Pakistan and its role in war against terror!

[Shaffiq]

I hear all the stuff about the strategic force - picture this. US attacks inside Pakistan, Musharraf is blewn to bits by his own insiders - remember Zia. The US bombs Iran and for good measure, gets a buy one get one free deal, and attacks Kahuta and a couple of other targets as well. Will the special nuke forces and security still feel as loyal - it only takes a small group of junior officers to change sides.

The US spends 12million USD per month protecting Musharraf - so if Pakistan can't protect its own president, how secure are the weapons from insiders. I am not saying we have a bunch of looneys protecting the weapons, but this is yet another example of Pakistani hype and bravado.

The US definitely go after Pak nukes - whether direct, or via India militarity or politically. Make no doubts about this one - Muslims with a nuke weapon. Look at recent history, genocide in Europe to prevent a Muslim nation Bosnia from surviving. Turkey, will never be part of the EU. A very small Israel rules the roost in the Middle East. East Timor, Kashmir, Palestine I could go on. When will the Pakistanis and Muslims generally see that noone will take their side so long as it is not in their interests. Let's get real guys.

Back to the original thread - Pakistan can only do so much, not even the richest nation on earch can protect its own Mexican border with all the resources at its disposal. The coward Yanks are sat in barracks in Kabul, 700 US and Afghan troops guard the Afghan / Pak border 70000 Pakistani troops guard their side of the border on foot. What Pakistan needs to tell the Senate and Congress is to get your own soldiers out of barracks and on the border on foot patrol, before questions Pakistans commitment. Musharraf has no spine, when it comes to the Americans (he is in the same mould as many a Pakistan general - vein in the eyes of outsiders, likes being told what a leader he is etc), but cares less about what he does to his own country. Granted, he has brough stability, so not all bad, but he is really losing it and becoming another me me only I can save Pakistan general. Watch out those C130s are quite dated now.

Two more issued have come across in this thread. The possibility of nuclear weapons going into alqaeda hands from Pakistan and US military action against Pakistan. The simple answer to first is that the chances are nonexistent. The weapons are well guarded by military and a special strategic force has been created to safe guard them. The force is highly trained and well equipped. It is headed by a three star general the most senior after chief of army staff. Further as far as I understand not all components of the nuclear weapons are placed at one place. Then our security record is far better than other countries. There have been no reported incidents of nuclear breach. These weapons are much easily available in some other parts of the world then Pakistan. The other matter regarding possible US military action against Pakistan. Well the only thing I can say is that we need to watch all countries including USA and our planning should include such an eventuality. We also need to form a strategy for a scenario where India and USA join together for such a strike to eliminate our nuclear weapons.

 

[ejaz007]

It is bit difficult to assess before and event has happened how well a military would react to an attack. Even general publics reaction is unpredictable. When a nation is under attack people react differently they react as a nation not as an individual. Similarly when militarily attacked how Pakistani military would react is difficult to assess. It depends on military leader, his tactics, how well he adopts to the situation and manages it, how aggressively he uses his forces and what type of weapons he has at his disposal and how best he uses them. These factors determine the outcome of a war. I am not talking about general Musharraf but his commanders such corps commanders, division commanders and brigade commanders. Take one example from history of Nasser of Egypt. UK and France sent in military forces and encouraged Israel to attack in the only hope that he is a dictator and shall be overthrown by his own people. Instead he emerged as a strong leader and led his country for many years to come. So my friends don’t make your judgments before an event has taken place. As far as some junior officers stealing nuclear weapons or for that sake weapon of mass destruction it seems a bit childish. Even if they get their hands on them how are they going to take them out of the country? We are talking about nuclear weapons not half pound or so chocolate packet that can be smuggled out through commercial liners. These kind of theories are the result of fiction movies not reality.

 

[Scorpius]

seems like someone watched Syriana or read Tom Clancy novels a bit too much.

 

[SABRE]

I hear all the stuff about the strategic force - picture this. US attacks inside Pakistan, Musharraf is blewn to bits by his own insiders - remember Zia. The US bombs Iran and for good measure, gets a buy one get one free deal, and attacks Kahuta and a couple of other targets as well. Will the special nuke forces and security still feel as loyal - it only takes a small group of junior officers to change sides.

The US spends 12million USD per month protecting Musharraf - so if Pakistan can't protect its own president, how secure are the weapons from insiders. I am not saying we have a bunch of looneys protecting the weapons, but this is yet another example of Pakistani hype and bravado.

The US definitely go after Pak nukes - whether direct, or via India militarity or politically. Make no doubts about this one - Muslims with a nuke weapon. Look at recent history, genocide in Europe to prevent a Muslim nation Bosnia from surviving. Turkey, will never be part of the EU. A very small Israel rules the roost in the Middle East. East Timor, Kashmir, Palestine I could go on. When will the Pakistanis and Muslims generally see that noone will take their side so long as it is not in their interests. Let's get real guys.

Back to the original thread - Pakistan can only do so much, not even the richest nation on earch can protect its own Mexican border with all the resources at its disposal. The coward Yanks are sat in barracks in Kabul, 700 US and Afghan troops guard the Afghan / Pak border 70000 Pakistani troops guard their side of the border on foot. What Pakistan needs to tell the Senate and Congress is to get your own soldiers out of barracks and on the border on foot patrol, before questions Pakistans commitment. Musharraf has no spine, when it comes to the Americans (he is in the same mould as many a Pakistan general - vein in the eyes of outsiders, likes being told what a leader he is etc), but cares less about what he does to his own country. Granted, he has brough stability, so not all bad, but he is really losing it and becoming another me me only I can save Pakistan general. Watch out those C130s are quite dated now.

In 1980s it was reported in Indian Media that some importent files from the Indian Prime Minister's office have gone missing. One of the File was labled "Attack on Kahota". Of course ISI was named to have taken the files. This is said to be a Myth as there are no proves of any existance of the file. However, there is another story which is considered to be true: Israel had started to consider Pakistan a threat during a certain period of time. So they approached India for "Attack On Kahota". Israel was very confident since they had successfuly destroyed Iraqi facility. Everything was on the plan, except that India rejected it. The reason was that Israelis would come to India, conduct the attacks & go back while what ever reaction is to come rom Pakistan would be faced by India alone. India was deterred since AQ Khan had claimed Pakistan has nuclear power & can conduct test in 2 weeks if it wants to.

So you see when Pakistan dint have nuclear weapons ready India was unwilling to aid Israel in attacking Kahota, I dont think they are fool enough to aid USA in doing so. If anything goes wrong or attack fails USA would live but India & the region would be in heat. India & Pakistan may be enemies but neither are stupid. A small nuclear threat means collapse of growing regional economy. Since India is the apple of this growing economy it wont sacrifice its security.

The other thing is attack on Kahota. Although it is heavily guarded by SSG of army & airforce there are lots of questions about it. Most recently "What is Kahota facility actually being used for?" --- This question arises from the fact that KRL never conducted the nuclear tests & never produced a nuclear bomb. Even AQ Khan has no participated in the 1998 nuclear tests (in fact many say he has very little to do with the over all nuclear program). It was all done by PAEC & it owns various institutes & facilities. Which does what is also questionable. So the question is, would attack on KRL achieve anything?

The other point is that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are ready, unlike Iran's or Iraq's (in Past). You can destroy the facility but its not easy to destroy the weapons, especially when they are hidden in mountains & caves & underground facilities. Now since the Babur Cruise Missiles are combat ready, I think everyone in our neighbourhood should be deterred than being aggressive.

 

[ejaz007]

First of all it shall be appreciated if Scorpius can explain what he stated. What ever I say are based on the information I have and not based on movies or fantasies. Coming to the Sabre’s comments yes in 1984 it was revealed in fact by CIA that India and Israel had planned an attack on Kahutta that was postponed at the last moment. India had not rejected the plan and was fully involved. In 1984 it was believed that Pakistan was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. Israeli thought it was in their interest to destroy the Kahutta that was believed to be the main facility. India as always was willing to join any venture that might hurt Pakistan. However the plan was not executed. One speculation was that CIA informed both countries that Pakistan already knew. By the way we are deviating from the original thread so please focus on the subject.

 

[SABRE]

First of all it shall be appreciated if Scorpius can explain what he stated. What ever I say are based on the information I have and not based on movies or fantasies. Coming to the Sabre’s comments yes in 1984 it was revealed in fact by CIA that India and Israel had planned an attack on Kahutta that was postponed at the last moment. India had not rejected the plan and was fully involved. In 1984 it was believed that Pakistan was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. Israeli thought it was in their interest to destroy the Kahutta that was believed to be the main facility. India as always was willing to join any venture that might hurt Pakistan. However the plan was not executed. One speculation was that CIA informed both countries that Pakistan already knew. By the way we are deviating from the original thread so please focus on the subject.

The actual events are pretty much shrouded, in fact, wheather it is true or not is questionble - thats why it is refered to as "Myth" & various versions of this story are famous (Mine was one of them & urs is the other). But some very influencial ppl have "that India backed out". Many Indians are amongst these influencial ppl. Speaking without any bia, I would say if India backed-off it was much clever decision.

Anyways, yeah, we are getting off-topic.

 

[Scorpius]

[off topic]

First of all it shall be appreciated if Scorpius can explain what he stated.

sorry I think you misunderstood me.I wasn't talking about you,but the people who are always saying Pakistan is highly unstable and is almost ready to fall apart.in Syriana and Tom Clancy books it shows how some Muslimradicalists/terrorist get hold of nuclear weapons from the military.[off-topic]

back to topic:what is the current state of Balochistan?I know it's not along the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan but it still seems to have trouble.

 

[ejaz007]

Yes I was mistaken, sorry for that. Actually there are so many things said about Pakistan and a lot without any facts or reality that at times one gets mixed up. The dooms day stories about Pakistan and the way think tanks carry out studies about Pakistan makes one think that a lot of these think tanks earn their bread and butter from publishing these reports only. At the same time I am not saying that there are no problems, there are problems but a lot of them but these need to be tackled by Pakistan and not by those think tanks a lot of who have not even been to Pakistan. Coming to Balochistan first of all there is no insurgency or low-level guerilla war going on as perhaps presented by some. Around 95% of Balochistan is peaceful and normal. There is problem in small part of the province only. One needs to understand what is going on. Since Independence the province has been run according to the wishes of tribal elders or sardars as they are known. These sardars are paid royalty from whatever government earns mainly from the gas produced there. Now the situation is that these sardars are very rich while the common people are very poor. Also these sardars are not interested in the development of province or the people especially in their own area. The world around us has changed a lot and the importance of Balochistan has increased even more. To bring the province at par with the rest of the country government planned a lot of development programs. These sardars are of the view that if the common peoples standard of living improved there importance will diminish therefore they want the government to spend the money through them. The government is not willing and wants to spend the money through provincial government. This caused these sardars to join together and use whatever force they have in order to create law and order situation. They claim that they are fighting for the common people of Balochistan. If this is true then a number of them held high posts in their lives and should explain what they did for these people then. They did almost nothing. When law and order situation develops in any part of the country then government has very little choices then to send in law enforcing agencies to control it. This is actually what is happening in Balochistan. I believe that the situation will improve as the development programs are implemented and people start realizing the situation.

 

[Scorpius]

and your views of the Indian accusations that the ISI is helping the ULFA separatists to achieve their goals,even when Musharraf has vowed to fight terrorism ?It is a huge concern to me,as our military intelligence agency have been blamed to be something like the 'middlemen'.

True there are gunrunners in the country and it is easy to smuggle through the porous borders but BD govt.has been accused of nourishing them here.

 

[ejaz007]

Yes there have been in the past and continue to be accusations by both India and Pakistan regarding each other’s intelligence agencies. The best thing to do is to provide proof and ask the other country to act. One thing regarding Indian accusations is that at numerous occasions they have accused ISI of certain activities and have claimed to have proof but then have backed down and acknowledged that they do not have proof. One incident was the attack on Indian parliament. They accused that Kashmiri separatist organization having close links with ISI was involved. Then they said they have not found any proof of ISI involvement. The point I want to make is that India has developed a habit of blaming every thing happening there on ISI. This makes their accusations less credible. Whenever any incident happens in India Pakistanis already know who did it they only wait for its confirmation from Indian government. As far as Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies are concerned I am not sure they have the expertise or the money to do any thing in India.

 

[Scorpius]

what will Musharraf be doing about the madrassas,right now?are there a lot of foreign students too,especially from Afghanistan?

 

[ejaz007]

Madrassas have suffered a lot since the beginning of this war on terror. To better understand the issue let us first find out what these madrassas are. The madrassa is a place where children both male and female study and are provided free food and living. These children are mainly from poor families who cannot afford education and are therefore sent to these madrassas for religious education. These madrassas provide religious education. In a way these are NGO’s that provide free education, shelter and food. They are funded by ordinary people through door-to-door fund collection or donations provided by wealthy people. These are excellent institutions and are doing a great service to the society. Instead of youth getting involved in unsocial activities or crimes they study here and become a useful part of the society. Unfortunately during afghan war some madrassas were created by ISI & CIA to train fighters and send them to fight soviets. These madrassas mainly taught jihad and prepared fighters for afghan war. After US left Pakistan these madrassas went on unchecked. It is these madrassas that are creating problem with their teachings. Due to these few thousands of other genuine madrassas are suffering. We need to differentiate between them and only take action against these madrassas created during Afghan war. At the same time madrassas should also be engaged in a dialogue and encouraged to provide other forms of education also instead of just religious education only. As far as foreign students are concerned these have always studied in the madrassas and have not created any problems. It is not these but the foreign fighters hired by CIA that are the problem. These were dumped here during the Afghan war and are creating problems.

 

[Scorpius]

no offence,but seems like you were used well.doesn't the US Houses recognize these.Pakistan seems to be becoming a serious issue in the next US elections.

was it the special forces or normal infantry,which was surrounding the Lal Masjid during the siege?

 

[yess]

no offence,but seems like you were used well.doesn't the US Houses recognize these.Pakistan seems to be becoming a serious issue in the next US elections.

was it the special forces or normal infantry,which was surrounding the Lal Masjid during the siege?

yes the us presidential candidates will be taking pakistan seriously. their biggest concern is who is gonna take over the country if Musharraf is removed, but little do they know its always the army in these kind of tense situation. and should not be that much worried cuz the army is pro-west.

indeed it was the SSGs special forces group. so basically the SSGs were in the inner part of the parameter set by the army, while the normal infantry and police were tasked to set two larger parameters to prevent these terrorists to escape.

 

[SABRE]

yes the us presidential candidates will be taking pakistan seriously. their biggest concern is who is gonna take over the country if Musharraf is removed, but little do they know its always the army in these kind of tense situation. and should not be that much worried cuz the army is pro-west.

There is no question on who is going to take control after the Musharaf. On constitutional bases if Musharaf leaves, chairman Senet (Mian Muhammad Sumro) takes over as President & under the orders of the constitution has to declare elections within 90 days (that is if the government is suspended or has finished its term) This october to december is election session. Who ever becomes Prime Minister will be transfered full executive powers when Musharaf leaves (that is if he does). There is big question on what if Musharaf is killed? What will happen next? There would be no one to run the country? --- This is just pure BS. The above constitutional method would be applied & as the whole country knows that if free & fare elections are held than its PPP (top moderate party) which will emerge as victor. When Zia died no army General took command, those were the darkages. If army couldnt take command than they cant take it especially now.

On US using Pakistan for election purposes than US should also remember that Pakistan can use US in its election as well. If all cards played well than ppl can also elect a moderate politicians but one who are not in favor of US (& there are a lot of them). Senetor Mushahid Hussain even pointed this out & yesterday we got a glimps of it in the parliament when the parliament 's secretary for defence presented a report & a speech on "US (CIA) killing the Chinese ppl in Pakistan & emphesized on bettering relations with China, Iran & Soviet Union" (Possible future from my strategic point of view).

This all means possible end to the war on terrorism. If not total end to war than at least on international level. Pakistan would be countering terrorists who threaten Pakistan & not the rest of the world (only couple of countries would be exceptional).

indeed it was the SSGs special forces group. so basically the SSGs were in the inner part of the parameter set by the army, while the normal infantry and police were tasked to set two larger parameters to prevent these terrorists to escape.

The Police was patroling the areas & routs leading to the Lal Masjid but were at significant distance, the Rangers were patrolling the out side of Lal Masjid it self & the SSG & regular infentry were only on standby.
SSG was used only a couple of times before the operation began & the infentry was only used after the SSG Commandos declared the operation was over. Most of the work was done by the Rangers.

 

[Scorpius]

Rangers are paramilitary forces aren't they?how well are they equipped?
how is Musharraf dealing with the North Waziristan militants and tribes?read that whatever deal was signed broke some time ago.

 

[SABRE]

Rangers are paramilitary forces aren't they?how well are they equipped?
how is Musharraf dealing with the North Waziristan militants and tribes?read that whatever deal was signed broke some time ago.

Rangers is paramilitary yes. They are very well equipped & use similar/same weapons as the army - especially the Frontier Corps (FC) which is technically a para-military force & is commanded by Rangers HQ but its out look & out put is like the Pakistan Army, in fact you wont find any difference between the two as the two work side by side.

Musharaf is actually not the one dealing with Waziristan ... he is just approving & disapproving of what the political & military bodies are doing. Its the Pakthoon origion military personal dealing in Waziristan & are pursuing another peace-pact.

 

[kams]

Emergency imposed in Pakistan?

Guys there are lot of reports saying that Emergency will be imposed tomorrow, while Stratfor has a headline that emergency imposed. ANy updates?

Pakistan: Emergency Rule Imposed
August 08, 2007 19 12 GMT

Note- Apologies for asking an Off-topic question

 

[ejaz007]

Gentlemen, don’t you all think that we are not discussing the topic? Instead of mixing issues new threads should be opened.

 

[Scorpius]

I believe these issues are related to the war on terror,no?especially the Lal masjid incident?