We can’t make a habit of losing soldiers
Ejaz Haider13TH FEB, 2022. 10:33 AM
Twenty-two soldiers, including an officer, were killed in four different attacks in a span of less than two weeks. The first attack was in Kech, southwestern Balochistan, when Baloch Liberation Front, a terrorist group, raided an army position on the night of January 25/26. Ten soldiers were killed in that attack.
This was followed by two simultaneous raids in Naushki (southwest of Quetta) and Panjgur, about 460 km southwest of Naushki and 250 km northeast of Kech which suffered the first attack. Seven soldiers, including one officer, were killed when security forces retaliated and pursued the attackers. Five more soldiers were killed in the Kurram district when terrorists fired from across the border in Afghanistan. The same day security forces killed a suicide bomber in the Tank district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Losing 22 soldiers in a string of attacks is, by any measure, a high casualty rate. High enough for Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa to visit Naushki and spend time with the troops there. A day earlier, Chief Minister Balochistan, Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo and Senate Chairman Mohammad Sadiq Sanjrani had also visited the area. Khan praised the bravery and commitment of the troops and also announced a 15 per cent raise in the salaries of Frontier Corps and Rangers personnel.
It was a good call by Khan to visit the area and spend time with the troops. Men deployed in forward positions, especially in restive areas, must not feel that they have been abandoned. One can also praise Khan’s decision to make the remuneration for paramilitary troops more pleasant. But the situation is dire and getting worse and more needs to be done. Let’s unpack it.
In a previous article in this space I had written about two types of operations conducted by terrorist groups: point ambushes and raids. In the case of the Kurram attack, we can also factor in the use of long-range sniper rifles. In Naushki and Panjgur, some terrorists were found with M16s and M4 carbines. These rifles/carbines were fitted with AN/PEQ infrared aiming lights. AN/PEQ-2 has two infrared laser emitters. One is a narrow beam for aiming the rifle while the other has a wider beam to illuminate the target. Neither beam is visible to human eye unless one is wearing night vision goggles (NVG). The attackers also had compatible NVGs.
In the Kurram incident, a video put out by the terrorist TTP media cell claims to show the attack on the Pakistani position with terrorists using IR emitters with long rifles. The video, as shot, also indicates they had NVGs. It would require expert forensics to verify whether the video is indeed about the recent attack on a post in Kurram, but one thing is certain: terrorist groups now have access to equipment the US military left behind or which fell into the hands of the Taliban and others when the Afghan National Security Forces fell apart.
This is also borne by media reports about Taliban fighters carrying M16s and M4s. For instance, a Reuters report from August 17, 2021 says, “Video and pictures published by the Taliban on Twitter and elsewhere show fighters carrying M4 carbines and M16 rifles discarded by Afghan army units.” A New York Times report on October 15, 2021 was headlined: “US Weapons, Now for Sale in Afghan Gun Shops”. The NYT report also said that “The Taliban seized troves of American weapons and vehicles from surrendering Afghan soldiers. Now, gun dealers are doing a brisk business.” Similar reports were put out last year by the BBC, CNN and other western media outlets.
Corollary: more sophisticated weapons are now available to terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan and Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan area. While the iconic AK-47 will remain the mainstay, it appears that elite fighters in these groups are equipped with US equipment and they are being trained to use it. Some of this equipment, as should be obvious from recent attacks, give them an advantage over defending troops, especially during night raids. That must change.
The second point relates to the nature of recent attacks. The groups, especially the Baloch terrorist groups, are now raiding positions. In other words, they think they can operate and move more freely. Let me explain: of the two types of tactical operations, ambush and raid, the latter is more complex and daring. It indicates that the attackers are confident of the security of their infiltration and exfiltration routes, have support along the way (most likely through locals), have good intelligence on the targets and are confident that they can isolate the target, execute the attack and exfiltrate. In Kech they managed it; in Naushki and Panjgur their raids were repulsed and most of them were killed while trying to exfiltrate. But in that phase of the operation they also managed to kill seven soldiers, most likely because of the equipment they were using.
It should be evident that security forces, both at the tactical and theatre levels, have to close the space for these groups to think they can operate in the area(s) with impunity. That requires planning and executing proactive operations. The army has the capabilities to do that but the decision to resort to proactive action has to come from the highest level, politico-strategic.
Deterrence, whether in the conventional or nuclear realms, is established only when the attacker is convinced of the defender’s resolve and knows that the cost of aggression will be prohibitive. For that, defence must resort to offence. But since the politico-strategic level has to factor in many variables, the decision of what to do and when has to be carefully calibrated.
Thirdly, it is difficult to analyse the situation unless one is privy to the operational environment and how that translates into theatre-level decisions with respect to troop deployment and employment. That said, one can make some observations on the basis of previous visits to different areas of the province and also information gleaned from officers who have served in the area.
It appears that intelligence information is not always on the mark. Or if it is, it doesn’t always filter down to troops (army and FC) and their field commanders. This, if true, is problematic. The recent attacks, as noted earlier, do indicate a fairly high degree of confidence on the part of attackers. Two, what is the deployment pattern? Are the commanders taking a garrison approach — i.e., to quote Lieutenant General Tariq Khan, former Corps Commander and IG-FC, “diluting troops to fixed posts in a vast area”? From both the Soviet and US experiences in Afghanistan, it is clear that static defences allow the attackers a free run of vast areas.
As General Khan said to me, “This makes [posts] vulnerable to attack while they are not backed up in time or appropriately. This approach has never worked in counter-insurgency [or counterterrorism operations]. It leads to ensuring protection of relative posts but the roads or areas as a whole are neither secure nor usable.”
While General Khan told me that “I am sure the formations on [the] ground and troops are doing their best,” he was clear that we need to change the approach “through very mobile troops, patrolling and safeguarding spaces and not posts. Aerial patrolling would help; drones would be a bonus. Action must be immediate and spontaneous and not hostage to in-house discussions which usually lead to ‘paralysis by analysis’.” In other words, field commanders and their troops must have the space to innovate and make decisions in a contingency — i.e., action must be highly decentralised; only objectives, effects and purpose should be centralised.
General Khan suggested to me that areas that are prone to such attacks should have “night-time curfew and should be heavily patrolled.” He also stressed that we must increase our intelligence capabilities to be able to mount “random ambushes, use unpredicted sniper action, carry out airborne strikes against hideouts and leadership.” To put it another way, life should become hot, fluid and unpredictable for the terrorist groups; they shouldn’t have the space and time to rest.
From how the situation is panning out, inaction or purely defensive action is unlikely to improve security on the ground. The National Security Committee has to devise a plan to deal with these issues at the politico-strategic level. Once that has been done, the two lower levels, theatre and tactical, have to be prepared to act within and according to those broad parameters. We can’t make a habit of losing soldiers just because we now have a population of more than 200 million.
The writer is a journalist with interest in foreign and security policies
We can’t make a habit of losing soldiers - BOL News
It should be evident that security forces, both at the tactical and theatre levels, have to close the space for these groups to think they can operate in the areas with impunity.
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