Pakistanis learn from the past
I was bemused to learn from a Pakistani military contact, who has visited the FATA recently, that he was reading 'The Frontier Scouts' by Charles Chevenix-Trench and learning that the old methods did indeed offer an answer to today's problems.
I too from an armchair recommend the book.
After the Pakistani "surge" the situation is bad
Hat tip to:http:/watandost.blogspot.com/ for this story on the ground in South Waziristan: http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=221823
From the start:
Quote:
the militants, following classic battle tactics, would stand their ground and fight head-on in the open, and be overwhelmed by a superior force. They did not take into account the likelihood of the militants’ following hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, melting into the familiar terrain after a strike, and then trying to win over the relatives of the civilian casualties of this war. We forgot that the operation was not launched against the entire population of Waziristan, after all, but a limited number of militants.
Concludes
Quote:
Waziristan has suffered long enough. We cannot afford to ignore it any more if we are concerned about the future of our younger generation. We have to replace the “dismantled training camps” with good schools and hospitals. We have to provide basic facilities and means of livelihood to the people. Only then can we hope to achieve a permanent end to militancy. Banking on the military operation alone as a cure for militancy is tantamount to following a tunnel-vision approach on a road leading nowhere.
Yes the military operation started in October 2009 and follow-on civil action takes time - as we all too well know over the Durand Line.
British Experience in Waziristan
During the past two weeks in six installments Tom Ricks has given a warm review to the book Waging War in Waziristan: The British Struggle in the Land of Bin Laden, 1849-1947 by Andrew M. Roe, a British officer. The lessons Ricks cites from the book are as follows:
Quote:
Be prepared to conduct a "constant mapping of political, economic and social information to gain a temporal insight into the views, motivation, and differences among the tribes and subclans."
Don't underestimate your enemy. "To take on the tribesman and defeat him in his own his is a game demanding a lifetime of specialized study."
Tribesman will study your tactics and punish lapses or even simple repetitions. "This is one read on why an advance is seldom disputed with vigour, whereas the withdrawal is ferociously harrassed."
Political officers must counter the tendency of military commanders to rely on their "instinct and their own values and standards, which often will be mistaken, unsuitable or inappropriate." (Tom: I saw this tendency a lot in Iraq in 2003-06.)
"Tolerating ambiguities, shortfalls and inconsistencies must be central to any sustainable policy." (Tom: Hmm, sounds like FM 3-24.)
Don't fight the tribal structure. "Employing and, where necessary, reinforcing the existing tribal framework and structures offers the best opportunity for success."
Be prepared to pay off the enemy.
Local forces should be the heart of your effort, not regular Army troops.
The first in the the series of Ricks' blog entries on the book can be read by clicking here. The more recent installments of the review can be found by scrolling within the blog.
Pakistan army accused of extrajudicial killings, human rights abuses
This allegation comes as no surprise given the history of Pakistan and its military. Starts with:
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The Pakistani army has allegedly committed hundreds of retaliatory killings and other ongoing human rights abuses in the Swat Valley since the end of its successful anti-Taliban offensive there in September, threatening billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid to a crucial ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban....The extrajudicial execution of up to 300 alleged Taliban supporters and sympathizers in the area around Mingora, the Swat capital, has been documented by New York-based Human Rights Watch...(Closes with)...the fact is that the engine of abuse is the military.
The HRW report is due to be published next month. Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2010040501618
If true it is easy to fear that winning 'hearts & minds' is not on the Pakistani Army's agenda. How will this affect the local population?
Pakistan faces Taliban resurgence
Ahmed Rashid's latest comment for the BBC, which ends with:
Quote:
The deteriorating security in North Waziristan is now having a global impact and creating a vast and multi-faceted militant hub. Meanwhile other areas are on the verge of falling back into the hands of the Taliban. Pakistan's civil and military need to formulate a coherent counter-insurgency strategy to provide security and an administration, so that development can reach the people and the militants can be isolated. Without such a strategy, an ad hoc approach is leading to an ever-worsening security situation.
Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8665657.stm
German jihadi killed by Pakistani forces...
...aparently, Eric Breininger has been killed by Pakistani forces in Waziristan according to a jihadist group while German Jihad colonies take root in Waziristan:
Quote:
The Recruits are quickly becomming radicalised and, in some cases, entire families are departing hotbeds for terrorism. it is belived that colonies catering to German Islamists have taken shape in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Surely, they were already "radicalised" (whatever that means) before they got there?
What do you learn at terrorist training camp?
Terrorists attack Ahmedi mosques in Lahore
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13321818.htm
Terrorists (almost certainly Punjabi Taliban) simultaneously attacked two Ahmedi sect mosques in Lahore during Friday prayers and killed over 80 people.
My first comments:
1. The choice of target is easy to understand. Ahmedis are a persecuted and vilified minority in Pakistan and "mainstream" news organizations feel no compunction about attacking them, so the ground is already prepared. e.g. GEO TV's religion presenter Amir Liaqat Hussain, a former minister under the buffoon Musharraf, encouraged people to kill them if they "overstepped their bounds" and an Ahmedi doctor was promptly killed; there was some fuss in the liberal press but Hussain is still on TV and writes a particularly vicious column in a major newspaper.
2. The day is also significant. its the anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear explosion and is a national day of jingoism, so appropriate for such an action.
3. There will be talk of stepped up security and other such BS, but the fact is that such terrorism is unstoppable until you get at the head. There is an infrastructure of support and guidance and its known to everyone in Pakistan, but decisive action is difficult because:
A. The army set up and protected this monster and knows better than anyone how big the operation is. Even if some of the top brass now want to proceed against them, they would prefer to do so slowly and in small increments. That also ensures a long-term American GWOT subsidy, so go-slow is a win-win situation for the top brass.
B. Because the army does not like to admit mistakes, it has never really let the general public know that mistakes were made and enemies within were created by the blessed armed forces themselves. So they rely on the narrative of "foreign hand" and "Indian-zionist agents" rather heavily. This means the "information war" is a total mess and the general public (whose cooperation is essential for any counter-insurgency) remains confused about who is fighting whom and for what purpose. Again, the confusion suits the general staff just fine (letting them hang on to some shred of their jihadi bona-fides while slowly fighitng jihadis) but is not helpful to anyone else.
C. Several decades of jihadist propaganda (nurtured officially) has created a significant jihadist constituency in the educated classes. What the Marxists of yore would call the "class interests" of this segment force them to be anti-jihadi (those "class interests" being intertwined with a capitalist global economy and the modern world in general) but their ideological vocabulary is almost entirely Islamist and Jihadist. The resulting cognitive dissonance must give migraines to the American embassy and undermines (but does not stop) the anti-terrorist effort.
D. And ALL THIS is layered on top of the "baseline" level of insurgency one expects in any mismanaged, unequal, unfair, over-populated, under-represented, mis-educated, illiterate, discriminated against third world population (which shows up in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal, the secular republic of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, etc in various forms, from large scale criminality to Maoist insurgencies). Which would be a large enough set of headaches for any country, but thanks to our brilliant general staff, we have added an islamist insurgency on top of it (and of course, the two merge in various creative ways).
My predictions for the future:
1. Very slowly, painfully and very very incompetently, the ruling elite will fight the jihadist insurgency, and some of them will get very rich doing so.
2. The baseline "Maoist" component of the insurgency could potentially have grown into a serious problem, but Islamism will coopt all other grievances and will save the ruling elite in the long run because they are so insane, the corrupt and vicious ruling elite will look better by comparison.
3. More of the same for many years to come. But humpty dumpty will not fall because India, China, Iran and America will spend sleepless nights figuring out how to keep humpty together...
Accord in NWA or 'Stop & Go' again?
I am sure something has been occurring in North Waziristan, but have missed any reports until this (Hat tip to Watandost): http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=29358
Quote:
Situation in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region has witnessed a gradual improvement following an agreement on Monday that led to the release of 20 Taliban by the government and in return the militants allowed an Army convoy, stranded in Miramshah for the last 45 days, to proceed.
Sounds like the 'Stop & Go' policy of the recent past.