Chief of Army Staff Gen Kayani has called for ‘precision strikes to avoid collateral damage even at the expense of taking risks’ in Swat. But will this strategy work?
Air raids, especially those conducted by coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan almost always cause widespread civilian casualties. Given the chequered history of precision strikes, can it be said that the Pakistan army will do any better? Also, the army chief has said that the overall success of the operations in Swat and adjoining regions depend on three areas: ‘conduct of military operations, minimizing collateral damage and correctly managing IDPs’.
So far the armed forces have claimed killing more than 750 militants, though the figure is yet to be independently verified. The Taliban claim that only 15 of its fighters have lost their lives. Meanwhile, thousands of refugees have been pouring out of the areas affected by the full-scale military operation. According to some estimates, the figure of the Internally Displaced Persons has already crossed a staggering one million.
Dawn.com invites readers to debate the Swat strategy and suggest what’s right or wrong with the ongoing action.
As sad and ignorant as it may sound but people have to realize that if they do not fight back on their own, the army will have to come it with a lot of colateral damage. Hence this might be a hard lesson to the locals to stop thing before they grow out of hand in the future. Our people have a habit of not reacting until things really affect them. So now this has really affected 1 Million people and I think next time they will be a wary of allowing a few people to take control of their community.
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Anywhee in the world, if a nation need to be run for the betterment of its mass, a democratically elected government is a must. Though now Pakistan have such a governemnt, the mistakes does by earlier military rulers dont give the full comfort or confidence nor in the government itself nor the population have the same. It is for sure that all the tribal leaders, who run their own rules at their respective areas need to be eliminated. Or they should be made powerless by way both by manpower and economically. As some news papers from Pakistan viewd, the main income to run the so-called tribal man’s army are the illegal timber smulging, emerald mining, and marble mining not to talk about the drugs via afganistan. Also, it is all the same necessary that all source of arms and amunations to the terrorists/taliban/JuD or for that matter any group that terrorist the countries population should be tracked and stopped. Now since US is playing shoulder to shoulder with pakistan in eliminating the terrorists from Pakistan’s soil, it should be emphasised that they just not eliminated from Pakistan soil but from teh earth. If not Pakistan, they will find their land somewhere in Afganistan or elsewhere. Hence the menace who are against the mankind need to be eliminated for ever from the earth. Now, when the entire world is with pakistan, pakistan has got an opportunity in eliminating the terrorists from their land. Gen. Kiyani is an army gentleman who think about the betterment of his country population and not like the earlier army chiefs who were always power mongers. With an elected government and supports from around teh globe, Pakistan should take this opportunity to eliminate all the terror groups and terroist from its teritory. Also it should make sure that there is no terror training camps in its soil, and it will not allow anybody to use the soil of PoK either. Only an elected govt. can protect their own people from the militants and insurgents.
It is impossible to say whether the ongoing military operation is on the right track or not unless journalist including the foreign media reporters are allowed to be in the battle fronts.
i think that the government should all chalk down the plan for the rehabiliation of the refuges and the civil people vacating the swat valley.
the plan should be made public and ensured that all those who have been distrubed becacuse of this will be taken care off y the concerned agencies.
Well done Pakistan Army. Inspite of all the political and military odds, you are doing a fine job. As a professional Army, you are focused and taking a toll on the enemies of Pakistan, Pashtuns, humanity and Islam.
Well done and keep up the good work and Pakistani Flag.
An advice to the Civil administration:
Please donot loose the gains achieved by the army with blood for your monetary incentives.
The validity of the operation itself is questionable. Did not the Members of the Parliament and the President gave consent to the Peace Deal. Was every attempt at dialogue exhausted? In my opinion the operation was started after a hue and cry of the foreigners and not the people of the country.
Thanks
It is hard if army takes an action and it is hard if it does not take an action.
The worst part of any war is the displacement of refugees. My heart goes for the children, men and women who are suffering due to the conflict.As a nation Pakistan has to support their army at this time and everyone should scarify to take care of those citizen who are affected by the conflict. I have not seen any gross root effort gathering momentum to help the refugee. The only way the latest offensive will work if refugee are well taken care off and could return to thier houses as soon as the conflit is over. Pak army and Pak govt, along United Nations must rebuild the SWAT and rest of the areas and must eliminate the root of the prolbem. Army has to use this offensive as wild card to eliminate the terrorism. If they did not eradict the root of terror it will become a grow out of control soon.
I think Pakistan army is working on right track. In my opinion, these are not Taliban. I believed Pakistan is facing proxy war. There is need to unite the people of Pakistan against enemy.
General Kayani has hit the nail right on its head when he has said that managing (and gaining the support) IDP’s would be critical to the outcome of this operation.
An army of 700,000 soliders (paramilitary included) that is backed by an air force, modern weaponary and international aid is surely capable to quelling an insurgeny raised by approximately 10,000 armed militants who do not even have a controlled command structure. Granted that this may make matters more complicated, but it also makes the militants disunited and hence that much weaker.
I have never had any doubts about the capability of the armed forces to quell this insurgency. Rationality simply doesn’t let one digest that. The question is one of willingness. This operation must be sustained and not just limited to Swat, Dir and Buner. Solving the problem would require going after these militants in their own backyard (Waziristan, Khyber and Orakzai).
Also, I am extremely impressed by General Kayani’s relative silence and disposition throughout this offensive. He only seems to speak when it matters most and that too quietly.
Lastly, it is great to have seen the PM come on national television, address the citizens and take them into confidence before the army operation. This, along with Taliban’s barbarism, has enabled the military to gain the national support which is often key to quelling such insurgencies.
Even the IDP’s themselves are in favour of this operation. The leadership should now express solidarity with the IDP’s by visiting the camps and (if possible) staying there for a day/night. This would enable the government to obtain even greater public support.
Using a sledgehammer to kill flies in a room full of fragile contents is sheer stupidity and will cause more damage than benefits. A much more intelligent, proportional and well thought out strategy to deal with militancy needs to be prepared and executed by the government. Foreign pressure and interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs combined with abject failure of leadership and lack of proper governance has led to the hasty execution of what can only be called self-cannibalisation; a military attacking its own citizens, towns and villages. Pakistanis need to take off the propaganda induced blinders of biased and superficial thinking before they tragically discover that the “cure” has turned out to be worse than the “disease”. Time is running out.
700+ taliban killed in battle is what ISPR claims, no other independent news agency has confirmed it. The modus operandi of the Army is same as in previous operation: excessive bombing. Nothing has changed, than how can we expect to have a changed results.
It would have been better to arm the local people with the same kind of weapons that the Taliban have. I am told that the army operations are worse than what the locals face under Taliban rule. The data also suggest that so far locals in Pukhtunkhwa have only migrated to safer areas when army came to their region. The army is not fighting the kind of fight needed to get rid of the Taliban. It is just dislodging local populations. Whatever the intentions behind the army current strategy, it is not working and costing more in terms of human life, and other resources.
COAS has called for ‘precision strikes’ in order to root out the militants with the collateral damage to minimal and correctly managing IDPs’.
So far the death toll on either side is not verified, but it’s horribly mounting.
Since the Taliban have been encouraged/forced out of Afghanistan, out of FATA and now pushed into SWAT and vicinity, there arises a serious need to stop such a bloody march.
These political terrorists’ should have been completely stopped a long time ago.
This is very sad but true that Pakistan needed an Army Operation such as this, because otherwise the writ of the STATE would have been damaged beyond repair.
The question of civilian casualties would have been easily remediable, if the local population cooperated with the government much earlier.
For our survival, the present counterinsurgency has been made ‘our war now’, and that’s a reality.
The stubborn militants are fighting the occupiers, fighting our own army and fighting the liberal Muslims, and that’s a ground reality.
Parliamentarians are raising their eyebrows on this operation, because they have not been taken into confidence. They are angry as if the government is getting pressure to conduct such an operation from somewhere else.
In my opinion, the parliament must have been convened for reaching a unanimous decisions by the people’s representatives, before the operation.
Since the operation has started now; let’s pray for the happy ending.
Let’s trust ALLAH the almighty and let’s pray for our beloved General Kayani to go through without too much difficulty.
The operation was necssary to avoid Pakistan degenerating into various religious factions.
The operation is proceeding well because it aims at encircling the militants and destroying them totally, and not hit and withdraw like Nato forces.Next phase should provide permanent security through establish cantonments.Only then will the civilian population return.
Armed forces should succeed against guerillas as they did in Algeria when Bomedian crushed BEN BILLAS MILITANTS WHO HAD FOUGHT AGAINST THE FRENCH ARMY.
wHEN THE bRITISH CAME TO iNDIA ALL TRIBES WERE LIKE THE MILITANTS BUT EVENTUALLY THE BRITISH DID PREVAIL.
In my opinion, the operation is going well and at this moment this is the ONLY way to get Pakistan out of this problem(talibanization). I think we need to encourage people more and HELP the victims of this operation,help them as much as possible.
The operation was inevitable considering growing insurgency in the region. Our Army is a well trained army so U.S strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan should not be bench marked.
The operation didn’t start early, infact it started late thus provided escape routes to taliban.The rehabilitation of displaced people is a reall challange and things could have planned in more amicable and organized way but this does no belittle the importance and need of operation in Swat Area.
I am not sure army is on the right track. Why did it have wait until pressure was brought on by foriegn powers?
Why did the army have to rush the assualt on the taliban with out making arrangement for safe evacuation of the innocent civilians.
the operation must proceed on a 3-track process. firstly, the Taliban terrorists have to be attacked with the full and unambiguous force of the military power that Pakistan rightfully boasts so much about. Secondly, all the tools of govt should be mobilized to take care of the internal refugees – they deserve a much better deal than they are getting right now. And thirdly, the political process must continue with the eventual objective of establishing civilian institutions like police, judiciary, schools, healthcare. May be its not a bad idea to construct this whole system from the bottom-up. And with the disastrous past, may be the leadership (political, military, tribal, etc) will have the humility & sincerity to do it right also. And may be Swat could be built as a model for the rest of Pakistan – and finally be integrated with it also.
I don’t see this operation is going to succeed in near future. Although some surveys illustrate unity among Pakistanis on this critical issue but it seems that yet many people do not have the exact knowledge of complex situation.
This is war of ideas and we can not succeed only with force even though the force is necessary at this point. All the political forces and intellectuals must take part in this struggle to eliminate fundamentalism from society. Our people are really so ignorant look at the footage of IDPs most of the people are illiterate and underprivileged. Fundamentalists are using them. They are real cruel people rather curing the issues they have created another hell for them.
Now let me get one thing straigth.
Needless to say that the army is gaining on the Taliban and the operation is successful and all is good. It is the job of the army to keep everything under control. Pakistan has one of the worlds largest armies and by far Pakistan is not one of the largest countries. This large army has the job to secure not a very large area; obviously the people expect the army to secure the area. I am very happy that the operation is doing well and the army is doing its job.
As we have heard and learned from the history the operation should be last resort and limited to the areas needed the most. The doors for the dialogue should be opened at all times. As suggested by some MNAS the goverment should form a representative group representing all walks of life to continue the dialogue in parallel. Afterall the people being displaced are all Pakistani. We need to understand and address the issue by knowing the root cause rather than jumping to the surgery (operation).Some times when i sit back and analyse the developmets i am bound to think that in signing the Adl Regulation no one in government defended the Adl Regulation as genuine and according to the constitution. I can only pray that the wisdom prevail at the end and government does not hurt the Pakistanis as the miscreants were killing innocent people.
Only two comments
1- Eliminate Taliban from this earth. The world should be behind Pakistan army. As Taliban is not only threat to Islam and Muslim world but to all man kind and should be destroyed forever.
2- The Swat operation is very necessary and displace families should be very well looked after by the World community as they are paying the price to help the world.
The government of NWFP took the right decision by calling in Army to wipe out the militants. Having said that one should bear in mind that these militants are doing nothing but promoting foriegn agendas in the region i.e. to weaken the state of Pakistan and encircle regional powers. About the refugees, at least their lives are not at the hands of the mercenaries known by the name of Pakistani Taliban. The whole nation should take these refugees up in arms and help them as much as possible.
The army should have taken such decisive action a long time ago. The price of army’s vacilation is now being borne by the people of Swat who are either in camps or trying to keep safe in their homes. Now is the time to cleanse Pakistan, particularly the NWFP and FATA from these extremists. Now is not the time of appeasement or “brotherly” mercy. Evil needs to be dealt a decisive blow!
This is a no brainer. Just eliminate the lot.Close the Madarsahs and get some
intelligent souls to explain the real Islam.
This should have happened right after Zia’s
death! Lets go forward folks not backwards!