says security official​

Wednesday, 01 October 2008

Militants battling Pakistani forces were getting weapons and reinforcements from Afghanistan, security officials said on Monday, vowing no let-up in their offensive in the northwest.

Government forces launched an offensive in the Bajaur Agency on the Afghan border in August after years of complaints from US and Afghan officials that Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan were getting help from Pakistani border areas such as Bajaur.

“Now the tables have turned and the militants locked in heavy fighting with Pakistani forces are getting help from the Afghan side of the border,” officials said.

“The Pakistan-Afghan border is porous and is now causing trouble for us in Bajaur,” a senior security source in the military told a news briefing.“Now movement is taking place to Pakistan from Afghanistan,” said the official, who along with a colleague at the briefing, declined to be identified.

The officials did not blame the Afghan government for sending militants across the border but called on Kabul and US-led forces in Afghanistan to stop the flow. Muhammad Anis adds: The security official said that the military operation could normalise the situation but political involvement was needed to address the issue. He also called for national efforts to find a political solution to the problem of terrorism.

“The war against terrorism is a continuous process but at the same time national efforts should be there to find a political solution,” the official noted. The senior officer said since the inception of war against terrorism in 2001, so far 1368 officers and jawans of armed forces were martyred while 3348 were wounded.

He further said a total of 2285 miscreants including 581 foreigners were also killed during this period while another 1400 miscreants including 311 foreigners were injured. He said the casualties of Army and FC personnel were 611 while 1622 sustained injuries since July 2007.

To a question about military operation, the security official said, it was continuous process and they did not know as to how long it would continue. “We are not looking at stopping this operation in the winter,” he said.

To a question, he said the operation was being conducted with the support of government saying that the situation would also improve in other areas as it had improved in Bajaur. Responding to another question he said that the information was being shared between coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistani forces while the intelligence information was also shared at the concerned agencies level.

Describing the situation in Swat and Bajaur under control, he said, “We are going to consolidate our positions in Swat.” He hoped that electricity, gas and other amenities would be completely restored in Swat after Eid.

He said that there was credible information that two militant commanders, who were offering resistance to security forces, had left Bajaur. He said that air strikes were likely to continue here.

The security official said that 1,550 kilogram of explosives was seized and a large number of arms and ammunition were recovered from Darra Adman Khel. He said that peace agreements in North and South Waziristan were being implemented. About arrest of foreign agents, the security official informed that at least 35 agents were arrested.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

^^^ Shall we await with baited breath for the Western media to highlight this, and throw in a line about 'militants operating and getting support from areas in Pakistan' in every article referring to the insurgency in FATA and the Taliban?

 

[Neo]

"US is not doing enough" sounds much better".
Let this be our motto in each and every interview and official speach we give.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Honestly, people complained about the restrictions Musharraf put on the media - its nothing compared to the self censorship in the US media (sometimes forced) under the guise of national interest, national security and patriotism.

Read a quote the other day, seemed quite apt in terms of this post's general theme:

"fascism shall come to the US wrapped up in the flag and bearing a cross".

 

[Neo]

"fascism shall come to the US wrapped up in the flag and bearing a cross".

How true! I have to write it down!

 

[Neo]

Drawing a Red Line Around the Taliban​

A Fight That Will Signal to the U.S. Whether Forces Here Can Wrestle Tribal Areas Away From Militants​

By NICK SCHIFRIN
TANG KHATTA, Pakistan, Sept. 30, 2008

On the front lines of the battle against terrorism, one need drive only 15 minutes from the military's headquarters to hear the militants' small-arms fire.

It is here, in the Bajaur district of northwest Pakistan, where the Pakistani military says it has drawn a line in the sand against militants who attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan, launch suicide attacks in Pakistan and recruit and train the next generation of al Qaeda faithful.

Bajaur may the smallest and most northerly district of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but the military calls it the militants' "central hub," the area from which they launch attacks on both sides of the border and travel between each other's districts.

Military commanders say if they clear Bajaur of militants, they will have killed 65 percent of the militancy in Pakistan -- and taken a serious step toward subduing one of the most violent places on the planet. But if they fail, the number of attacks will only increase and the military's credibility will be seriously questioned by a skeptical United States.

"This has become the center of gravity for the complete militancy, a hub of all militant activity" in the region, Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, the inspector general of the front-line Frontier Corps, told a group of reporters in Khan, the regional capital of Bajaur. "If they lose it, they lose almost everything."

The Pakistani military has spent the last seven weeks fighting in the Bajaur district, an area the size of greater New York City. Just this month, Khan said his troops have killed 500 to 1,000 insurgents, losing 36 troops.

The military escorted a group of reporters to the village of Tang Khatta, about 20 miles from the Afghanistan border. What is today little more than a pile of rocks surrounded by mud-walled homes was, until recently, a Taliban stronghold, the military said.

"It has been a very difficult fight because we are truly fighting against an invisible enemy," Col. Javid Baluch told ABC News while walking away from Tang Khatta, an area for which he is responsible. "They are taking the advantage of this terrain. When it is my first day -- it is maybe his 10th year. ... It's difficult to find out from where even the fire is coming. He has laid the booby troops, he has mined the area. He has prepared his caves and defenses" for years, he said.

The military underscored the importance of the battle in all the tribal areas this week when it released new data detailing the war on terror's impact on Pakistan.

Since July 2007 -- when troops fought militants holed up in a mosque in the center of Islamabad -- the Taliban, al Qaeda, and their affiliated groups have made this the most violent time in Pakistan since its partition, 61 years ago.

In the last 14 months, 88 suicide bombs have exploded around the country, killing 1,188 people and wounding 3,209, the military told reporters. That's an average of about three people dying and more than seven people being wounded every day since last July.

Asked whether the most recent suicide bombing -- a 1,300 pound bomb that destroyed the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, killing about 60 people -- was a reaction to the Bajaur operation, Khan didn't deny it.

"We always felt there would be reactions in the cities," he said. "I think they thought it would lead to some negotiations. Fortunately, it has not."

Bajaur, Kunar and the 'Watershed Moment'

Wanat, Afghanistan, is less than 30 miles from Tang Khatta, across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It is part of the Korengal valley and Kunar province, an area that's become so deadly it has helped make 2008 the most violent year in Afghanistan for both American troops and civilians.

On July 13, militants stormed a base near Wanat, killing nine members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in northern Italy. All U.S. soldiers were scheduled to come home in a few weeks as they finished their 15 month deployments.

"Clearly, we saw what happened in the Korengal valley as a watershed moment," an unidentified government official told the Army Times this week. The attack, the official said, caused the United States to rethink its policy toward Pakistan.

For years, the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees a group of elite Navy Seals and Delta Force soldiers along the border, has been trying to convince the administration to conduct raids inside Pakistan, the Army Times reported.

After the July 13 operation, the administration did just that, and on Sept. 3, special forces soldiers launched the first major raid inside Pakistani soil when they landed in the area of Angor Aadda in South Waziristan, about 200 miles south of Bajaur.

The raid inflamed anti-American sentiment throughout the tribal areas, the adjoining settled areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, and the country.

"The government should respond" to the raids, Mohammad Sayid, a resident of Bajaur, told ABC News recently during a visit to Peshawar. "If the government cannot, then they should let the people do it -- and everyone would become a fighter."

The Pakistani military has been trying to convince U.S. commanders not to launch attacks inside Pakistan. They point to not only an inflamed public but also at tribesmen who have recently pledged to fight the Taliban.

This month groups of vigilante tribal forces -- known here as lashkars -- have formed in the Kurram and Khyber trial areas, as well as in Bajaur.

As part of the media trip, the military escorted reporters to the dusty main street in Raghagan, a 20 minute drive from Tang Khatta to meet the head of the Salarzai tribe.

There, Malik Munasib Khan presided over a meet-the-media sort of event for the tribe's fighters. With other tribal leaders, he stood on the edge of a raised platform protected from the sun. At his feet, hundreds of young men, all holding up AK-47s, responded to his statements just as parishioners in a church would -- shaking their heads and voicing confirmation (though in this case, they chanted "God is Great" and yelled as they raised their rifles).

"When the Taliban came to Afghanistan, we liked them so much, I swear, the people of Bajaur and women of Bajaur sold their gold for them," Malik Khan recently told ABC News in an interview, his fighters roaring with confirmation. "But those Taliban brothers, they committed atrocities against our tribe, our area and our government. We now must rise against them. And the whole world knows that the Salarzai tribe has risen against them."

"The Salarzai tribe has come up, they've cleaned their area and now they're coordinating with the government to clean the other areas also," Northwest Frontier Province Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani recently told ABC News. "Today, I can very confidently state that 98 percent of the population is anti these militants and these terrorists and are actually helping government and supplementing government efforts."

It is that attitude that citizens, the military and the government here said would be at risk if the United States continued its attacks inside Pakistan.

"No government will remain in power if it allows American forces officially to operate ... inside Afghanistan territory," says retired Lt. Gen. Kamal Matinuddin, the author of the "Taliban Phenomenon" and "Beyond Afghanistan: Emerging U.S.-Pakistan Relations." "Ground troops in Pakistan territory would not be accepted. There would be a general uproar within Pakistan, the present government may fall. And that will further make matters worse for America."

As Bajaur's political agent, the most powerful deal-maker in the district, told ABC News: "They are against the action by the Americans inside Pakistan territory or [the Federally Administered Tribal Areas]. And they said if it's continued, these people will become a sympathizer to Taliban, and anti-American."

And Governor Ghani even suggested that if the raids continue, the U.S. supply line to Afghanistan -- 80 percent of which flows through Pakistan -- would be at risk.

Bajaur as a Litmus Test

One official recently told reporters that Bajaur was a "litmus test" for the Pakistani military, a fight that would signal to the United States whether forces here are willing and able to wrestle the tribal areas away from the militants.

Bajaur is also a division between the two militaries that goes beyond the debate over whether the United States should launch attacks inside Pakistan.

The United States has struck at least eight times inside Pakistan this month -- all in South or North Waziristan, where al Qaeda's senior leadership is believed to be hiding. For the Pakistanis, though, Bajaur is the main fight -- and implicit in their analysis of Bajaur is criticism of the United States' approach to the region.

"One has to prioritize the bigger threat. Is a compound in South Waziristan or North Waziristan a bigger threat? Or is Bajaur, which has become a huge stronghold of all the militants -- al Qaeda, Talibans, local, foreign Talibans, and radiating, threatening attacks in all direction -- is it to be dealt first?" asked Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the military's chief spokesman. "We had to prioritize, and yes, Bajaur required an operation in a very urgent way and that's why we decided to go against Bajaur."

But Pakistan's military knows it will be judged by a skeptical United States on whether it can complete this mission successfully.

Khan, the inspector general of the frontier corps, acknowledged that in the past, the military was not allowed to complete some of its missions, most notably one in South Waziristan that left the regional Taliban leader stronger than ever.

This time, he said, would be different, because much more is at stake."

"What would be terribly wrong would be to pull up this operation short of its logical conclusion ... or worse case scenario, we don't make any headway and we stop the operation, don't succeed. It would be a terrible disaster," he said. "This militancy would enhance. ... And it would start expanding."

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

People call us 'out of touch', 'removed' and with 'no care for consequences' if we don't show the Pakistani flag on our 'location' option.

All I have to say is that I, and many others, have articulated inumerable times over the last year the very same concerns that these Tribal leaders raise, and pointed out the very same repercussions that we see happening in the Tribal belt after the US raid.

"We always felt there would be reactions in the cities," he said. "I think they thought it would lead to some negotiations. Fortunately, it has not."

Indeed - this is what should not happen again under any circumstance. Negotiations after a complete surrender and deweaponisation only.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Khan, the inspector general of the frontier corps, acknowledged that in the past, the military was not allowed to complete some of its missions, most notably one in South Waziristan that left the regional Taliban leader stronger than ever.

This time, he said, would be different, because much more is at stake."

"What would be terribly wrong would be to pull up this operation short of its logical conclusion ... or worse case scenario, we don't make any headway and we stop the operation, don't succeed. It would be a terrible disaster," he said. "This militancy would enhance. ... And it would start expanding."

Muse,

From the horses mouth on why some Army officials are saying 'if they win'.

The commanders on the ground are not confident the leadership will not pull back when victory is in sight again. To think that so much bloodshed would have been avoidable had we not pulled back in Swat and S Waziristan after the new Gov. took over...

 

[Neo]

Threads merged.

 

[muse]

A call to the US's possible new leaders, get real, turning Afganistan in to an India is not on the cards


PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN
Heeding the lessons of another war
By Maleeha Lodhi and Anatol Lieven Published: October 1, 2008

Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut Vietcong supply lines.

As a result, America's war with Vietnamese Communism spread into Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. But these horrors occurred after the U.S. itself had quit Vietnam and after the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam had collapsed. Washington's widening of the war benefited neither America nor its local allies.

The U.S. is now making the same mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If continued, ground incursions by U.S. troops across the border into Pakistan in search of the Taliban and Al Qaeda risk drastically undermining the Pakistani state, society and army.

Many Pakistanis are berating their new civilian government and the military for being too supine in their response to the American actions. There have also been public calls for NATO supply lines through Pakistan to be cut, which could cripple the Western military effort in Afghanistan. The latest dreadful terrorist attack in Islamabad illustrates the danger of a wider conflagration and the price Pakistan is paying for its role as a U.S. ally.

The dangers involved in Pakistan are greater even than in Cambodia, where the disasters were contained in one country. The current war has already been driven into the Pakistani heartland. If turmoil increases in Pakistan then the forces of extremism will be strengthened, in the region and the world. Thus the long term implications of "losing" Afghanistan pale into insignificance when set against the risk of "losing" Pakistan.

Nor would undermining Pakistan, whether intentionally or not, in any way help the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan. Pakistan has six times Afghanistan's population and is a nuclear state. The Pashtun population of Pakistan is greater than that of Afghanistan, and provides a large number of Pakistani soldiers. Far from saving Afghanistan, present U.S. strategy toward Pakistan will only risk sinking Afghanistan itself in a whirlpool of regional anarchy.

Instead of this approach, the U.S. and NATO should adopt a radically new strategy for Afghanistan that relies more on soft power. The approach should be based on the recognition that Afghanistan cannot be transformed along Western lines and that the U.S. cannot maintain an open-ended presence in that country without destabilizing the entire region.

Afghanistan must sooner or later be left to the Afghans themselves to run. Local actors should take the lead in carrying out counter-insurgency, as Western forces and an overwhelming reliance on military force are liable only to multiply enemies.

The terrible effects of bombardment on the civilian population have become a potent factor behind the will of many Afghans to resist what they see as an alien military occupation.

The next U.S. administration therefore should announce a return to America's original objective, that of hunting international terrorist networks and preventing them from creating safe havens in Afghanistan. This should in fact be America's only core objective. The attempt of the West to "transform" Afghanistan is already meeting the same fate as the Soviet attempt to do so. It is strengthening the insurgency, by creating the impression of a threat to the Islamic way of life and local tradition.

Instead of continuing with what is in effect a purely Western approach, Washington should initiate serious regional talks on Afghanistan's future.

The United States and the West need to remember that however long their forces stay in Afghanistan, sooner or later they will leave, while Afghanistan's neighbors will always remain. Tragically, their policies have in the past generally been directed against each other, with disastrous results for the people of Afghanistan.

The United States should instead seek to shape a regional concert that will stand some chance of at least containing Afghanistan's problems in the long term. None of this will be easy; but a continuation of present U.S. strategy promises only widening turmoil in the region, or at best war without end.

Maleeha Lodhi is a fellow at Harvard and former Pakistani ambassador to Washington and London. Anatol Lieven is a professor at King's College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation.