(6)Name that army
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| At least one squad of the joint Taliban-al Qaeda Shadow Army operating in Swat. |
In a London Times article on foreign fighters' influence in Pakistan's tribal areas, the author notes that the Punjabi and Arab fighters in the region are quite organized and efficient:
The Arabs, regarded by locals as good, quiet tenants, paying up to 20,000 rupees (£160) in rent per month, now reportedly move around chaperoned by another key group of international terrorists: the Punjabi Taleban fighters belonging to Kashmiri militant groups such as LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harakat-ul-Mujahidin."The Punjabis are very experienced in IEDs," a tribal member said. "They and the other Kashmiri groups are like a regular army. [emphasis supplied]
That sounds very familiar. And the following quote from the same article makes you wonder if it is such a good idea for the Pakistani military to demonize India and Israel as being behind the Taliban during pamphlet drops.
"The Arabs stay with them [the Punjabis] in the homes we have left behind. They trust them more than the local Taliban."However, not everyone is happy with their presence. "It's because of them that the army has come to our land and destroyed our homes," one local tribesman said. "Because of them our businesses are wrecked. Because of them we live as internal refugees.
"I've met ordinary people who say that they'd even welcome Israel or India if they helped us get rid of these Arabs and their friends."
READER COMMENTS: "Name that army"
Posted by kp at March 20, 2010 8:42 PM ET:
A couple of other interesting points from the article:
OK, it's from a Pakistani general (so it could be PR) but we seem to have an Army hierarchy here (based on a distance from Mecca?).The Arabs seem to be the management/education/engineering "officer" upper class; the "middle-class" Punjabi's providing technical support and high-quality bodyguard forces and the "lower class" Uzbek's are the stiffener for the Taliban to fight the Pakistani Army and FC.
They have nowhere else to go having continued to loose ground since 2001 and appear to rub the locals up the wrong way (like squaddies/grunts the world over) which can do much for their popularity (hence the recent fights).And this is what we have seen of the recent drone attacks. For example the hit on the Yemeni that also got a Kuwaiti and a Punjabi AQ/LeT plus a few others (Punjabi body guard, I would guess).
This pattern of moving around with small groups with multiple vehicles (at least two for a bodyguard plus "valued targets") with large numbers of men would be an interesting signature to be seen from the air (day or night, in fact even easier at night in FLIR). How much other multi-person vehicle traffic is there in the FATA. I suspect AQ must be trying to do something to look more like civilians (a bus, perhaps?).
Posted by Scott Miller at March 20, 2010 10:52 PM ET:
Bill,
Is the photo accompanying this story a recent one or older? I seem to recall seeing this photo about a year a half ago.
Posted by Chris at March 21, 2010 6:24 AM ET:
@Scott
I have seen this foto in the article about the shadow army:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/al_qaedas_paramilita.php
Posted by My2cents at March 22, 2010 1:59 PM ET:
kp:
The hierarchy is based on the level of education. Most of the locals can not read.
The Uzbek's are used for combat because they have no cinflicting family/tribal/clan loyalties to get in the way. This also means that they can kill almost anyone without starting a major feud.
Posted by T Ruth at March 23, 2010 6:07 PM ET:
Isn't that the Paqistani Field Army? Dressed in their new modern urban warfare uniform?
Posted by Render at March 27, 2010 8:01 PM ET:
Gimmie the prize.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ESsGf_lpY]
I KNOW
HIS NAME,
R