The Pakistani Army is slowly marching to the heart of Taliban country in South Waziristan and has surrounded the home town of a dangerous Taliban commander.
The military claimed 78 Taliban fighters and seven soldiers have been killed during the first three days of the operation, while the Taliban claimed 68 soldiers have been killed.
Pakistani soldiers, backed by strike aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery are advancing on the Taliban strongholds of Makeen and Ladha in the north and Sararogha in the northeast. Troops from Ramzak are advancing on Makeen, soldiers from Wana and Shakai are moving on Ladha, and soldiers from Jandola are pushing toward Sararogha.
More than 28,000 Pakistani troops and 10,000 Taliban fighters backed by thousands of foreign fighters are thought to be facing off in the mountainous region that has long been under the control of the Taliban.
The military has advanced about 10 miles into Taliban territory, the Army’s top spokesman said, but did not indicate on which front. Ramzak is less than 10 miles north of Makeen.
The military claims to have taken several villages and has advanced to the outskirts of the town of Kotkai, the home of Qari Hussain Mehsud, the notorious trainer of child suicide bombers.
The Army has taken control of the high grounds around Kotkai, which is north of Jandola, after inserting troops on mountaintops and surrounding terrain. Pakistani troops have focused on Taliban anti-aircraft positions on the mountain peaks.
Heavy fighting was reported in Sherwangi, near Ladha, while the Taliban have been launching rockets at the Army bases in Ramzak and Shakai.
The Taliban are denying the military’s claims of success, and claim to have killed 68 soldiers during the fighting while suffering only one Taliban fighter killed. Tariq Azam, the spokesman for the Taliban, said the Taliban have been hitting Pakistani security forces hard with IEDs and ambushes.
Reports cannot be confirmed, as the military has barred all reporters from the region.
Army keeps powerful Taliban commanders on the sidelines
The Pakistani Army ensured it would be able to focus on the South Waziristan branch of Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan after it cut deals with two powerful Taliban commanders in North and South Waziristan.
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which is commanded by Hakeemullah Mehsud, has been behind the recent spate of attacks on security forces throughout the country.
The military has promised to reduce security patrols in the tribal areas run by North Waziristan’s Hafiz Gul Bahadar and South Waziristan’s Mullah Nazir in exchange for safe passage for security forces, The Associated Press reported.
Both Bahadar and Nazir sponsor al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Pakistani jihadi groups and host training camps for these Islamist terror groups. Powerful elements within Pakistan’s military establishment view Nazir, Bahadar, the Haqqani family, and other groups as “good” Taliban as they do not attack the state but focus their efforts on jihad in Afghanistan.
27 Comments
Can’t see much under the fog of war now. It will be interesting to see exactly what PakArmy elements are fighting. Do we have this confirmed that they are Pakistan Army regulars and not Frontier Corps?
Nice work as always Bill, LWJ is the only real source I look forward to reading especially when it comes to the fighting inside Pakistan.
As always, both claims sound absurd when reporting their own casualties. I’d imagine the Pakistanis would suffer greatly from countless IEDs and the Taliban’s knowledge of the terrain, while the Taliban would suffer greatly from Pakistani airstrikes and firepower. It isn’t hard to imagine 60-70 dead on either side after the past three days, but I suppose we’ll never know the exact figures.
Good going, keeping military casualties low is more important than finishing the op before winter. Army is better equipped for winter than the taliban. But winning Makeen intersection sooner the better.
Tanks are best against IEDs or Ambushes, i’m not sure why they are not used extensively. Tanks were not used in Swat operation too.
What happens when Pakistani Army some how decimates Hakeemullah faction and all other “good taliban ” come under the belt of ISI?
This still doesn’t compare favourably (force ratios, interdiction of logistics, intelligence preparation of the battlefield, encirclement of the enemy, and sheer bloody will at the highest political and military levels) with the Sri Lankan offensive against the LTTE.
Pakistan’s aims seem to be incremental gain to appease the west, without unduly stirring up resentment at home. I can’t decide if this is cunning long term self preservation or a short road to internal disintegration.
One has to read the PA reports very carefully. For example, if the PA says they’ve blocked Talib escape routes leading south, that means the Taliban have successfully blocked PA troops from advancing – because this is an offensive and such troops should be moving forward.
I don’t think the PA is being deployed to win this war. Rather than destroy the militant they want to make them run elsewhere. The PA has been careful to treat with the “good” Taliban to stay neutral, which means (in the Pashtun context) these areas will become safe havens for the “bad” Taliban as well.
And that’s the good scenario. In the worst case the PA will be deployed by stupid or treacherous commanders so that they can be easily killed or captured by the Taliban, as has happened in the past.
So far the only video I’ve seen (from al-Jazz) showed light infantry in pick-ups mounting MG-3’s.
They could have been FC or regulars, only their mothers and their officers would know for sure.
===
Actually tanks vs IED’s and ambushes isn’t all that good an idea…
http://render64.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/armored-football/
At least not without proper infantry support. Which is something the Pakistani Army has historically not done all that well.
UNCLEAR
ON THE
CONCEPTS,
R
I’m not going to knock Pakistan just yet. This strategy of sidelining “good” Taliban is the same as how the British would pick and choose which local rulers to fight as they conquered the subcontinent.
Now whether or not Pakistan can actually execute such strategies as well as the Brits did is another thing entirely…
Thanks for the linked Google Map. Place-names are tricky, not to mention terrain and roads.
‘Makeen’ (LWJ story) is spelt ‘Makin’ by Google.
‘Ramzak’ (LWJ) is “Razmak’ (Google).
I couldn’t locate Ladha, Saraogha, or Sherwangi.
The village of Kotkai isn’t named. Perhaps it is the cluster of compounds at (32.348, 70.128).
That has to be psychologically chilling for a Pak trooper to slowly wind through those mountain passes in convoy knowing that your world could explode any nanosecond.
Good news. The strategy here is even more optimistically significant than the tactics. The Paks are evidently serious this time, with pincer or hammer and anvil attacks to contain the enemy while they wipe them out.
In the past they just used a short-term ‘pusher’ strategy to drive them away, purposely leaving escape routes, so they reinfiltrated afterward; but casualties were kept low.
The current approach will extend the Pak writ more or less permanently and possibly be a life-changer for them and also a benefit for the Afghans.
AMac,
I am trying to solve that puzzle; Bob Barry and I are working in the background. I like the Google maps capabilities, but adding locations gives annoying bubbles, etc. And I’d like to add the towns in the same style, etc. to keep things uniform. Hopefully we’ll crack the code.
BTW Ladha is a few clicks west of Makeen, and Sararogha is at that crossroads a few clicks northwest of Jandola.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/20/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
Don:
Seems to me that they are indeed serious, but this is probably pakistan is testing both itself and the taliban. They’ve given themselves one faction to deal with a limited time frame and significant prep work. The Mesheds’ were the obvious first target, and if this works out, who knows, they might crack down on the other factions as well. But that remains to be seen.
Bill,
FYI here is a link to a map showing additional towns, and was found with a search on kotkai. One click zooming out shows wana et al. Also shows a town called Raghzai, which was mentioned in one of the press reports.
http://www.maplandia.com/pakistan/f-a-t-a/s-waziristan/kotkai-32-32-0-n-69-34-0-e/
JT
With such a long-publicized staging period, this offensive lacks any element of surprise. Perhaps Pak military tactics are more effective than anyone has reported; but given the lead-time, Taliban and AQ have had ample time to plan and activate retreat and counterattack tactics. Reports of “refugees” fleeing the battle zone are just too stupid to swallow. If you were a miscreant (the politically correct Pak term), would you not slide out of harm’s way to fight another day?
Solomon 2’s analysis seems more likely than Mr. Vandervelde’s.
If they are serious about defeating the Taliban, it would be a complete shift. I’ll believe it when it happens. But just making them relocate will require a lot of movement and communications on the part of the Taliban, thus making them easier to locate and target, so it’s better than nothing.
It is interesting to note that, during the opening hours of the South Waziristan offensive, there were (Pakistani) air strikes reported in Orakzai, Bajaur, and a third area I don’t recall.
The point is that there must have been some interesting intelligence and targets involved because all three areas are definitely not in S. Waziristan but were timed with the SW operation start.
Most of these coordinated are from the ‘Pakistan Settlement Locator’
http://www.mapaction.org/images/stories/Pakistan09/pakistansettlementlocator_v3.xls
Kotkai 32.53 N, 69.57 E
Chalweshti 32.47 N, 69.70 E
Ladha 32.58 N, 69.83 E
Old (British) Ladha Fort 32.565 N, 69.83 E
Sararogha (Sora Rogha) 32.52 N, 70.03 E
There is a broad river plain that runs from Chalweshti northwest to Kotaki than further northwest into the high mountains. It looks like one of the few places in south Waziristan that would be easy to traverse. That is if that is the right Kotkai.
This might give readers a much better idea of scope of Pakistani army operations. It is a map of the Mahsud clan tribal area. The Pakistani army is working its way from the south, east, and north of this area. It also seems to be trying to take up positions to the west in the high ground around Kotkai.
http://www.nps.edu/programs/ccs/Docs/Pakistan/Tribes/Mahsud.pdf
The Pakistan army has been successful so far, but I wonder if the Taliban fighters who have crossed the border will have an effect on the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Spokesmen for the U.S. military haven’t been very optimistic as quoted in this video: http://bit.ly/2uCWDj
Neo: Salute.
GOOD
WORK,
R
My (generally leftist) friends in Pakistan are split between those who think this is another show meant to obtain US money and allow “good taliban” to move to safer locations and those who think that this is the real thing, i.e. the army has finally dumped at least these jihadis and wants to destroy them. Both factions agree that there is just NO WAY the army can actually encircle and wipe them out. The best they can hope for is a symbolic victory that establishes that the army is no longer in the Jihadi corner…the bulk of the jihadi fighters will escape this particular offensive even if it IS serious. The army does not have the ability or the will to do more.
Yet another disaster of decolonialism.
Both Talib and Pstan estimates are about 1:15, but with PA estimates higher, because they have more pressure to report actual deaths of their own troops possibly?
In any event Talib reports have historically been more accurate, so giving the Talib reports a 75% weighing results in a 3:1 casualty rate in their favor.
The army is losing.
Recent reports would seem to indicate my educated estimation is on the right track.
PS. In the long run the West will be the loser as well as the ‘bad’ Taliban if Pstan wins.
The worst case scenario is that ISI once again reigns supreme among the ‘good’ Taliban.
As long as they are not fighting the Taliban the West can only hope for short-term advantages. This is not our fight they are fighting, their long-term strategy is the same as the ‘bad Taliban’ though less extreme, to destroy us.
Omar, i agree with you, the Pakistan army does not have the ABILITY to wipe out anything. The rest are details.
The Army has been a fundamental part of the problem. It can’t, simply CAN NOT suddenly become part of the solution
Description of the area referred to as “the Shakai-Kaniguram axis”. If you are wondering what the Pakistani papers are referring to.
I have already identified Kaniguram village at 32.52 N, 69.79 E.
Shakai is a valley not a village. The Shakai valley runs along the western edge of the Mashud tribal area from 32.50N, 69.59E on the north end, to 32.375N, 69.70 E on the south end of the valley, along which runs the upper end of the Khaisara river. The broad bottom of Shakai valley forms the Tiarza Plain, and also comprises the Tiarza sub-district of South Waziristan.
The floor of the Valley is inhabited by Waziris with the Mashud tribal region along the ridges to the north and east of the valley. The Waziris have refused to help the government but are not formally resisting at this point.
From what I can gather from reports the, western axis of the Pakistani army has massed in Shakai valley from which it can push toward Kaniguram along a broad front, covered by artillery. I believe the road from Wana to the Shakai valley had been secured prior to this months action. The road from Wana winds through the hills and branches north and south, entering the Shakai Valley at Landi Noor (32.48 N, 69.62 E) or at the Shakai valley bridge (32.425 N, 69.675 E)