Inside APS : The untold story of SSG Operation at APS

[Counterpunch]

(Based on background interviews with the commandos who conducted the APS operation and security officials)

It’s a bright, sunny, winter morning. The mist has cleared and everything is alive with the warmth of the sun after a long, freezing night. But a chill still lingers in the air. Something is amiss. The air is heavy with an eerie sense of foreboding.

At the Ghazi Base, the headquarters of the Pakistan Army’s elite Special Services Group, commandos are competing for the title of best marksman. A message is radioed for Zarrar Company, which specialises in anti-terrorist and heliborne operations. There is a situation in Peshawar. And they have to fly. At once. No time for procedures. No mission brief, no recon, nothing. Just pack up and fly.

Normally, the SSG needs at least one-and-a-half hour to prepare for a mission. But today, they are battle-ready within 20 minutes and board the helicopters. They are going for a mission that will turn out to be arguably the toughest of their lives. Never before in the history of the SSG has an assault team readied for a mission at such short notice.

The commandos still don’t know what awaits them in Peshawar as five Mi17 helicopters carrying them lift off. En route they are informed about the mission: terrorists have attacked the Army Public School. Nearly a thousand students are registered in the military-run institute and a massacre is feared. Nearly 40 minutes later, the Mi17s land at Peshawar’s Army Stadium and the commandos are driven straight to the scene of action.

Read rest of the story here Inside APS - For Peshawar

 

[F86 Saber]

Attack started at 10:30 AM, assuming the information must have reached Turbela around 11 AM, SSG took 30 minutes to prepare and 40 minutes in travel which means they must have arrived around 12:20 PM in Peshawar and another 20-25 later to APS which means around 12:45 PM. This gave the terrorists around 2 hours 15 minutes to search and kill children with virtually no opposition so it is a miracle they managed to kill only 147. What was the QRF doing? Surely it didn't take more than 2 hours for them to figure out the intentions of the attackers? Had they entered and engaged the attackers at 10:36 AM, which is mentioned as the time they reached APS, they might have saved more lives.

I am not trying to create a controversy or trying to blame anyone and i would be the last person to do it, but we should not rely on SSG to conduct every operation in every corner of the country, in such situations, a difference of mere minutes can be the difference between an incident and a catastrophe.

 

[rockstar08]

That makes me cry yaar ...
It hard to feel the pain of those who lost their son's but we can ease their pain by Sending every Single B@stard Taliban and its supporter to hell ...

Salute to those Zarrar Company guys who have conducted the Operation under tough Conditions when you have no Briefing , and have to be way to careful where you shoot ..
Really Salute them and their dedication and Training ...

 

[Abingdonboy]

Normally, the SSG needs at least one-and-a-half hour to prepare for a mission.

This can't be true for Zarrar Company

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

This can't be true for Zarrar Company

1.30 hours is too much time that too for a specialized force that is necessary for a nation at war.

But it's comparable to many Special Forces, where the soldiers are presented with the briefing and gear up. But no doubt it would have gone faster than 20 minutes had they known what they were being sent to do.

 

[General General]

From the article: "...the QRF managed to reach the site with six minutes instead of the average of eight. There were two brigadier-ranking officials and the Inspector General Frontier Corps outside the school but there was little information of what was going on inside."

The SSG was probably sent after the QRF realised they couldn't handle the situation themselves.

 

[Abingdonboy]

1.30 hours is too much time that too for a specialized force that is necessary for a nation at war.

But it's comparable to many Special Forces, where the soldiers are presented with the briefing and gear up. But no doubt it would have gone faster than 20 minutes had they known what they were being sent to do.

There is a difference between a conventional wartime mission and a direct action intervention mission, for the former 1.5 hours is perfectly standard. From what I understand the Zarrar Company is Pakistan's premier federal interventio force/sub-unit and I would have expected them to be ready around the clock to launch for such direct action missions with all their gear stowed. The 1.5 hour figure doesn't fit with their mission profile.

 

[TheNoob]

The article mentioned something about terrorists ferrying such amount of ammunition and explosives which no LEA noticed at all....

Seriously, this is an issue.
if they can move around like that, god knows what they ferry around nation wide.....

 

[Mrc]

There was a major of medical core inside the auditorium, who managed to escape and was later court martialled....

He should have been shot publically....for abondoning his post and duty

This needs to be addressed by pakistan army.....this kind of cowardice can never be tolerated

Seriously they need to make examples of black sheep in their ranks

 

[Abingdonboy]

There was a major of medical core inside the auditorium, who managed to escape and was later court martialled....

He should have been shot publically....for abondoning his post and duty

This needs to be addressed by pakistan army.....this kind of cowardice can never be tolerated

Seriously they need to make examples of black sheep in their ranks

Was he armed?

 

[Umair Nawaz]

Attack started at 10:30 AM, assuming the information must have reached Turbela around 11 AM, SSG took 30 minutes to prepare and 40 minutes in travel which means they must have arrived around 12:20 PM in Peshawar and another 20-25 later to APS which means around 12:45 PM. This gave the terrorists around 2 hours 15 minutes to search and kill children with virtually no opposition so it is a miracle they managed to kill only 147. What was the QRF doing? Surely it didn't take more than 2 hours for them to figure out the intentions of the attackers? Had they entered and engaged the attackers at 10:36 AM, which is mentioned as the time they reached APS, they might have saved more lives.

I am not trying to create a controversy or trying to blame anyone and i would be the last person to do it, but we should not rely on SSG to conduct every operation in every corner of the country, in such situations, a difference of mere minutes can be the difference between an incident and a catastrophe.

Dude its not that simple, The QRF guys reached the spot in about 7-15 min. and they managed to corner the attackers in the admin block. It was their duty to keep them busy and pre occupied and snipers engage them which r also in QRF.

The QRF's job is to keep them busy and let civilians or in this case kids escape the scene. Zarrar Coy specifically dont take 1.5 hrs. Its for standard commandos who do other missions. In case for Zarrar Coy, there is no time and choice hence they just get their gear wear it and board the helis as mentioned it took 20 min for that. and the distance b/w Ghazi base n APS was of 40min ride. They came and did their job of heavy fighting ie neutralizing terrorists. QRFs job isnt of neutralizing them but to keep them busy till the main party with hard punch comes.

Was he armed?

dont think so. But in our standards and what we expect from a soldier/ military guy either doctor or technician is to take the charge in such kind of situation, there is no luxury of complacency or negligence here. All the people of armed forces either doctors, technicians, engineers or pilots get weapons training and can handle weapons fairy well as well as hand to hand combat. We dont accept any excuse at this level.

In the past we have seen such examples of how airbase technicians were able to hold the attackers for a few minutes with their service pistols and in process lose their lives and in these cases every minute counts. Since the attackers dont expect any reasonable resistance in first few minutes which helps them inflict maximum damage. The examples r of last year's naval base attack in karachi which made us launch the op zarb e azb and break the negotiations process, in which an engineer of PAF or Navy holded the attackers for 12 minutes with his pistol and lost his life. Had he not done that then damage would have been way more. Another example is of a Naval captain from Mehran airbase attack who came in b/w terrorist's bullets and second P-3C orion when the terrorist destroyed the first and save the aircraft but in process lost his life.

 

[Foxtrot-Bravo]

Attack started at 10:30 AM, assuming the information must have reached Turbela around 11 AM, SSG took 30 minutes to prepare and 40 minutes in travel which means they must have arrived around 12:20 PM in Peshawar and another 20-25 later to APS which means around 12:45 PM. This gave the terrorists around 2 hours 15 minutes to search and kill children with virtually no opposition so it is a miracle they managed to kill only 147. What was the QRF doing? Surely it didn't take more than 2 hours for them to figure out the intentions of the attackers? Had they entered and engaged the attackers at 10:36 AM, which is mentioned as the time they reached APS, they might have saved more lives.

I am not trying to create a controversy or trying to blame anyone and i would be the last person to do it, but we should not rely on SSG to conduct every operation in every corner of the country, in such situations, a difference of mere minutes can be the difference between an incident and a catastrophe.

The QRF reached there within 5 minutes of the alarm of attack as the cant was nearby. You should also shed some light over 962 students, including staff rescued. If we add both the numbers i.e rescued + killed = total and take out a percentage ... the results show that more than 87% of the staff and students were rescued while terrorists managed to kill only 13% which was a huge failure and it definitely included efforts by QRF, major efforts indeed.

And out of that total 13%, around 10% were killed in the auditorium because of the medical lecture going on there, it was our bad luck.

 

[Abingdonboy]

dont think so. But in our standards and what we expect from a soldier/ military guy either doctor or technician is to take the charge in such kind of situation, there is no luxury of complacency or negligence here. All the people of armed forces either doctors, technicians, engineers or pilots get weapons training and can handle weapons fairy well as well as hand to hand combat. We dont accept any excuse at this level.

In the past we have seen such examples of how airbase technicians were able to hold the attackers for a few minutes with their service pistols and in process lose their lives and in these cases every minute counts. Since the attackers dont expect any reasonable resistance in first few minutes which helps them inflict maximum damage. The examples r of last yr's naval base attack in karachi which made us launch the op zarb e azb and break the negotiations process, in which an engineer of PAF or Navy holded the attackers for 12 minutes with his pistol and lost his life. Had he not done that then damage would have been way more. Another example is of a Naval captain from Mehran airbase attack who came in b/w terrorist's bullets and second P-3C orion when the terrorist destroyed the first and save the aircraft but in process lost his life.

We are still humans at the end of the day and there is only so much you can expect from an unarmed medical officer, it might be hard to swallow but there are primative instincts built into all of us- fight or flight. Only training and combat exposure can truly hone oneself to instinctivly "fight" on command, I would not expect a member of the medical corps to nessercarily have been exposed to the above as such I think it would be unfair to judge this officer too harshly. Yes, it may not be what one would like to expect from those in uniform especially given the aura that is built up around them but one can't get away from these inherent facts.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

We are still humans at the end of the day and there is only so much you can expect from an unarmed medical officer, it might be hard to swallow but there are primative instincts built into all of us- fight or flight. Only training and combat exposure can truly hone oneself to instinctivly "fight" on command, I would not expect a member of the medical corps to nessercarily have been exposed to the above as such I think it would be unfair to judge this officer too harshly. Yes, it may not be what one would like to expect from those in uniform especially given the aura that is built up around them but one can't get away from these inherent facts.

Dude thats not how things r taken in our culture and standards. We dont accept complacency or negligence in our culture that too at this level. Thats why i was laughing at the other thread by the level of negligence shown by yr Air India guy and is usually shown by yr maintenance staff of military aircrafts too, because i naturally compare them with ours who even kept the F16s airworthy during the entire decade of 90s when we were under heavy sanctions. Im not trying to badmouth u or yr country but im just sharing what comes in my mind when i read such stories. No offence.

Buddy try to get to know more about our culture and our psyche, in our country not long ago a 15 years old boy named Aitzaz over came a suicide bomber to save his ruler village's school and in process died when he blew himself up, he save his fellow students who were 100-200 in numbers, made his mother cry but made those 100-200 mothers proud. Even in this APS incident atleast two female teachers lost their lives trying to protect the children one came in b/w the line of fire towards her class's children and the other tried to physically take the terrorists on and they burnt her in front of her students alive. While this grown *** man tried to run away and save his individual life! while being part of military too doc or not.

These military guys were very lenient with him to have just court marshaled and let him go and live his life, but if i were a soldier or commanding officer i would have shot him right b/w eyes at the spot. There is no such thing as cowardliness in our culture no excuse is accepted at this level. I may have let go a civilian but to a military man? No.

Let me remind u a quote of Tipu Sultan ''Sher ki aikdin ki zindagy, geedarh ki so saala zindagy sy behtr ha''. In our Muslim Culture and that too of Pakistan things r different from others. And u being a Sikh (if im correct) must understand this, since yr from a martial race.

 

[Mrc]

a very clear message needs to be sent... if you wear a uniform, be ready to die on minutes notice...or dont wear the uniform......

this is completely unacceptable to me...