The Pakistan Army is closing in on South Waziristan, the stalking ground of Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
In recent days, the military has been using airstrikes, artillery and blockades to attack suspected hide-outs and training camps in the tribal agency in an effort to weaken Mehsud’s position before launching a full-scale attack. The authorities also turned a blind eye to tribal infighting, in the hope that Mehsud’s rival Qari Zainuddin would compromise Mehsud’s strength and position, thereby facilitating a military attack.
Meanwhile, suspected US missile strikes have been targeting militant commanders stationed in the tribal agency.
What do you think the best strategy for toppling the Taliban leadership in South Waziristan is? Should the army launch a full-scale offensive, backed by US strikes? Or should the military encircle Taliban hide-outs in an effort to capture Mehsud and other militant commanders? How can the army prevent Taliban leaders from escaping into Afghanistan or regrouping in an adjacent tribal area? Can this final showdown between the army and militants succeed?
The Taliban have support of the local population in the areas they control. This is why they are still in power. The army has to avoid civilian casualties or they will simply create more Taliban. The best way is to make the Taliban turn on each other. We have seen some of this with the killing of Qari Zainuddin. What we need to do is secure the boarder of Pakistan and Afghanistan with the help of the Americans. The fighting in Afghanistan will be done by the Americans and in Pakistan by us. We need to take all civilians out of the area and crush the Taliban. Then we need to rebuild what was destroyed. After that the army needs to stay in the area so these guys don’t come back. The Taliban also have tunnels they use to escape to Afghanistan and for drug smuggling. We need to destroy these tunnels. It is also very important to stop the Taliban supply chains and support. We need to take out their leadership. The Sri Lanka model is a good one. They took out the Tamil Tigers and we can take out the Taliban.
the captured talibs should be punished ruthlessly, to beat terror u need to create terror ,the motivating force of taliban is the concept of shahadat , counter that tell them they wont get hoors after the suicide bombings.
Relentless bombardment of taliban infested areas. Problem is the whole of Pakistan is already talbanised. There is so much ignorance and religion among the population.There is no scientific thought among anyone. Illitracy and ignorance is expanding. Pakistanis are known not to have any knowledge about anything .Gen Zia has forever messed the whole generation.
State should be delinked from religion.
Pakistan Military should encircle Baitullah hideout and let not escape to Afghanistan and eliminate him and people of that area should be told he’s been crushed.
Reason?
Most peoples are fighting with him shoulder to shoulder because of poverty and they pay them very handsome amount , three times more than Americans give to Afghan Soldier.
The rest of peoples along Baitullah are terrified and can not speak against him. Only real supporters of baitullah are hard core mercenaries coming from Afghanistan, and central Asian States and are and they have to do nothing with religion and Pakistan. They are their ownself harvesting the dividedns from this war.These should be eliminated along with Baitullah then the local population will be alongside government and rehabilitation and contruction of that area on new grounds will be posibble for the welfare for those peoples living there.Nogotiation is impossible and futile with these peoples because by themselves they are nothing and are fighting Al-Qaida Agenda to capture Pakistan or some of its area to proceed towards central Asia and Gulf region to destabilize because they think (Al-Qaida) that it will weaken American influence in this area of world. So we should get help of Americans as much as possible to defeat them in battlefield, it is the only solution.
Openly Let US to conduct drone attacks. Drones are precise and avoid collateral damage. How much are we going to suffer in the name of sovereignty.
Pak Army must rely on solid human intelligence to find out the exact whereabout of Baitullah Mehsud and then encircle him with two/three tiers of army deployment and make sure that he won’t escape. Eliminate him first. The rest of the operation will be straightforward.
Also, make sure that all the displaced people are treated like royals. I think our PM and President must invite some people of Swat to live in PM house and in Presidency.
I totally disagree that Pak Army should invite any external forces to help them eliminate or capture these militants. Pak arm forces are fully capable of handling this sort of situations. If we can hold India on its forts for years than these militants are nothing in comparision. But talking about the strategy I would say we trace them and eliminate them. There is no other way to go ahead with it but having said that our war with these militants dose not ends here, we have to make sure that our government put in place a proper minitoring system on the activities in these areas after the operation and start developing these areas for the people of these areas to make sure they have something to live for other than wounds of these operations.
YES this final showdown between the army and militants should and will succeed in SWA.
Agree with Saladin A. comments(June 25th, 4:02)
Who is trying to get the declared 20 WANTED DEAD or ALIVE Leaders of Taliban. Looks like Taliban Leaders were able to survive the army attacks in SWAT.
Who is protecting these Taliban Leaders?
Are these Taliban Leaders better than the army in developing and executing war stratergy?
How many of the 20 declared leaders have been killed or captured? Does anybody know?
Mehsud’s rival Qari Zainuddin was killed by Baitullah Mehsud’s follower.
No point in having a lukewarm approach to chemotherapy.
It takes a lot of effort and sacrifice of people from this region and the military to have entrenched militants on the run or cornered. Best to pull all stops and hunt them and hit them so that they don’t have a chance to regroup now or later. This may mean more risky maneuvers from the army, but better to take on more risk now than the risk of letting them run. Unfortunately these are types of criminals who cannot be given a second chance and shown any mercy – best to waste them in the battle field.
This is also a time when one should not debate about the good Taliban and the bad Taliban – just take out anyone who takes up arms against the state.
Shoot them on sight–they are dangerous animals and enemies of humanity. No Deal.
Only a good Teacher can answer all of the horrible questions that our country faces today.
Our country is a fail state and there may be one thousand one different reasons for it but where is the solution?
Just to make things simple I must share this that one of our neighbor country which is less than half the size of our country generates 1.8 trillion US dollars per year while we only generate 15.6 billion a year you can do the math. This shows how seriously we take the things in our country when it comes for the betterment of the people.
We invest only 1% of our revenues in foreign investment….and we can see the result.
We need economic revolution and that is the answer to the crisis that we see today in our country.
Get the people busy give them something to do.
I bet you that we have even forgotten the 99 names of Allah since we practice our religion with absolute ignorance.
Can one man make a difference? If so then we need to find that man may be it is you.
Think about it. You can make a difference. Be a good teacher who teaches tolerance, love, commitment, mercy, kindness, and who is ready to give just like God gives to his children’s.
I hope we as an individual can make a difference.
Army really has to do it quickly unless this would become a protracted war. There are times to be dovish about issues and time for being strong and hawkish, the time is right for being the latter.
and what plans does pakistan army have for groups like LeT and JeM? or is the fact that they are punjabi exempt them from being acted upon unlike TTP which is pashtun? this punjabi domination and arrogance will lead further away from unity amongst pakistanis!
Dear Khan:
This what exactly pakistan’s army wants. It wants people to think that it is holding India at borders. But look at the reality. Why do you think India wants to roll over Pakistan?. If it really wanted, nothing stopped India during 1971 war. This is all feedings of Dictators of Pakistan for their survival. Please come out of that and think what is the best for country. Although, on the surface, pakistan is doing good to rid of terrorism, I do not see the commitment and will. Time will tell.
@ Khan
I partially agree with you. But then, all wars in battle fields aren’t of the same type. Alexander’s Army had a tough time in different battle fields and at some places there was lesser exertion relatively — intrinsically due to different cultural people in different terrains.
Certainly, Pakistani Army isn’t incapable and that’s why they’ve demonstrated par excellence their skills in two major wars with India. But then, altogether, you can’t equate Pakistan vs India wars with Pakistan vs Extremists(Talibans). Both are of different types; however, Army is still not incapable. But I completely agree as you nailed it down saying the selection of right course and decisions in the annihilation of miscreants is imperative.
Btw, no one in Establishment gives a drat care about our opinion at this Forum. So let’s not take it serious calling comments a nonsense
Want to get Baitullah? Dont tell Americans what you are upto, and you will get him.
Pakistan Army is a professional organization that can strategize against any task its up against. Our opinions don’t matter nor we should pretend to know more. Plus the tools and gadgets they use are not made public for strategic reasons.
I am confident whatever they are doing they will come out successful.
Well done America !
That day is not far when these drones will kill all the sepents in the tribal artea. baitullah narrowly escaped, but he cant run too far. These drone will turn his body in to Keema, and will not find the place of burial. Talibans are not more than religious thugs who are cashing in the name of terror. Our ignorant people follow these ignorant mullahs for their religious needs with out knoing they are being manipulated and encouraged to spread hate in different sects. America is doing great job. He is taking away these serpents and trying to develop the FATA area. he is doing the job, what our governments failed to do. Just imagine if Fata was medernized with a mesh of roads, factoris, hospitals and education from primary to university, free of charge, and abundant employment opportunities, there would not be any terrorism in that area. Where are our Arabian brothers. They are not seen no where. Why we are so extreme in our belives.
KC said:
“Tribal fighters were used to gain control over Kashmir at the time of creation of Pakistan. Pakistan military rulers and government created Taliban for fighting a war with Soviet Union on behalf of USA. Then these tribes were abandoned of any improvement of their economy and living. Now Pakistan military and government is fighting along with the USA against its own citizens who helped the USA as well as Pakistan.”
So what you are are saying KC, let the Talibans bomb mosques killing Muslims standing in Salaat, bomb schools and Madarsas killing Muslim girls, behead Muslims and hang them on trees, bomb market places killing people and you KC say to them “Well Done Brothers, I am with you because you helped us in Kashmir”.
Pakistanis are not fools by now. They know now who are their friends and who are their enemies. And those who have sympathies with terrorists are definitely helpers of terrorists in achieving their dirty goals against humanity.
Military shall and will eliminate them. People of Pakistan who now suport our military will never pordon them if these militants are not taken off our back once and for all by our Army and PAF. I wish them luck and success.
Military is falling in the same trap as US, good & bad Taliban. They are trying to form alliance with Zainulla & Turkistan groups, a serious miskake.
Who are we to tell them?
I wonder how many times our media have questioned the strtegies of security forces, when they were calling these people their front line defence. Where are those generals.
I saw in the comments some of you have said use nuclear weapons on them and kill these so called “Ghayur Quaom”. They are not just Ghayur Quaom but also very intelligent people. We could have used their abilities for the betterment of this country and their land. But why should anyone do that after all “It’s the back yard of Pakistan”…
I think a lot of things are tied to this issue. This includes our own people, the govt itself and other Pakistani’s and Non Pakistanis. Let the Army do what it is trying to do. The biggest menace is that we should all agree that we are all corrupt from top to bottom. We have no Nationalism. For just few rupees we could do anything. This includes providing powers against Pakistan all what they need to hurt us. This should stop. See we did not wake up when a part of our country was burning. When things got out of hand and all of Pakistan started burning and started affecting US only than we stood up. Our leaders and all others should do something to stop milking the country and be honest to Allah, to Pakistan and to themselves. We will only survive as a great Nation only if we put our country ahead of us and not otherwise.
I was informed that many taliban have escaped in the guise of IDPs and some even wearing burkhas. We do not know the strategy of our Military to identify and eliminate them. People are kept in dark about who is killing whom. Where are the dead bodies of those killed. Are there still any civil and invalid people in Waziristan. No information is forthcoming in the name of strategy.
Kill Them All.
That is the only way forward for Pakistan, Islam, and humanity. Taliban stop at nothing; cutting throats to killing women, to sodomizing small children, to even murdering renowned religious scholars. Humans, they are not!
I recommend that if we can not Kill Them All conventionally, then we must use our nuclear weapons. Unless we stop them here, they will get to those weapons themselves and use them on us.
I pray to Allah that He give our army the ability and resolve to Kill Them All…