The Pakistan army has routed the Indian sponsored TTP, cleared the enemy strongholds, eliminated the physical and psychological barriers, shattered the myth of the TTP, demolished the insurgent bunkers, and obliterated their infrastructure. The army did this by surrounding them with an overwhelming force, exposing their nefarious deeds, squeezing their recruitment, “draining the swamp”, sharply curtailing their activities, clearing the area, and asphyxiating their supply lines . The Paksitan Army has done in Swat what the US Army, NATO and and 47 nation coalition ISAF has been unable to do in Afghanistan. NATO has spent the best part of a decade without any results. All Britain and America have done is push the militants across the border into Pakistan. NATO has been unable to hold territory outside Kabul, or clear and hold any significant part of the country. More than 80% of the Afghanistan is still in the control of the “Taliban”.

Political Scientists and investigative historians track trends. Like bloodhounds they track scents, and seek out logical threads.  Like good prospectors they pan sands of rivers and tributaries seeking traces of gold particles which may lead them to the gold mine. Like Gold miners, they track streaks of redundancy in the metamorphic rocks of chronology. Asif Haroon Raja in an effulgent article prolifically describes the brilliance of the Army’s strategy to dislodge the terrorists and confoundthe foreign powers behind the militancy.

The gang of conspirators in Kabul is keeping its fingers crossed and watching unfolding of events in Pakistan with mixed feelings. On one hand they are happy that they succeeded in pushing Pak army into the hellhole in greater strength thereby weakening its military strength in critical eastern sector. They were optimistic that battles on three fronts of Lower Dir, Buner andSwat would be hard nuts to crack, given the state of ground preparations, war munitions and level of motivation of the militants under Fazlullah. They were expecting that once the army got bogged down probably in the valley of Swat where main battle was to be given, it would be impelled to further thin out its strategic reserves. Activation of Upper Dir, Batkhela and Shangla was part of plan to effectively pin down corps plus size force in this region. Thereafter, Bajaur front and possibly Mohmand-Khyber Agencies were to be heated up with Baitullah in South Waziristan providing necessary backup support in addition to regular flow of reinforcement from Kunar and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan. Idea was to get another two division force consumed in Bajaur-Mohmand-Khyber regions.

In their plans, corps plus size force was required in two Waziristans, which would be rekindled at an opportune time, with Khost acting as main logistic base for regular supplies. Balochistan front was also to be triggered to keep 12 Corps committed. The Statesman. Asif Haroon Raja

The Pakistan Army moved simultaneously into Swat and Waziristan. What took them so long? The Pakistan Army and the ISI has been developing a militia to eliminate the 10,000 strong Anti-Pakistan force of Bait Mesud. It has been training, arming and supporting a Counter-TTP force under the auspices of Qari Zainuddin Mehsudwho is loyal to Pakistan and against the Anti-Pakistan Bait Mehsud. the army struck Swat and Waziristan when the Indians thought that their proxy in Swat was safe and had an upper hand. The Delhi sponsored TTP overplayed their hand, and tried to move into Buner. This was not acceptable to the Army Brass who had given Bait Mehsud enough rope to hang himself with. The statements of Sufi Muhammad and his live interview was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The Army moved.

Dr. Furruk Saleem in a prodigious article compared the Swati insurgency to other major insurgencies of the world. There are serious flaws in that analogy. All other insurgencies list were national insurgencies, revolutions and wars of liberation. The SWAT situation is not comparable at all. The number of TTP, the size of the geographic area and their demands are not comparable to the Bolshevik revolutoin, or the Angolan Civil war. Another major difference is the attitude of the Swatis towards the TTP. There is no denying the fact that the Swatis waned some sore of Sharia law in thier agency, however they are appalled and disgusted by the events of “the Khooni chowk” and the sheer arrogance of the TTP which declared war on the state. Swat owes it economic prosperity to tourism. The Swatis could never forgive the TTP for destroying their source of income.

This is where RAW went wrong.

RAW followed the LTTE blueprint from Sri Lanka and imposed it on Swat. The LTTE was sen as a successful model. The ruthless crimes of the LTTE, their overwhelming emphasis on suicide bombings and sabotage and their lack of regard for human life was seen as the prefect model for Swat. It was wrong.

In Pakistan’s case, Swat, Chitral, Dir, Shangla, Hangu, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Tank, Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohamand, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan all put together come to over 56,000 sq km — and with 7 Indian Corps on our eastern border — we don’t have the surplus troops to replicate either the Lincoln or the Franco model.

Dr. Furrukh Saleem is wrong. Pakistan has more than 150,000 reservists. Additionally,  the army has cleared the hardened criminals, thugs and murderers, the revamped the Frontier Corps. A small contingent of the Pakistan Army supplemented with a potent Police Force and the Army reservists will be able to track, trace and target any new RAW ventures into Swat.

Pakistan will do whatever is necessary in its own interests. It will resist the mantra of doing what Washington thinks best for it. When Washington pushes hard, the end result is not compliance, it is resistance. The stubbornness and resilience of the Pakistanis is well known. Neither 25 years of US sanctions nor the drone bombing has been able to change the resolve of the Pakistani people.

How can Pakistan then fight this insurgency? The American Enterprise Institute’s Iraq Planning Group developed a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. The strategy calls for ‘clear, hold and build’. Here are the five phases of the strategy: Phase 1: preparations — putting all the “necessary forces and equipment on the ground.” Phase 2: intelligence building — gathering intelligence on the size, strength and the command and control (C&C) structure of the enemy. Phase 3: clearing — the actual military operation, disrupting supply lines, dismantling C&C and seizing munitions. Phase 4: holding — troops to “take up residence in temporary military headquarters” and the police to be re-equipped. Phase 5: building — the civilian administration to inject large amounts of capital to restore basic services like water, electricity, sewer, dispensation of justice, etc.

The Pakistan Army has its own strategy on fighting RAW and their TTP. The AEI is of coures a Neocon run thinktank that got the US into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mao Tse-tung once wrote “the guerrilla must swim in the people as the fish swims in the sea.” The current operation in Swat, in counterinsurgency lingo, is referred to as “draining the swamp”; forced relocation of Swatis in order to isolate the insurgents. The insurgent infrastructure is now being disrupted, dismantled and defeated (or ‘triple D’) — separating the ‘fish’ from the ‘people’. In that sense the Pakistan army is going by the book. This separation process, however, requires superb intelligence. And, intelligence is what the Pakistan army is short on. Time is on the side of the guerrillas. They mean to demoralise our troops through sneak attacks. As long as insurgents have popular support they have the advantages of “mobility, invisibility and legitimacy”. The Pakistan army will have to show some tangible proof of success in the immediate future. Dr. Furrukh Saleem

It is obvious that by clearing and holding the area, peace.

To generate maximum heat, Karachi, interior Sindh and Northern Areas were to be brewed up. Future plan of activating eastern front in coming winter hinged on consumption of 4-5 Corps in counter insurgency operations thereby giving India a definite edge to mount its decisive manoeuvre resting on Cold Start doctrine. US troops in Afghanistan were to step into FATA under the garb of hot pursuit operations to destroy al-Qaeda bases.

The Swat militants had planned to give initial battles at Lower Dir and Buner which acted as their Advanced Guard positions and then fight main defensive battle in Swat in which the bloodiest battle was to be fought in twin towns of Mingora and Saidu Sharif. They had planned to fight street battles and house to house battles making civilians as human shields and making good use of Israeli-made sniper rifles with range of one km, improvised mines, barricades, mines provided by RAW, American weapons.Arif Haroon Raja

While the US and India had thought that the Pakistan Army was asleep, it was actually positioning people in Swat, Buner and Dir. While the terrorists were provoking the population, the ISI was flying drones and marking the territory. While the US media barraged the airwaves with all sorts of nonsense, the Pakistani surveillance was spotting the supply chain of the arms being lugged across the Afghan border. While the think tanks were projecting gloom and doom, the Pakistan Army was positioning plan clothes jawans and pinpointing the enemy agents.

It let the TTP and RAW think that they were winning.

They were actually being monitored. Instead of exposing them, the military let them do their thing, so that countermeasures could be implemented when they had lulled themselves into overconfidence.

Since February onwards, they had carried out extensive preparations to convert major towns into fortresses, and vantage points on heights along the funnel shaped valley into strongholds. Last ditch battles were to be fought in depth area of Bahrain, Kalam, Charbagh as fallback positions.

While Indo-US-Israeli nexus had formulated its plan, the army was not sitting idle. It was closely monitoring the fast deteriorating security situation both along the eastern and western borders as well as internal situation duly stoked by the masterminds. Notwithstanding repeated assertions by US military andcivilian leaders that existential threat to Pakistan was posed by the militants and not by India and that it should shift all its forces from the east to the northwest to save Pakistan from going into the hands of extremist forces, the army under Gen Kayani kept its cool and did not get carried away by the motivated hype.

Well-knowing that India was a treacherous enemy and its designs against Pakistan were unchanged, the army shifted some additional troops to beef up effort in Malakand Division but not at the cost of losing strategic balance. Extra force was pumped in to conduct simultaneous attacks against different targets and wind up operation speedily. FC was asked to keep Bajaur under tight watch and to handle Buner at its own which it did commendably well. Additional force for Waziristan was earmarked but not dispatched to conserve upon strategic assets of air and choppers. Arif Haroon Raja

For America, every turbaned male with a beard is the ”Taliban“. Richard Holbrooke, General Petreaus, and Admiral Mullen cannot differentiate between a Pakhtun and a hole in the ground. The don’t have a clue on how to deal with the Pakhtuns. It is no wonder that they have lost 80% of Afghanistan to the 38 insurgent groups that are fighting them.

The day Operation Rah a Haq was initiated was not the day it was announced to the media. The operation had begun in January. The day the operation was formally announced, the hidden army sleeper cells and camouflaged commandos sprung into action and eliminated the visible signs of the traitors at the designated hour.

The insurgents and their RAW masters didn’t know what had hit them. 

Unexpected unfolding of developments took the militants and their patrons by complete surprise. The lightning speed and tenacity with which operation Rah-e-Rast was launched and stunning victories achieved in quick succession flabbergasted them. They could not imagine in their wildest imaginations that the military would hit out at multiple fronts, both against fortified major towns as well as strongholds on mountain peaks simultaneously. What upset their plans was the sudden and audacious night attack by commandoes led by SSG Commander Maj Gen Haroonpreceded by aerial attack on their command HQ at Peuchar where top leadership of Swat Taliban including Fazlullah was housed.

It was a daring and brilliant heli-borne commando raid on inaccessible and almost impassable stronghold, which not only disintegrated the command centre, but in all probability eliminated top leadership.

Another wise move made was to seal off withdrawal and supply routes from outside. Collapse of command structure and communication system, destruction of munitions dumps and disruption of supply lines caused the rout.

Although all the trouble spots have been taken over by the army, it will take another two months for re-establishment of writ of civil government and for displaced persons to return to their homes. Army is likely stay on in Swat for a year or so but is in a good position to pull out extra troops whenever it wants. Arif Haroon Raja

Rupee News had already reported the activities of the Zain lashkar which was launched with the help of 5000 Waziris. This lashkar has already sprung on the unsuspecting TTP and their foreign agents. Why did the Pakistan Army move into Swat?

The US analysts think that the army attacks is to help NATO. The Pakistan Army’s attacks is eliminating foreigners from Swat. Success for the Pakistan Army is not the same as success for the US Army. This divergence of views  makes the US analysts think that the the Pakistanis are not following through or are duplicitous.

Whereas peace deal had gone against sinister plans of our adversaries, rapid successes made by the military have also not been to their liking. What they wanted was a no-win situation in which both sides should have bled. Change of tide in favour of the military has upset their time-programmed plan to make Pakistan lawless and ungovernable so as to provide an excuse to USA to seek military intervention from UNSC to take over nuclear weapons and safeguard world security.

Mass exodus of the people from battle zone was also part of the plan to shift militancy from selected areas of Frontier Region to major cities of Punjab. They had never expected that 80% of 3 million displaced people would be happily accommodated by the people of NWFP and philanthropists and general public would come forward with undying generosity. Punjab government took the lead by providing free flour and other commodities to the affected.

In order to put a spanner in the relief work generated from within, pro-India nationalist parties were pumped up to play up threat of Talibanisation and block the entry of IDPs. The suicide brigade and saboteurs have been keyed up to wreck havoc in the cities. Already some incidents have taken place in Lahore, Peshawar, DIK and Upper Dir. Kidnapping of students of Razmak College from Bannu district by Baitullah men was also link of the chain and meant to exert pressure to stop military operations which have constricted their space. Thanks to very prompt and gallant action by the military which helped in rescuing the students and averting a crisis situation. Arif Haroon Raja

The Pakistanis have a two-fold strategy. The first is to expunge Swat and FATA of all Indian influences at all costs. The 2nd is to wean away Mr. Karzai from the Indian fold and help him survive the wrath of the Pakhtuns. Eliminating Bait Mehsud is the first order of business. In a hammer and anvil strategy, the Pakistan Army will press Mehsud and his dwindling fighters from the West, and the Triabl Lashkar of Zain and his 3000 fighters from the West will stop his escape routes from the West.

While the militants are on the run and completely disorganised and their mentors are glum, critics of Pakistan have become mute; praises are coming forth guardedly and sparingly with ifs andbuts. Loose talk of escape of militant leaders, collateral damage and plight of stranded people in some areas and of IDPs, militants within IDPs and threat to our nuclear weapons is already in the air, which is likely to gain currency.

Our adversaries must be devising new ways to keep the pot of terror steaming. Liberal brigade of writers will help in promoting new themes of detractors to mar the good work done by the army. While the army has still to do lot of work in some other areas, the government should spring into action and launch socio-politico-economic programme with speed and utmost sincerity to win the hearts and minds of the Pashtuns who are feeling neglected andleft out. This is absolutely essential to further upset sinister designs of our adversaries.Army’s brilliant success has upset plans of adversaries. Asif Haroon Raja

The hammer and anvil strategy will keep Bait Mehsud busy and out of trouble for a while. Many of his fighters are leaving him, and either joining the Zain Army or simply leaving their evil ways. Surely it will not be easy sailing. The going will get rough when some of Baits die hard followers disguised as refugees decide to take revenge on the Swatis and the Pakistan Army. The Army has asked the nation to brace itself for RAW inspired, and supported sabotage in the urban centers. Dr. Furrukh Saleem defines the possibilities here.

As per Captain Liddell Hart Model, the “key to a successful counterinsurgency is the winning-over of the occupied territory’s population. If that can be achieved, then the rebellion will be deprived of its supplies, shelter, and, more importantly, its moral legitimacy.”

One of the most successful of counterinsurgency campaigns was undertaken by the Syrian army and air force. When Syria had become overly committed in Lebanon’s Civil War (20,000 troops deployed) the Muslim Brotherhood — sensing a weak state apparatus — launched an insurgency. In 1979, insurgents killed seven dozen military cadets followed by a series of car bomb attacks in Damascus. In 1980, insurgents made a near-successful attempt to assassinate President Assad. The Muslim Brotherhood then took over Hama, the provincial capital, and began massacring residents. In 1982, the Syrian air force indiscriminately bombarded the town of Hama. According to Amnesty International, the “Syrian military bombed the old streets of the city from the air to facilitate the introduction of military forces and tanks through the narrow streets, where homes were crushed by tanks during the first four days of fighting. They also claim that the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding.”

The good news is that the whole world is on the side of our troops. The government now needs to set up a Provisional Reconstruction Authority and massively beef up the Swat police (to prepare them to hold the cleared territories).

PS: According to David Kilcullen, one of the world’s top counterinsurgency experts, America spent 99.9 per cent on Pakistan’s military and 0.4 per cent on the police. Clear, hold, build’ Sunday, June 07, 2009 Dr Farrukh Saleem. The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).  Farrukh15@hotmail.com

Nasr Un Minallah hai Fatah Un Qareeb