Wana Operation - Success or failure!

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

Despite all the tall claims of the government, I think the operation was a complete disaster for the Pakistani Army. Now the people have started accepting the lapses in intelligence during the operation. First Musharraf claimed that they had cornered a high value target, then they said that no one could escape i.e. they had had the ‘terrorists’ cornered, now they are saying that they have managed to escape. Just yesterday, our army was claiming that the intelligence chief of Al-qaida had been killed, now they are saying that he was a local operative. Our army says that they have rounded up many al-qaeda operatives, but after so many days of their arrests, their is no news about the nationality of the people nabbed. Although our government was claiming that they have got Al-qaida cornered, still they havent managed to arrest one arab from the area.

The operation was a complete failure on every front, except that they have finally managed to create a suspicion in the mind’s of the tribals for Pakistani army. For the first time the army has created a sense of hatred for themselves in that area. If still they dont think with their heads we will have another Bangladesh in the offing in no time. Its our mistake if we think that the tribals will remain with us under all conditions, if we cross the limits, they will be fully justified to give take all necessary actions to stop our exesses.

**Scepticism greets Pakistan ‘success’
**
The Pakistan government has declared its 12-day military offensive in South Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan a success and withdrawn several thousand troops from the troubled Azam Warsak area.

The troops, however, will remain in the regional capital, Wana, for further operations against al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects, and Pakistani tribesmen co-operating with them.

**On Monday, military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan claimed an intelligence chief by the name of “Abdullah” in Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network was among those killed in the operation.

However, there was widespread scepticism about the identity of this man because such a name has not figured much in the list of top al-Qaeda operatives.

Like this claim, other successes claimed by the government ministers and spokesmen in the South Waziristan operation have also been received with scepticism in view of the military’s failure to capture any of the so-called “high-value targets”.

Let-down
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Indeed, **President Pervez Musharraf’s reference to the likely presence of a “high-value target” in the area earlier fuelled speculation that Bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri might be hiding there.
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The international media that flocked to Pakistan to cover the event was disappointed when it became obvious that the al-Qaeda leaders were not in the area.
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There was not much to celebrate when the Pakistan Army regulars and the paramilitary Frontier Corps pulled out from the 50-sq-km (20-sq-mile) area that had been cordoned off for 12 days to nab the so-called “foreign terrorists” and Pakistani tribesmen accused of sheltering al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects.

Of the 150 or so people who lost their lives in the fighting, around 60 were soldiers.

The high casualty figure - despite the superior military resources and the aerial support enjoyed by the Pakistan Army - was unexpected and could have a demoralising effect on the soldiers’ morale in future.

By employing classic guerrilla tactics, the militants inflicted losses on the army and militia and broke the siege with help from the local tribes.
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In the end, the government had to ask tribal elders and religious scholars to intervene in securing the release of 12 paramilitary soldiers made hostage by the militants.
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The government is also claiming to have captured an unspecified number of “foreign terrorists” and killed another 18.

None of them have been shown to the press, thereby creating doubt about the figures.
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The 163 suspects who were arrested were mostly villagers and it appears that majority of them will have to be released in due course of time.
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Civilians killed

A bigger concern is the high number of civilian deaths in the military operation.

Thousands of people were displaced, properties were damaged and homes were looted.

Any goodwill that the tribal people had for the military was lost as a result of the suffering of the civilian population.
**
President Musharraf’s political opponents also opposed the military offensive in South Waziristan.

From the secular Pakistan People’s Party of Benazir Bhutto to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, and from the nationalists to the Islamist MMA, all political parties demanded an end to the military operation and some even threatened to stage a march to South Waziristan to record their protest.

Many politicians and the public at large believed the military offensive was launched at the behest of the US government.

President Musharraf and his Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali have fulfilled their commitment to be on the side of the US and its allies in the war on terrorism.

But it has became obvious that they were under tremendous pressure from the domestic opposition not to send troops to fight fellow Pakistani Muslims in South Waziristan and other tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

2

Well considering that it is all mere speculation and it was the Americans that said the Pakistanis had cornered a high valued target not the military. Plus there could be other issues involved. Not informing "the enemy" of what information they have and who they have. Not everything is meant for the public nor should it be.

3

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Apr-2004/1/EDITOR/op3.asp

**Assessing Kaloosha-II **
Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

The objectives of the 12 day long operation Kaloosha II could have been achieved at much less cost if the army had not been rushed into action. On March 15 the President addressed the grand jirga at Peshawar and before its members could reach South Waziristan, the operation had been launched. The tribal lashkar organised to arrest the wanted men was not informed of the action. That the operation was undertaken without necessary intelligence soon became clear. The FC force was surrounded at Kaloosha and the re-enforcements sent were ambushed leading to 14 troops killed and many more injured.
The NWFP Governor being the overall incharge of the political administration, it was for him to have ensured that enough intelligence was available prior to the launching of the operation. What happened in fact was that his representative at Wana did little beyond hectoring the tribal elders and imposing collective punishments. Similarly the ignorance of those at the Brigade Headquarters in Wana, who were supposed to have independent sources of intelligence, was astounding.

The troops launched into action were subsequently confronted with surprise after surprise. It was discovered for instance that 15 kilometres from the Wana Brigade Headquarters awaited 400-500 battle-hardened, motivated and well-armed foreign and local fighters that neither the political administration nor the military intelligence had any information about. “Yes we must confess they (i.e. the troops) were surprised …They had underestimated the strength of the miscreants there,” confessed Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan. The hunters thus became the hunted.
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There was a surprise ambush near Sarwakai, again showing poor intelligence combined with lack of planning.** (Why wasn’t the Political Agent told to get the tribal force to man the road, as was done subsequently?) The incident led to 11 troops killed and 12 wounded. Eight were kidnapped and later executed in cold blood.

Another surprise. **Hopes were roused of the capture within days of a “high value target” that many thought could be Aiman Al-Zwaheri, particularly after Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan confidently declared that the forces had surrounded an area of 20 square miles using an inner and an outer cordon of troops numbering “a couple of thousand”. He said the military was “quite certain that nobody could have escaped”. Two days later troops discovered a two kilometre long tunnel connecting the lodgings of two of the most wanted tribesmen that ended at a dry riverbed. **

This led Brig Mehmud Shah, head of the Fata security department, to admit it was possible some of the militants might have used it to escape the military crackdown. “I don’t know how effective was the cordon on the first night”, he observed. The much trumpeted high value target had eluded his clueless pursuers.

The target of the operation was to nab Al-Qaeda terrorists and those sheltering them. On the top of the this were the five most wanted Waziris: Haji Sharif, Noor Islam, Nek Muhammad, Maulvi Abbas and Maulvi Aziz. The five were closely connected with the Al-Qaeda, provided sanctuary to foreign militants and were supposedly involved in rocket attacks on the Brigade Headquarters in January which had led to the killing of four soldiers.

The Zallikhel had been under immense pressure since January to hand them over. On March 10 a tribal lashkar was formed to nab them. On March 11 it called on the wanted men to surrender. Pressure was stepped up for handing over the five and the jirga was told the tribe would be fined Rs. 50,000 per day and tribesmen in government service dismissed unless the wanted men were handed over. On March 14 the lashkar told the tribal jirga the five had gone into hiding. Two more days were given to the lashkar at the end of which the military operation started.

The army has failed to capture these most wanted men. After 12 days of fighting and a loss of 46 men and injuries to 26 a ceasefire was declared and talks initiated for the release of 12 FC men and two tehsildars carried away by the militants. Services of the jirga, earlier discarded, were again sought to negotiate with the other side. Initially three conditions were put forward by the army for lifting the siege of Kaloosha, Shin Warsak and Azam Warsak: release of the 12 militiamen and two tehsildars kidnapped by the militants, handing over of the foreigners and surrender of the five militants. The Al-Qaeda fighters agreed only to one demand and that too partially, by returning 11 militiamen-one had already given a slip to his captives-while the two tehsildars were found to have been killed. The other two demands were rejected out of hand. The army nevertheless withdrew from the area.

The operation which led to the largest ever army casualties in any operation in the tribal belt since the creation of Pakistan could secure no high value target. If Zawaheri was actually there he escaped the military dragnet. Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan had initially declared someone called Abdullah, whom he described as “the chief of the Al-Qaeda intelligence”, had been killed but when the claim was pooh-poohed by the American authorities, it was promptly withdrawn and the man re-defined as “a local spy”. Sixty-three militants are claimed to have been killed by the army. How many of them are non-combatants caught in the crossfire or killed by mistake remains to be determined.
There have already been reports of collateral damage involving innocent tribesmen which remind one of what the American army is doing on the other side of the Durand Line to the Afghans. On March 18, 13 year-old Din Muhammad died in Kala Panga village when a shell hit his house. A dozen others were injured. Two days later 13 people including six children and four women fleeing from the operation area were killed when subjected to fire from army helicopter gunships. There is no report of an inquiry being held or those responsible punished.

There is currently a division-level military force in South Waziristan, roughly equal to the total US led allied force in the whole of Afghanistan. Despite this it has taken more casualties in twelve days than its American counterpart in last twelve months and all because it has been pushed into action without proper intelligence gathering and preparation. There are many who believe if the tribal system was allowed to operate patiently, and timetable dictated by Washington was not adhered to, objectives of the operation could have been achieved without military involvement and the losses subsequently incurred.
E-mail queries and comments to: [email protected]

4

http://www.dawn.com/2004/04/01/op.htm#3

**Wana operation in perspective
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By Iffat Idris

So Kaloosha II is to be wound up. Forty-six Pakistan army soldiers killed (eight of them in cold blood) in the space of two weeks; 60 odd militants and 163 “miscreants” captured. Hardly a cause for a sense of achievement.

Apparently, the army has yet to achieve its objective. **After going in with threats spewing and guns blazing, it suffered some losses and, of course, an unexpected hostage situation led to a rapid change of strategy. Instead of force the army opted for negotiations. In return for agreeing to lift its cordon and pull out of the area, eleven army hostages were released.

This was not the only setback for the government. The operation failed to capture a “high value target” - something the president had rashly hinted at in an interview with CNN. The one Al Qaeda scalp our fighters claimed - “chief spy Mr Abdullah” - no one had ever heard of before.** To add insult to injury, the very much alive and kicking Ayman Al-Zawahiri sent a tape to Al-Jazeera in which he called on Pakistani citizens to overthrow their unIslamic rulers.
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At least two previous military operations also displayed a marked lack of strategic thinking: the Kashmir war in 1965 and Kargil in 1999.** Lack of strategic thinking means an inability to consider and factor in the wider, long-term implications of military action.
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Where was the long-term vision when Kargil was seized? Did our military planners really believe that the Indians would just let them hold on to the peaks they had seized? Did they really expect the international community to allow territorial control to be determined by the use of force? Kargil is, thankfully, part of our history.

The government sent thousands of soldiers and paramilitaries into South Waziristan to cleanse the area of foreign “terrorists” responsible for acts of militancy both in the wider world and in Pakistan which included the attempts on the life of President Musharraf. As an ally in the US-led war on terror, Pakistan cannot possibly allow such “miscreants” to operate from its territory.
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Then, there is the whole sordid reputation and history of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The question arises: should, in the twenty-first century, be there some parts of the country where the rule of law does not apply, the writ of the government does not extend, and the army cannot enter? Here, there is a community that does nothing but engage in crime: smuggling, kidnapping, theft and now harbour “terrorists”. This is how the government looks at the problem.

The United States will be having presidential elections in less than eight months. The two leading candidates are incumbent George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry. Bush is hoping to win on his record in the war on terror.

The only problem is the war on terror has achieved little and lost much: no Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri, no end to global terrorism, massive haemorrhaging of US credibility and standing across the world, and a disastrous (in every possible sense) war in Iraq.

Add to this a growing wave of embarrassing and damaging revelations about the internal workings of the Bush administration - and the fact that he is facing a decorated war hero.

If he has any hope of winning re-election, George Bush desperately needs Osama bin Laden. Where does everyone believe Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders are hiding? In our tribal areas. The military operation in Wana started on the eve of US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Pakistan.

So, many believe this operation is about wiping out “terrorists” and cleaning up the tribal areas and that the Musharraf government sent thousands of troops into Wana to try and capture Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri or any other Al- Qaeda leader they could get their hands on, to support George Bush’s re-election campaign.

Aside from a tendency to say “yes” to Washington’s “requests” almost before they are made, President Musharraf was under pressure because of the proliferation of nuclear technology by our leading nuclear scientists - of course, acting totally alone with no knowledge of the army or government.

To relieve short-term American pressure we sent our troops into Wana. Think strategically for a moment and the potential long-term consequences of this action - the long-term pressures we will come under - become apparent. The fact remains no Pakistani soldier ever set foot in the Fata before 9/11. The British ruled the subcontinent for two hundred years but gave up trying to control the tribal areas.
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There is a history here, of a fiercely independent people, all too willing to fight, totally unable to forgive or forget. You do not try to win your way with such a people using guns. You learn - as the British did many decades ago - that force leads to a bloody nose. What happens next in Wana depends on our military plans.

The recent fighting in the tribal areas included an attack on a distant military check post in Kurram Agency, and mortar attacks on the Frontier Constabulary HQ, the Judicial Complex and the Civil Secretariat in Peshawar - the seat of provincial government.

If that is an indication of things to come, we could soon be dealing not with a small-scale clash in the far-off tribal areas, but a conflict that encompasses the whole of the NWFP.

One cannot rule out the impact of military action on our troops, and on the wider Pakistani public. Much as the president would like to present this as a straightforward battle between good and evil, us and them, it is far from black and white.
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True, many of those firing back in Waziristan are lawless militants, and at least some are terrorists - but **many of them are also Pakistani, and they are all Muslim. Muslims who - whatever the means they choose - are fighting against US aggression and injustice.
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The majority of Pakistanis would wholeheartedly condemn their tactics, but equally a majority of Pakistanis would wholeheartedly share their anti-US sentiment.
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The cost-benefit analysis of military operations in the tribal areas therefore reads as follows. Short-term gain: Washington is happy with us, we have joined the club of major non-Nato allies.

Short-term loss: dozens of dead Pakistani soldiers, a couple of dozen dead civilians. Possible long-term gain: nothing - the US will slap on sanctions as soon as we outlive our utility.

As for bringing law and order to the tribal areas - this can never be imposed by force. Such change comes slowly through investment of time, money and effort; social and economic development; political interaction.

In conclusion, had the Wana operation indeed been motivated by what the government claims, one could at best have lauded the intention. But its Bush-pleasing objective deprives it of anything laudable.
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5

It has been an epic disaster and totally mismanaged from Day 1.

When the XI Corps Commander had known all along that the people holed up were hardened fighters, he should not have sent in the Frontier Corps who were poorly armed and had no flak jackets even. That let the thugs take hostages and doomed the operation.

When you attack a well defended position, you do it all out. You must bombard that area with saturation fire and then give the thugs an opportunity to surrender.

The Peshawar Corps Commander should be fired for mismanaging this operation.