The Battle for Pakistan

by Shuja Nawaz

  A key element in this was the change in leadership that brought Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan to become the IG of the FC. He helped transform the FC from a backwater to an active and very proud element of the Pakistan military, so that it began attracting good army officers rather than the discarded lot that had earlier been sent to serve in the perceived backwater of FATA. 8 The elder Bhutto had created a special Tribal Service that attracted top civilian talent.

  Gen. Tariq Khan, himself a Pakhtun from a military family of Tank, instilled a new activism among the FC, regularly visiting his troops in the field and exhorting them to take the fight to the enemy. 9 Sitting in on one of his command meetings, I heard him advising his commanders to ‘own the night’ by active patrolling and setting up ambushes so that the Taliban would be forced to operate in daytime when they were more vulnerable. ‘When you operate at night, you’ve won!’ he said. He also took advantage of American cash assistance from SOCOM that allowed him to bypass administrative systems and build outposts and reward soldiers. Occasionally, he lapsed into Americanisms, picked up during his assignment at CENTCOM headquarters, as a liaison officer. His final message at the end of one commander’s meeting was: ‘Kick some ass out there!’ Landing at an FOB in Jhansi fort by helicopter, he was mobbed by the soldiers and sought out an NCO who had been cited for bravery, embraced the man and immediately gave him a handgun as a reward. The fact that he had come under fire during one of his aggressive forays in northern FATA and participated in the fight added to his stature with his troops. Under him, his deputy over 2008–2010, Brig. Nadir Zeb, was promoted to Maj. Gen. in command of an armoured division in the regular Pakistan Army. This was the first high-level promotion from within the FC, and a sign that the Corps had been elevated in stature.

  A key difference that Tariq Khan explained between the army and the FC was that the FC was ‘not an army. We are scouts. Army is mission-based. We stay. We anticipate and take pre-emptive action. The army has fixed drills. We have tribal bonds.’ He took issue with the use of the term COIN for the fighting in FATA. ‘People [of FATA] are not with the bad guys. This is a militancy, sparked by economic things. We do not need outsiders to teach us. Their signatures are huge. We are light.’ But he acknowledged American help from Adm. Eric Olson of SOCOM, and trainers as well as American presence at medical camps run by FC troops. The Americans asked him why FC casualties from IEDs were the lowest in FATA. His response was that ‘we cannot rely on technology. We walk the road. Patrols go 4–5 kilometres, eyeballing the ground. Establish perimeters of security with confidence and then march perimeters’ before allowing traffic. Brig. Nadir Zeb added that, ‘People are with you, if you show courage.’

  But the cost of this new kind of warfare was high. In 2010, the FC budget was around $88 million, and the overall cost of continuous operations was $230 million, according to the IGFC, with the difference being made up by the army. The US offered $111 million spread over five years. Tariq Khan believed and told US NSA Gen. James Jones that the ‘Pashtuns will throw out Al Qaeda’. According to Khan, militants from South Waziristan had escaped into North Waziristan. ‘We need to go to NWA to sort them out. The chief [Kayani] may be ready.’ He believed that the Haqqanis were the wrong group to be aligned with. ‘They have never ruled Afghanistan. Durranis ruled. You will never find a Durrani [seeking refuge] in Pakistan. Haqqani comes here because he has no base. Why are we tolerating this?’ His voice was the lone one in the corridors of power as the ISI and other senior commanders continued to toe the line on support for or condoning of the Haqqanis’ presence in Pakistani territory.

  The new type of warfare provided an opportunity for a new generation of commanders to show their mettle and to knit the Pakistan Army into a fighting machine that not only understood why it was fighting but also knit the officer corps and the soldiers into a more cohesive unit rather than the postcolonial class-based Pakistan Army. At GHQ, an energetic DGMO Maj. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha took to crafting a new strategy for the unconventional war. In the field, in Swat, for example, division commanders like Maj. Gen. Nasser Khan Janjua (17 Division) and Maj. Gen. Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed (37 Division) quickly learned to adapt their conventional training to wrest the initiative from the militants, involve the locals to either deny space or push the terrorists out of the villages and small towns, and occupied and travelled along the heights so they could contain and then interdict the movement of the militants. Swat also saw the introduction of the air assault and the Special Services Group commandos for interdicting and clearing up pockets of insurgents, particularly when they holed up in the Peochar Valley.

  Although the overall strategy in Swat of emptying the battlespace of civilian presence created huge logistical issues involving some 2 million internally displaced persons, it gave the military room to adapt its conventional training and forces to roust the militants from the territory they had occupied. Initially, there was massive use of artillery that damaged a lot of property—the military did adapt its approach to fight IEDs and roving bands of militants with its own roving patrols and radio-based counter-propaganda. Both the division commanders in the initial battle for Swat took back their experience to GHQ and shared it widely inside the Pakistan Army, a change from earlier operational commanders who did not capture their experiences in writing. Janjua became the Vice CGS. Nadeem Ahmad became the DGMO and later CGS. The military had started on a learning curve.

  Change in Training

  By 2010, training of the army had become the top priority. Central facilities had been set up, notably in the Pabbi Hills south-west of Islamabad, and at corps and divisional headquarters, so designated troop formations were sent for battle inoculation under realistic conditions simulating the FATA experience. Battalions earmarked for FATA were re-equipped with NVGs, Motorola communication gear, bulletproof vests, etc., and put through a training regime of four months, at the end of which they were tested and declared certified.

  Officer training was critical in this endeavour. The PMA was the basic foundation stone of the change in army thinking and training for the new kind of warfare that demanded rapid movement and reaction. Added to the regular training syllabus in the third term at the PMA in Kakul, near Abbottabad, was a Quick Reaction Course that employed both electronic and real fire drills. A training circuit was set up by the PMA under its new commander, then Maj. Gen. Raheel Sharif. 10 It included seven fundamentals of room-clearing, a maze and live-fire exercises in the final term. Everywhere, one could see posted signs with the principles of COIN and LIC, and all cadets took part in the training, including ‘lady cadets’, many of them medical professionals. Gen. Sharif invited guest speakers to help cadets understand the softer side of LIC and COIN. How to negotiate and to operate in the field under a ‘buddy system’ were part of the new training regimen.

  The live ammunition firing range was supplemented by an indoor electronic range with moving targets, simulating militant activity. Gen. Sharif used his first-hand knowledge of and contacts with the German defence industry to get German equipment for this purpose. The lessons of LIC were summarized into a handbook for cadets to add to their hands-on training. Sharif took me proudly around PMA to show the new and improved training facilities and explain the changes in the syllabus. 11 Major changes included de-emphasizing India as the enemy and focusing on internal militancy. Even in the military exercises, the stereotypes of the past were removed and replaced. In war games, he explained, a mullah-type was the antagonist. A bearded profile would be placed on an easel sometimes to underscore that point. The IED Room in the Quick Response Course exercises included lectures by engineering bomb experts from the GHQ, who used cut-outs of different types of IEDs to familiarize cadets with the structure of IEDs.

  Thus equipped for the new warfare, many cadets from the PMA ended up heading straight to FATA upon getting their commission as officers in the Pakistan Army. Raheel Sharif said they had ‘done very well, because they are well prepared’. One newly commissioned officer won the Sitara
-e-Jurat, the second highest award for valour for the Pakistan Army, according to Raheel Sharif.

  Infantry School, Quetta

  The Pakistan Army’s leading weapons training establishment for young officers was set up in 1947, immediately after Independence, in Kakul as the Infantry School, relocating to Quetta a year later. It underwent change over time, absorbing the Tactical Wing of the Command and Staff College of Quetta in 1956, when it was renamed the School of Infantry and Tactics. Over time, it acquired additional responsibilities, including the training of army personnel for UN peacekeeping duties, a lucrative venture (under which Pakistan reportedly received roughly $1,000 per month for each ‘peacekeeper’) and a good way to reward officers and soldiers for their services by earning international pay scales and experience. Its stated aim is ‘to produce combat worthy Junior Leaders, equipped with requisite professional knowledge and competence to effectively respond to changing/fluid combat situations, through a directive (sic) control, by focusing on development of leadership traits and basic skills for conventional and unconventional operations’. 12

  As the internal war against militancy became protracted and costly in terms of expenditure and casualties, the school focused more and more on a different kind of training. It also expanded its intake to cover JCOs and NCOs. In addition to basic command and tactical training, and peacekeeping duties, it began to focus on specialized and unconventional conflicts, including nuclear and biological warfare, and countering IEDs. 13

  The seminar rooms were populated by young officers who had served in FATA as had their instructors. This allowed them to operate on a common intellectual base and to further hone their skills to fight unconventional battles inside Pakistan. The class instruction was supplemented by TEWTs in the rugged terrain surrounding Quetta, where they could simulate movement and attacks and defences against insurgents and militants. The training is based on modules and scenarios that have been developed with knowledge and help garnered from at least five countries around the world. Trainees undergo field demonstrations of LIC (the Pakistani appellation for COIN warfare) and CT, a course in firing against moving targets as well as hand-to-hand combat. Counter-IED training and warfare on a nuclear battlefield are also an integral part of the programme. Annually, some 3,000 officers and soldiers are processed by the school each year, including allied officers. Over 800 Sri Lankan officers have undergone training at the school.

  The instructors were increasingly officers who have themselves received specialized training and served in battle in FATA. When I visited the school, one of them told me that he had been to a COIN course in Australia and was employing some of the same training techniques in Quetta. These included the use of tutorial methods. An Australian team was invited to share its experience during a three-week stay at the school during the LIC package. The training also encompasses brigade-level exercises and scenarios dealing with the linkage between urban and general LIC, using a disguised Karachi landscape and Taliban bases in an urban environment, and the employment of civil armed forces, such as the Rangers, against urban militancy. They also run scenarios at the division level within the framework of a corps. The training is at a granular level, often employing the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and bringing in civil administration officials for role-playing.

  As Maj. Gen. Farooq explained to me, the aim is to train people to ‘react rather than be guided’ in their actions. Hand-to-hand combat skills were also honed. A big change was that training extended to all arms of the Pakistan Army and was not restricted to the Infantry. Young officers were encouraged to come up with ideas to battle external and internal enemies, and their suggestions (some of them wild and woolly!) were captured in a publication without much regimentation of thought. As in other leading training institutions, the army sent its smartest officers to lead this school and to occupy its training slots.

  Staff College

  Not far from the Infantry School in Quetta lies one of the most venerable institutions in Indian and Pakistani military history. It was set up in 1905. The Command and Staff College prepares some 365 junior officers for senior management roles in the army. Some thirty-five to forty allied officers are included in each course. It has produced famous alumni who have later commanded forces in Britain, India, Pakistan and allied forces, including the US. Competition to get into the Staff College is always intense. Once there, the officers are subjected to a rigorous routine. However, the dreaded Staff Solution does intrude, and savvy officers learn to negotiate its perils but hold their tongues and, only in rare cases, share their creative ideas with others! 14

  The Staff College has changed considerably from its past leisurely and genteel approach to learning, laced with a heavy dose of social activities, including fancy-dress parties. Only those who have passed the captain to major examination and been cleared by Military Intelligence can apply for entrance in the Staff College. Once applicants have made it through the hurdle of the entrance exam with its heavy reading, they are subjected to an eighteen-week pre-course preparatory regimen to help them achieve a common base of military knowledge for the forty-five-week course in Quetta. In earlier years, the reading concentrated heavily on World War II campaigns and even the US Civil War. Currently, the emphasis has shifted to more contemporary topics, including a compilation of articles on terrorism and CT. After the preparatory course, the students undergo a Technical Orientation Term run by instructors from the College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering to help them master the role of technology in military operations in the context of Pakistan. The actual forty-five-week course is divided into four terms and also includes a couple of breaks, including one that allows groups of students to travel overseas to learn how other countries train and operate their armies and to better understand strategic issues.

  During my visit, the then commandant Maj. Gen. Khalid Nawaz 15 spoke about the renewed emphasis on frontier warfare, LIC and COIN, and how the Staff College had brought in Australians and others to observe his training programme and to advise them. The LIC instructional package of some eighty-seven instructional hours is supplemented with a detailed course on dealing with IEDs and the experience with countering them. Jammers often do not work, pointing to the need for better frequency coverage. The Pakistan Army has also learned that militants had learned to avoid road-level scanners by planting IEDs in overhanging branches of trees in Swat. Militants also have resorted to booby-trapping the bodies of Pakistani soldiers killed in combat.

  Interestingly, the Frontier Warfare course and reading materials did not exist in the Staff College till 2006. It had dropped off the radar in the 1970s. The first LIC exercise was started in 2006 and an LIC course was added in 2009. In the scenario-based training, allied officers, especially those who had served in Afghanistan, were useful in playing the role of the ‘Chief Miscreant’ (to present his strategy) as well as Coalition force commanders across the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. British, Canadian and American officers served in such roles.

  The nature and intellectual make-up of the student body at the Staff College reflects the general shift in the demographics and thinking of the new officer class in the Pakistan Army. In some ways, the twenty-first century ushered in a more urban petit bourgeoisie into the armed forces, many officers being first-generation military and reflecting the general trend to ritualistic religion and conservative value systems of many in contemporary Pakistan. No more the raucous partying and alcohol-lubricated exchanges of the past. An interesting aspect of my own visit to the Staff College was the very first question by an instructor following my lecture on US–Pakistan relations. He cited an injunction from the Prophet Muhammad that warned against trusting Christians and Jews. He then questioned the idea of friendly relations with a ‘Christian’ power like the US. It was not the question per se (it is one that visitors to Pakistan often face) but the fact that it was not considered unusual by his seniors that took me by surprise. Such out-of-context references to Islamic texts (this particular quotati
on had been taken from a battle situation where the Prophet felt that the Jews and Christians had betrayed the Muslims with whom they had made a pact prior to a battle) tend to provide ammunition to those who wish Pakistan to remain distant from its traditional Western allies and strengthen the growth of an inward-looking officer corps that may move increasingly along the path of conservatism towards a more rigid and perhaps even radical view of the conflict between Pakistan and the West.

  This trend was underscored by a conversation with the DG Analysis of the ISI over a dinner he hosted for Fred Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, and me in Islamabad. When asked about the danger of the spread of radical religious thought in Pakistani society, he did not challenge the assumption of the question but replied, ‘It is a slow process and will take many years.’ This sanguine response reminded me of the image of a frog in boiling water. Interestingly, a number of senior army officers were candid enough to take note of these trends, though none offered any firm measures to deal with the potential shape-shifting of the Pakistan officer corps. A former army chief had pushed back against my assertion that the Islamists were gaining a foothold in the army by stating that promotion review boards were a good filter against such developments, only to come back to me a year or so later to acknowledge that indeed the Islamization trend seemed to have taken hold. How Pakistan copes with this trend will determine the nature of its fighting force as well as its relationship with partners in other countries.