Quetta Attack Plan
By A Khokar • Dec 18th, 2009 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 4 CommentsWhen President Obama explained his decision to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan to support General Stanley McChrystal’s new counterinsurgency campaign, he left a key question unanswered: Will this be enough to achieve U.S. strategic ends in Af-Pak?
U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine calls for a security force ratio of 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1,000 residents for success. Afghanistan’s population of 28.4 million means the combined ISAF and Afghan security forces would need to number between 568,000 and 710,000.
The Afghans now have approximately 170,000 national police and army forces and the United States and ISAF have 107,000 troops. Adding 40,000 U.S. and alliance troops will bring the total to 317,000—nowhere near the Army’s own doctrinal guidelines.
Therefore, the success of the campaign will be highly contingent on an Afghan security force that is far larger than its current size—McChrystal wants 400,000—and much more capable and reliable. Given the state of the Afghan government, the near-term likelihood of a markedly greater contribution from these forces is remote at best.
President Obama’s decision on a timetable for withdrawal of American troops by July 2011 makes the entire plan flawed—- or can be said phoney and ambiguous. While the clock is ticking in Afghanistan the top American commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, may find that there are many issues to focus on: building more competent Afghan Army and police forces, adopting more effective anticorruption measures and reintegrating “moderate” Taliban and other insurgent fighters into Afghan society and politics programme—– by next year, only makes it unachievable.
But perhaps the most difficult issue is largely outside of General McChrystal’s control —-undermining the Taliban’s sanctuary in Pakistan, says the think tank—Rand Corporation. It suggests that thus far, there has been no substantive action taken against the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan Province, south of the Pashtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan. It is felt that this is the same mistake the Soviets made in the 1980s, when they failed to act against the seven major mujahedeen groups headquartered in Pakistan.
There is strong belief that where as Pak Army is vigorously engaging its own Taliban groups in Waziristan, but Baluchistan sanctuary remains critical because the Afghan war is organized and run out of Baluchistan. Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group’s senior leaders and military commanders are based there. The local ISAF command in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, across the border from Baluchistan believes that Taliban sanctuary in Baluchistan is catastrophic for US as the local Taliban fighters get strategic and operational guidance from across the border, as well as supplies and technical components for their improvised explosive devices.”
This is also believed that ‘like a typical business, the Taliban in Pakistan have an organizational structure divided into functional committees. It has a media committee; a military committee; a finance committee responsible for acquiring and managing funds; and so forth. The Taliban’s inner shura, or governing council, exerts authority over lower-level Taliban fighters. It is composed of the supreme Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, his principal deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, his military commander, Abdullah Zakir, and roughly a dozen other key leaders. Many Taliban leaders have moved their families to Baluchistan, and reportedly their children attend Pakistani schools’.
Yet ‘Pakistan and the United States have failed to target them systematically says the US secretary of State; Hilary Clinton. Pakistani Army and Frontier Corps forces have conducted operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas to the north, and the United States has conducted many drone strikes there. But relatively little has been done in Baluchistan.’
This seems to be a point of contention that how the United States or Pakistan must act now to target Taliban leaders in Baluchistan. The cost of failing to act in Baluchistan is seen an enormous.
On the other hand the internal security of Pakistan is also at stake that ‘large swathes of Pakistan remain outside government control, run by the Taliban and tribal leaders looking for establishing an ‘Islamic Emirate’ of their own in areas extending from Swatt-malakand in the north, to Waziristan and to south in Baluchistan. This year’s military campaign to roll back Taliban territorial gains saw a number of successes, but insurgents have shown they can launch major attacks in key urban, industrial and commercial centres with relative impunity. The ability of militants to launch attacks as several assaults on key military facilities in particular have shown the continued ability of Taliban militants to attack even protected targets. There is no sign of a sustained improvement in security despite offensives against the Taliban.’
It is said that this is likely to make the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal a major issue. Pakistan’s poor record of preventing attacks even on secure military targets has raised concerns that militants could penetrate a nuclear facility. Analysts say that while there is minimal risk that insurgents could get their hands on a nuclear missile, a potential danger is that they could steal some fissile material which could be used to build a “dirty bomb”.
A pretext is in building fast to push wage a war—— inside Pakistan that owing to the Pak Military extra ordinary engagement in Waziristan in the north where they may remain busy for a considerable long time in order to accomplish their unfinished tasks. Pak military forces may not be able to help US capture the Taliban leadership reportedly located near Quetta in Baluchistan with in the time frame set by Obama. For which aerial raids by US marines must be conducted or Taliban leadership must be hit by drone strikes, as the United States and Pakistan have done so effectively in the tribal areas.
Link Reference: Adab-arz.co.uk.
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These twisters & manipulators Richard Holbrook, David Praetors, Ms. Hillary Clinton, Ms. W. Ann Peterson & Mike Mellon etc not ready to realize that the internet is the most important mean to spread the information. Let’s fight against those who want-to control it. People of all walks of life are waking up. The Left/Right system we have in place is just a pretend drama to keep us divided & infighting & therefore weak.
Therefore, the rest of us need to be ready to receive the declared American Slaves when they realize Obama is owned by the Bush owners. I don’t see how they can be allowed to meet like they do, they have Law Enforcement Agencies, Police & Secret Service to ensure no one can get in to these meetings. I don’t know what to make of it. Isn’t it is very strange? We Pakistanis are going to cut Ms. W. Ann Peterson & Hillary Clinton with full of applied force it up their bleeding & rotten c*nts & in different large sizes of American P*nis which are joyful for Jiyala Party & rest of American Presence Lovers in this region!
*Assassa = Assets
Americee Rpt. Haqani Group Ko Pakistan *Assassa Hay Samjhta-
Lakin Maqami Taliban Ko Pakistan Apnay Liyaiy Khatra Hay Janta-
The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them; says Harold Pinter, a drama play writer and Nobel Prize winner
Note
The last paragraph ends with:
“For which aerial raids by US marines must be conducted or Taliban leadership must be hit by drone strikes, as the United States and Pakistan have done so effectively in the tribal areas.”
It was done with the view that ironically all the drone attacks presently being carried out in Tribal area are done with the connivance of Pakistan and it is high time that same is admitted openly. Whereas other than Kandhar most of the drones they fly from Jalalabad air field in Afghanistan but Pak air fields like Bandari located some 80 kilometer south of Kharan ( 27.51 N 65.14E- Google earth) is practically being manned and operated by American from where these drone are flown.
Since this is being done with the approval of Pakistan and same will be repeated when Quetta attacks are under taken by US———–so it is right to say that ‘United States and Pakistan have done so effectively in the tribal areas’.
William Pfaff writes in his article: Don’t Launch a Missile on a Major Pakistani City
And he writes.
Pakistan, as most sensible people know, is in the grip of forces that could tear the country apart if that happened – making it the third nation, after Iraq and Afghanistan, to be devastated by the United States, since that fateful day in September 2001 when the so-called war on terror began.
This rumination is motivated by the scarcely believable news that the people who are running the war in Afghanistan are contemplating an air attack on a Pakistan city in order to kill one of the most important figures in Pakistan’s own foreign and security policy.
The idea is for the United States to bomb Quetta, one of Pakistan’s principal cities, capital of its largest province, Baluchistan, which already experiences separatist forces. Quetta is a major Pakistan military base, home of the century-old Command and Staff College inherited from the British army.
The reported American threat is not one of sending drone bombers over this city of a three-quarters of a million people, but of missiles as well, meant to kill the Mullah Omar, leading figure in at least one branch of the Taliban, senior al Qaeda figures also supposedly in Quetta, and Siraj Haqqani, called the most important Taliban leader in the country, whose men are supposed to pose the biggest threat to NATO forces in Afghanistan.
He is also, as it happens, a major and longstanding Pakistani strategic asset and ally. He will be a vital factor in the regional reconciliation and strategic settlement that will follow America’s and NATO’s defeat. That is the most important objection to the supposed plan.
The Pakistanis believe that the NATO expedition in Afghanistan is an ill-conceived and futile affair from which, after killing and being killed in large numbers, and accomplishing nothing useful, the Europeans and Americans will depart, just like the U.S retreated from Lebanon in 1983 under Ronald Reagan, after the attack on the troops’ barracks in Beirut, and Bill Clinton pulled a 23 thousand-man force out of Somalia after losing the battle of Mogadishu in 1993.
After the foreigners leave, Pakistan will find itself once again in the awkward geopolitical and militarily dangerous situation in which nature and the vagaries of man have placed it. Its avowed great enemy is India, with which Pakistan shares a very long eastern border, with Iran to its Wast, and Afghanistan on its long northwestern frontier. A friendly Aghanistan therefore offers strategic depth in case of Indian attack, and access to Central Asia, while Iran is a corridor to the Middle East. This is the sort of thing they teach at the Quetta Command and General Staff College.
The American generals seem to be saying to Pakistan: You henceforth will ignore your own national security interests and devote yourself to our interests, whatever the cost to you. You will hand over all of the Taliban leaders and men in your country, and place your army under our strategic control. Otherwise we will bomb your cities.