The Role of the British Political Officer on the North West Frontier

[davidbfpo]

Red Rat's other question was:

Does anyone know what is happening in Pakistan with the current Pak Army offensive and the relationship between the political authorities and the military authorities there? The media gives the impression that all authority has been passed across to the military and report on it in purely military terms.

There has been no first-hand reporting on the South Waziristan campaign, although this week access was allowed (see:http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.co...ing-games.html ) and a flurry of reports followed, notably over documents linked to the 9/11 attack (in the daily SWJ news brief). There is little of substance on the Pakistani Army's offensive, which appears to be under-resourced (BBC cites two divisions -v- 10-20K militants) and that "militants" have evaded capture.

The Long War Journal has a map that shows what the situation is: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...iban_contr.php (The origin is unclear and I suppose it is an amalgam of what is available).

I've seen little on the current civil-military relationship recently; two weeks ago there was this by Ahmed Rashid and given the attacks since relations are unlikely to have changed IMHO: http://watandost.blogspot.com/2009/1...s-hit-new.html

The BBC News reported this today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8335738.stm by Pakistan's prime minister at news conference that the country's leadership was united in its efforts to wipe out the Taliban.

We are at war. We do not have any other option because their [the militants] intentions are to take over.