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?
No strategy short of giving the Pashtuns their political and economic rights is going to succeed. Can anybody offer a logic for the division of Pashtuns into Tribal Areas, NWFP, and Baluchistan? Is there any justification in calling the Pashtun areas with different names like NWFP, FATA rather than their rightful name Pakhtunkhwa?
All these questions do not make any sense.
The Army has yet to bring the Taliban leaders in SWAT to justice.. or the Lal Masjid cleric….leave alone making more war fronts for money.
I think, they should do what they did Sawat. Have a full evacuation and then pound them from the air with all their fire power. More importanlty once they scale them back, the Army should stay and ensure, re-building of schools and general economic well being, otherwise these militants will sneak back in. Anothert thing PK should do is land mine the entire border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Army should act alone without any help from US.
If US keep bombing while Army doing action it will be very difficult to win hearts of general public.
Maybe these questions can be better answered by people who actually know about warefare (i.e the Pakistan Army men).
Asking partially informed civilians about military strategies is rather a futile exercise.
Hitler and Nazis regime, the enemies of humanity, could not be eliminated by the military power of one country. It took many countries to join together to wipe them out. Can you imagine what would be the world this day if the enemies of humanity were not wiped out.
It is for Pakistani leaders to think seriously about future of Pakistan and future generation and where possible, seek military help from international community to save Pakistan.
We know there will be innocent civilian casualties that may alarm Pakistanis, but the same thing happend in World War II. Millions of innocent civilians lost their lives to make this world a better world for future generation.
May Allah save Pakistan but not until Pakistanis do their duties at this hour of trial.
No rocket science here, a simple elimination and extermination strategy will do the job. Make an example of these so people think twice before engaging in these activites.!
US drone strikes are creating a lot of hindrance for Pakistan Army. Two different strategies of US and Pakistan cannot defeat the militants together.
US should leave the matter in the good hands of Pakistan Army; otherwise Pakistan Army will not be able to achieve the target in the specific period of time.
Unless Pakistan Army does not seek US support, it should stop drone attacks forthwith, so that Pakistan Army should launch a full-scale offensive against the Taliban’s and get the desired results.
If army is really serious about Mehsud, then best option is strong intelligence, and hit at heart of Taliban. During operation, army should seal the Afghan boarder and completly encircle the SW, so that militants should not escape in other part of country
I commend Pakistan for confronting militancy in its country. For the past few weeks I have been constantly reading about Pakistani army’s progress from one town to another. It now seems that Pakistani army’s victory is inevitable.
However, I don’t think this threat is going to go away so easily. Just capturing towns back from TTP will not drive them away. Right now, public opinion and time is against TTP, but if Pakistani government and army botch up the assimilation of the captured areas, who knows what will be the public mood a few years from now.
What Pakistani government is missing is an aggressive propaganda campaign.
I strongly urge that govt should launch a well organized campaign most probably in Pushto (using radio, tv, pamphlets and all other means) showing the real faces and acts of extremists to the people of this troubled region.
In launching this campaign, it needs to understand the Pushtoon cultures and values. IT would be useful to use Pushto language for this campaign and inviting popular figures within the Pushtoon community (but not confined to it)
If govt succeeds in it, I believe it would turn the tide and remove any kind of people’s backing to terrorists.
We are living in a world where our minds, faiths, ideologies are constantly affected by media and propaganda.
It is strange that extremists have FM Radio to “trap” people and recruit them for their nefarious motives, and govt which has all resources at its disposal is silent on this front.
STRONG PROPOGAND CAMPAIGN along with military operation.
The first and foremost act of Pak army should be to filter itself of Taliban sympathizers within their own ranks. Also, using religion to create fighting bodies…for Pak Army strategy has to change as this doctrine of Ayub has caused more harm to Pakistan than any other doctrine.
Pak Army needs to realize that real power needs to be with people. People in Pakistan need to wake up and realize that all of our problems do not stem from America, Zionists and western world. We are to blame for this as well as we let the tyranny rule either by talibans or khakis or our baboos.
The question is that Does Pakistan army wants it to be the final show down? We don’t understand why is person/group made (or allowed to) so strong that you need operation. Where was our proud intelligence when dozens of journalists were interviewing him on Camera? This is a dangerous game that no one will understand. The fact that ISI couldn’t find of fazlullah and Muslim khan in a tiny swat puts the military position so discouraging that people has lost hope.
stop working for western interest,talk to own people , they are very loyal pakistani,we never could win militarly when nato can,t win ,
look the history , all great powers ,got defeated on this land and they have to leave one day,
Mr. Obama is a good man , but he is just one person. he knows the history
baitullah is one of the most dangerous man that pakistan goverment goverment needed to aolish.
the question is which strategy we need to adopt?
he posses a fully trained people to fight with so the current policy which is conventonel one also is approperiate.first the army is using airstikes and artillary and following it will be a infentory attack .
a conventional coleteral damage is expected with a conventional attacking approach.
we can considr a spy attack to abolish the
major threat but that can be the most difficult one.
It would be a very difficult operation for army unlike Swat or Malakand. It is proved that there is no other way to bow them down without proper use of force.
So Pakistan army and governments should use following tactics
1> US aerial support
We should take help from US superior aerial power for intelligence and further attacks, which yesterday demonstrated by killing 45-50 militants in funeral. It is very disappointing to see media hike by some anchors and politicians for drone attacks in Wazirstan without knowing the real ground realities, which kills common enemy. Recently according to security officials these attacks are very affective and have created a sense of terror among Taliban clan.
2> Hit and run tactics
Pakistan Army should also use commando style attacks by hit and run on high value targets instead of using only aerial attacks before launching full scales assault. These tactics would be more dangerous phase for army but one of best strategy for weakening the command and control structure in Taliban leader-ship before large assault.
3> Full large scale assault
4> Political forces
This is the most important phase of post-war to replace the power-vacuum by Taliban with political forces or peace loving tribe-men
5> Development
Simply improving the quality of life by different developments. Creating schools, Hospitals, Road and jobs can do this. As one of the fundamental reason why FATA is know as epic-center for terrorism
Of course, the final showdown will succeed. Recently Sri Lanka – helped by Pakistan – crushed Tamil Tigers, So can Pakistani Army defeat Talibans. It will be more difficult to prevent Taliban from rising again. To succeed in that endeavour an ideological battle has to be waged. The teachings in madrassas has now to be modified to impart a gentler non-violent Islam as practised by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan in the 20th Century and to which his descendents still prescribe.
I applaud Pakistan Army to resolve this crisis in a professional manner that it has done. However, Waziristan Agencies will require a whole new strategy involving hideouts in Afghanistan as any new operation could push TTP militants into Paktika and Khost region.
Current strategy seems to be working bu Pak Army MUST remove funding pipelines to these militants in order to have an effective campaign. However, Mehsud militants have made crystal clear that any new challenge to their authority will not be successful and this would ultimately be the litmus test of intelligence agencies.
Public must also extend support in all forms to our troops and their families.
Minimize loss of military and civilian life. Hit them from the air with big bombs and terrorize them. Softer taliban will defect Mehsud. Once only the hardened criminals are left, move in the ground troops. All this while the area is sealed off so that they start running out of supplies.
If we can ensure the safety of our civilian population, the best time to eradicate the militants is now and by a full-scale offensive by our military backed by US strikes. Lately due to continuing losses in their ranks their morale is low. We must not give them a breathing room to plan new strategies. I am sure we are going to win.
Go in for the kill and target the top leadership. No truce, so talks. It’s time to clear the Pakistani soil of these terrorists and traitors.
The fight against Baitullah will be toughest our army has seen so far. Inorder to strike him; Army needs a very good intelligence which unfortunately they lack. Pakistanis need to get americans to provide that intelligence through drones and satellites.
We also needs to prepare our people for the long war. Baitullah lives or die it would not really make any big difference in the long term. We need to get rid of the problems(poverty,unemployment) and messed up ideoligies(extremism, intolerance) which make our people to go towards this path. When we solve these problems, we will win this war.
This war should be all out. Pakistan army is capable and brave enough to produce the desired results. Now its all about the honesty of purpose and clarity of goal.
I believe not only the leadership but all hardcore militants should be eliminated. As we have seen in the past that once any of their leaders is removed than any other hardcore militant from the second line of leadership has taken the power. Complete elimination of these terrorists & their supporters / financers is a must to control the ongoing insurgency in the country.
As a long term strategy, I also suggest that in parallel government should start an aggressive compaign through masajids madarssahs and media to correct the thoughts of a religious minority about the concept of jihad and misguided fatawas of kufr and other extremist religious ideas resulting terrorism in the society.
Just go at them with brute force.. or they will come after you.. make sure there is no sympathy for them in the towns and cities of pakistan..
And, after defeating them don claim they were supported by india.. That is just silly..
I believe a mixture of both will give us good result. A full scale operation will make the taliban run for life but as they try to escape the army already waiting for them will capture them. thus it is anticpated and indeed hoped that this will make them fall in the trap so well that they would find no way to go.
As far as the success is concerned I was watching the other on TV the program ek din Geo ke sath and in that program the able General was telling that the Taliban they do not come out to fight. We have all seen that their strength lies in the dirty tactics of human bomb etc. As the tribal belt is a very wide area and the taliban would supposedly be knowing every inch of it so a figh with in their own stronhold will not be very easy for the Pak Army. Having said that the Pakistan Army would also be oriented with the tribal area albeit to a lesser extent.
after the success of Pakistan Cricket Team this is another success that we would wait for EAGERLY.
Really these taliban has changed our way of thinking.