Re: DI Khan jail break
Now one thing is for sure. After this new-found brotherly love between PML-N and MQM (Mustakil Qalabaz Museebat) there will be no trial of Musharraf under article 6
NS baat hi aisi kyon karta hai jiss par kabhi amal na kar sake! Just proves his political posturing is NA was all a sham
Was this a behind-the-scenes masterstroke by Mushy?
Re: DI Khan jail break
The point is that they are in SWA and will move from there to NWA, it seems they wont face any problem even in the so called cleared SWA.
Well, ultimately, SW is only a transit point till they make it to their ultimate destination, which is NW. I don think there is anyone out there who believes that the main source of these terrorists is any place other then NW.
Re: DI Khan jail break
Well, ultimately, SW is only a transit point till they make it to their ultimate destination, which is NW. I don think there is anyone out there who believes that the main source of these terrorists is any place other then NW.
Agreed, but how can one freely use a territory as transit which has been cleared by the army (and they are still manning it)?
Re: DI Khan jail break
Agreed, but how can one freely use a territory as transit which has been cleared by the army (and they are still manning it)?
You can never kill every rat in every hole. What you can do is minimize their hold and make life exceedingly difficult for them. South Waziristan might still allow them transit, but they obviously arent able to plan or train there. On the other hand, since there is still N waziristan left for them to plan and train from, there will always remain a threat emanating from there.
Currently, the only thing these terrorists worry over are the drone strikes. Otherwise, nothing hinders their capacity to commit such crimes.
Re: DI Khan jail break
You can never kill every rat in every hole. What you can do is minimize their hold and make life exceedingly difficult for them. South Waziristan might still allow them transit, but they obviously arent able to plan or train there. On the other hand, since there is still N waziristan left for them to plan and train from, there will always remain a threat emanating from there.
Currently, the only thing these terrorists worry over are the drone strikes. Otherwise, nothing hinders their capacity to commit such crimes.
This plays into imran's argument that the army's deployment is only breeding discontent there as it only bothers the civilians and somehow everyone escaped by transiting through there. I know that it was night, but shouldn't the army, whose business is security, prepare for every eventuality after a decade? I sure hope that the army has night capability warna allah hafiz if india ever attacks us in the night.
Re: DI Khan jail break
This plays into imran's argument that the army's deployment is only breeding discontent there as it only bothers the civilians and somehow everyone escaped by transiting through there. I know that it was night, but shouldn't the army, whose business is security, prepare for every eventuality after a decade? I sure hope that the army has night capability warna allah hafiz if india ever attacks us in the night.
I think there is huge support for taking on the Taliban. I dont think any reasonable person supports them today, other then their fellow terrorists. The only point of contention is this absurd notion of a secret hand controlling the Taliban from some place, god only knows where. Beyond that, I think the country as a whole, including the tribesmen would support military action, despite Imran Khan, who I think is just being stubborn but will eventually see the writing on the wall. We might have to wait till after the americans leave Afghanistan, but eventually they will attack them in NW.
Re: DI Khan jail break
The issue is that all of SWA is not cleared. The army and governments do not give us the real picture. There have been some drone strikes in SWA as well during the past few years. Last year Imran Khan was stopped from entering the agency due to bad Law and order situation.
We have got Mullah Nazir’s group in SWA and hafiz Gul Bahadur in NWA who have not been touched, as they don’t attack Pakistani interests.
South Waziristan: Taliban issue rules for Ramazan – The Express Tribune
Re: DI Khan jail break
The Taliban will remain a threat until they are driven out from everywhere they have any refuge. That means attacking them in every place they are active, especially where they are based. It will be a long and protracted war, but the bottom line is you cannot leave any area for the to assemble or train.
They will certainly not be able to destroy them if they leave an area for them to retreat too. It doesnt make sense. You cannot treat a cancer unless you remove it from everywhere.
Re: DI Khan jail break
The Taliban will remain a threat until they are driven out from everywhere they have any refuge. That means attacking them in every place they are active, especially where they are based. It will be a long and protracted war, but the bottom line is you cannot leave any area for the to assemble or train.
They will certainly not be able to destroy them if they leave an area for them to retreat too. It doesnt make sense. You cannot treat a cancer unless you remove it from everywhere.
The end result is that the army is only attacking TTP, they are not touching some other groups which it considers as strategic assets (in the context of Afghanistan). The jail breaks and attacks on Shias are just collateral damage. Until this confusion goes we will keep on discussing the same things over and over. Mentality of the army needs to change as they are still running the foreign and internal policies of the country.
Re: DI Khan jail break
Yes Talat is right about stance of KPK Govt over Taliban, they still not sure that Taliban are their brothers or enemies ?
Restored attachments:
Re: DI Khan jail break
Ilzam khan ki ek zuban jo keh so keh diya:D: ab bhai bol diya tou zuban kese wapis hogi:cb:
Re: DI Khan jail break
The end result is that the army is only attacking TTP, they are not touching some other groups which it considers as strategic assets (in the context of Afghanistan). The jail breaks and attacks on Shias are just collateral damage. Until this confusion goes we will keep on discussing the same things over and over. Mentality of the army needs to change as they are still running the foreign and internal policies of the country.
Still, you have to start somewhere. In the process of reaching a consensus and reducing the confusion, you may allow the enemy to become even more entrenched and even harder to eliminate. The longer they wait, the harder it will get.
Mentality of the Army might change, but god knows what hell these terrorists will inflict on the poor slobs in the country while the Army figures out what its role is... Meanwhile, they will continue to eat away at the countries meager finances, and continue to lap up all the benefits accrued from the hapless state they are supposed to defend.
Re: DI Khan jail break
The shocking prison break by the Taliban in Dera Ismail Khan on July 29 - the second of its kind in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in less than a year - has sent shockwaves all over the world. The entire world watched 250 dangerous inmates walking out of the jail without any resistance from any law enforcement agency of Pakistan
In April last year, when the ANP was in power, the Taliban freed 100 of their men in a similar attack on a prison in Bannu, with the support of those who were supposed to guard the facility. Among them was a dangerous convict involved in an attack on former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf. He is reported to have masterminded the daring raid in Dera Ismail Khan.
The provincial home office and the office of IG prisons had been sent an intelligence report that an attack was likely. There had even been a mock exercise. But reports say the attackers passed through 11 checkposts before they reached the jail and they were not stopped at any of them. They spent three hours in the jail premises without any fear of retaliation. Their confidence shows that they knew no one would come to the rescue of the jail authorities until they had left after achieving their goals.
Pakistan Army, deployed in the district because it borders Waziristan, was not called until it was too late, and it did not take an initiative to control the situation either.
Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf is also facing serious criticism. Their chief minister was caught off guard and did not know how to react to the attack that has exposed once again Pakistan’s capacity to fight the Taliban.
A police officer who has served in Swat before militants took control of the valley asked me why policemen should risk their lives for a corrupt government. He now works with an international agency in Islamabad. “We should not expect our security forces to fight when they are being told on a daily basis that this is not our war.” He said he was not surprised that the Taliban had attacked the prison, but that there was no reaction and no response from law enforcement agencies in the three hours they spent there.
So far, Imran Khan seems to have no clue how his party’s government will handle law and order in the province. The PTI chairman had agreed to participate in an all parties’ conference on terrorism, which was postponed until his return from England. Upon his arrival, he announced a new condition - that he should meet the prime minister and the army chief behind closed doors.
His indecisiveness has led many to speculate that is he thinking of reviewing his policy on the Taliban and drone attacks and wants to offer his support to the military establishment to fight terrorism. But for obvious reasons, he does not want to go public with his new views.
But the brazen prison break in Dera Ismail Khan has raised new concerns, even among those who oppose drone attacks. By allowing 250 dangerous Taliban men to go free, we have given the US drones 250 more reasons to fire missiles at them.
If drone attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty, so do Taliban attacks on Pakistan’s prisons. *
Email: [EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected]
Twitter: @klasrarauf - See more at: An attack on our sovereignty*
Re: DI Khan jail break
This is the taleban video on Bannu Jail Break.
Re: DI Khan jail break
I just can't even try to imagine the state of security these jails operate under. Pathetic. A group of bandits can operate freely like this?
Re: DI Khan jail break
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1095100_424401104340416_47040021_n.jpg
Re: DI Khan jail break
BBC News - Interpol issues global security alert linked to jailbreaks
Re: DI Khan jail break
The DI Khan jail break was embarrassing, but was it really just a failure of the KPK govt, or a failure of the country as a whole? I mentioned this in my previous posts as well, that no jail or police station in Pakistan is equipped to counter such an attack. It just so happens that the terrorists in question were jailed in KPK, which is why KPK jail was attacked…first Bannu, and now DI Khan. You wont find such attacks happening in Punjab, because in Punjab, jails are actually used to provide protective cover to terrorists.
Heres Najam Sethi with some clarity about DI Khan jailbreak, intelligence, and Punjab.
Re: DI Khan jail break
An Indian’s view about the jail break.Pakistan In Paralysis: Jailbreaks And A State In Disarray - Analysis Eurasia Review
When jail walls that hold dangerous terrorists start falling like nine-pins, they tend to become a metaphor not just for the dreadful state of security in a country but worse, for the unrelenting slide towards state failure. Just over a year after the jail break from the Bannu prison in which around 400 prisoners escaped after an assault by scores of Taliban, an even more spectacular and outrageous, but equally audacious, jail break has taken place in Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) with around 250 prisoners escaping.
Unlike the Bannu jail which was outside the city, the DI Khan jail was located virtually in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw away from the Police Lines, a Frontier Corps ‘fort’, and the military cantonment. And yet, over a 100 armed Taliban riding on scores of vehicles entered the area after driving through dozens of security checkpoints, cordoned it off, set up pickets, put up booby traps and IEDs, snapped the electricity in the area (which given the crippling outages was probably not even necessary), blew up the entire outer security cordon, entered the jail through the front door which was thrown open by petrified jail guards, fired over 30 rockets inside the jail, freed all their men, butchered a few Shia prisoners, carried off four women prisoners and a woman guard as ‘war booty’ and after around four hours of mayhem simply disappeared back to where they had come, driving once again through dozens of checkpoints manned by FC and Pakistan Army without any let or hindrance. As if all this isn’t incredulous enough, there was prior and specific intelligence of the attack and the authorities had apparently even prepared and put in place a plan of action to thwart the attack.
Surely, if the Pakistan security forces are so helpless against a rag-tag bunch of terrorists who conduct an operation lasting at least 6-7 hours (including the time it would have taken them to drive back to their safe haven in the Tribal Areas) in an area swarming with security forces, then they really had no chance against the US special forces which conducted the Abbottabad operation against Osama bin Laden. Clearly then, there is something quite sinister about the entire DI Khan jail break. More than what meets the eye – lack of capability, competence, commitment and coordination on part of law enforcement and security forces, the possibility of collusion of jail staff and perhaps local administration, suggestions of complicity combined with cynicism and callousness on part of the provincial government headed by Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf and having as its coalition partner the Jamaat Islami which is arguably the political face of the Al Qaeda, and last but not the least, an element of cowardice – it is what doesn’t meet the eye that raises serious questions, not to mention conspiracy theories, about how the Taliban could pull off such an operation.
In a sense, an incident like the DI Khan jail-break was waiting to happen under the current PTI-led dispensation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Ever since this government has come to power, there is complete confusion among the security forces on the new policy on terrorism.** Imran Khan’s soft approach on the issue of Taliban terrorism has demoralised the police and sent out conflicting signals on whether or not the police is expected to act against the militants. In recent weeks there have been reports that militants roam freely (and have practically the run of the place) on the outskirts of Peshawar. The attitude of the ministers of the government is nothing short of scandalous. Far from unequivocally condemning terrorist outrages, the provincial information minister Shaukat Yusufzai dismissed the hue and cry over a suicide attack in which over 20 people died by saying that it was just another bombing and not the ‘day of judgement’ (Qayamat ka din). Observers have pointed out that members of the new government don’t even consider it necessary to offer pro forma condolences to the victims families, forget about condemning the terrorist attacks.**
Apart from shifting blame to either the federal government or previous provincial governments (and of course, Imran Khan’s favourite bug-bear – drone attacks – which he blames for all the ills of Pakistan, if not the world) and ducking responsibility, there is absolutely no plan or strategy on countering terrorism in the province. No surprise then that there has been a spike in terrorism ever since the new government has come to power, and the jail-break is only the most glaring manifestation of the malaise. The situation is hardly better in Islamabad, where again there is no clarity on how to tackle the Taliban terrorism. While the PMLN government has been issuing pro forma condemnation of any terrorist attack, it seems to have no policy on terrorism. The much anticipated All Parties Conference is taking forever. Even if it does eventually take place, it will be little more than a talking shop and will neither be successful in forging the elusive political consensus on tackling terrorism, nor will it be able to evolve a coherent counter-terror strategy. In any case, the focus of the Nawaz Sharif government is more on addressing the energy crisis rather than the existential crisis presented by Taliban terrorism. What is more, the Nawaz Sharif government also has a soft approach towards the terrorists and is more interested in suing for peace instead of prosecuting the war. The sort of frenetic activity and bombast that was on display after Baloch insurgents blew up the Quaid’s Residency in Ziarat, has just not been on display when it comes to the actions of the Taliban.
Not only is the political establishment’s ambivalence on the issue of terrorism rubbing off on the operational strategy of the security forces, it is also affecting their operational capacity, capability and most of all commitment. Preliminary reports from DI Khan reveal the sheer lack of preparedness of the jail authorities who were ill-equipped to handle a military style onslaught by militants. According to the IG Prisons, the jail officials were only equipped to handle prisoners inside the prison and not an attack from outside. Worse, the police and other security forces who were supposed to handle security outside the jail simply disintegrated in the face of the enemy. This could be the result of the security forces being overwhelmed by the firepower and well-coordinated nature of the assault. Perhaps, the security forces on the ground were neither trained nor equipped to face such an attack. But the element of cowardice cannot also be ruled out, especially because the forces deployed to prevent the attack were nowhere to be found when the attack actually took place.
The failures of the civilian administration notwithstanding, what remains unexplained is why the army, which is omnipresent and omnipotent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA because of the militancy in these areas, also was unable to respond to the situation. The southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border Pakistan’s ‘terror central’ – North and South Waziristan – and as such as regarded as extremely vulnerable. Movement between these districts and the Frontier Regions and Tribal Agencies is subject to the most strenuous checking at dozens of check posts set up for the purpose. If despite this, the Taliban could drive into DI Khan unhindered, carry out their operation unmolested, and drive back unchallenged, then it is quite natural for eyebrows to be raised and conspiracy theories (some of them quite plausible) to be born.
While Pakistani analysts and observers haven’t said so in as many words, there are hints that there was some sort of deliberate ‘negligence’, even inaction, on part of the Pakistan army in this particular incident. If indeed there is any substance in such insinuations, then the reasons for this could be a) the army wanted to make a point with the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the PMLN government in the Centre and impress upon them the implications of mollycoddling the Taliban; b) it was aimed at embarrassing the PTI and PMLN government’s and bringing them under pressure with the aim of forestalling any unacceptable policy being framed by them on the terrorism issue; c) the army wanted to prove its indispensability by exposing the sheer incompetence and incapacity of the civilian law enforcement agencies; d) a carte blanche of sorts was given to the Taliban as part of some bigger deal that is in the offing; e) The army and the Federal government acted in concert to bring the provincial government down a peg or two and showing up its incompetence in order to discredit it – Chief Minister Pervez Khattak’s claim that he wasn’t aware of the threat to the jail is at best disingenuous and at worst dishonest because if his claim is true then either he is incompetent and doesn’t know how to run an administration or else he was complicit and was deliberately keeping himself out of the loop in order to either avoid responsibility, or worse, evade taking any decision that the Taliban would not like.
Regardless of the real reason for the inaction, rather paralysis, of the state authorities in preventing the jail break, the fact is that the incident has dealt a body blow to the Pakistani state and has blown away whatever little confidence there was in the ability, capacity and commitment of the Pakistani state authorities in combating the Taliban. The traditional tactic of being too clever by half to score points over political rivals has already diminished the Pakistani state to a point where it is seem as a ‘failing if not failed state’ (to use the words of the former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha). Persisting with such disastrous tactics is an invitation to catastrophe.
*Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
*
Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) atPakistan in Paralysis: Jailbreaks and a State in disarray | Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
Re: DI Khan jail break
Where are all those people demanding peace with the terrorists now?
