Interview with a former SSG Colonel.
Faisal Aijaz: How was your relationship with General (R) Musharraf ? And what is your opinion about him ?
Col (R) Abid: He was a great friend and a fearless soldier and also my course mate. At first when I went to Infantry Div, Gen (R) Musharraf was moved to Artillery Reg. I remember just few days before the 1965 war, I was having dinner with General (R) Musharraf and he quietly said ‘Since we two really don’t care about death, so why don’t we opt for Special Services Group (SS)? To which then I replied ‘We’ll fight together, We’ll live together and We’ll die together.’
Faisal Aijaz: Did you ever get a chance to train with U.S Special Forces ?
Col (R) Abid: Yes indeed. In 1970 and then in 1979. I used to train with United States Army Special Forces known as Green Berets or Snake Eaters. The best part about it was that the American Special Forces always used to acknowledge that Pakistan SSG is indeed best in the world although our American counterparts were equipped with advanced military tech and we were not even close to them. We used to perform various military drills such as advanced weapons familiarization, mountain-warfare and airborne.
Faisal Aijaz: Was SSG really a part of the operation that led to the liberation of Mecca in 1979 ?
Col (R) Abid: Yes. I recently returned from United States at that time when the Siege of Mecca took place in 1979. Saudi authorities contacted us and It was then Brigadier Tariq Mehmood who led the whole operation along with his team and French Special Forces GIGN were given the task of protecting the out skirts of Mecca.
Faisal Aijaz: What do you have to say about Pakistan’s premier Intelligence ISI ?
Col (R) Abid: I’m just going to give you provide you with a thin sheet of shadow regarding ISI. When I went to United States to train with U.S Army Special Forces, they always used to acknowledge and say that ISI is the most feared intelligence agency in the world. Elements within Israel & India tried to stop our Nuclear Project but the ISI took care of everything and by the grace of Allah, Armed Forces and ISI, we are now a nuclear power. During the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, West Germany’s Intelligence Agency BND came to Pakistan and handed over a piece of brick taken from the Berlin Wall to Lt. General Hamid Gul and the inscription said ‘With deepest respect to Lt. General Hamid Gul for giving the first blow to Soviet Union.’
Faisal Aijaz: What was the greatest achievement of ISI at that time?
Col (R) Abid: ISI achieved so many things militarily during my time but the greatest to me was and will always be ‘Soviet-Afghan War’. When It was all over, the ISI was on top of the world and even the American CIA acknowledged this several times. Let me tell you something very interesting, Soviet Red Army came to Afghanistan with their almost 300 transport & attack helicopters carrying thousands of soviet airborne soldiers and spetsnaz, ammunitions and other stuff, bomber aircrafts and jets such as Su-25, Mig-21, Su-17, Mig-23. When President Amin was assassinated by the Russian GRU Spetsnaz, that was the time when our ISI moved in. CIA funded us and provided us soviet-made weapons bought from the black market which was then transported from Pakistan to Afghanistan for Afghan Mujahideen. The entire process was under the control of General Akhtar Abdur Rehman who was the DG ISI at that time. We were even provided with United Kingdom’s Blowpipe MANPADS which came out to be a total failure when we gave it to Afghan Mujahideen because It was ineffective and then only United States decided to gave us their US made Stinger missiles which came out to be a huge success when Afghan Mujahideen gunned down several Soviet Hind assault helicopters and aircrafts. Only a handful of ISI officers went to Afghanistan for the training and assistance of Mujahideen and It was our ISI who single handedly mastered the proxy war in Afghanistan which resulted in a huge blow for the Soviet Union. It was indeed a nostalgic dive for us.
Was there any Special Tactics adopted by ISI ?
Yes. Soviet Union established their main bases in Bagram, Shindand, Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kabul Int Airport etc. The two most important Soviet installations in Afghanistan were at Bagram and Shindad where they even stationed their naval reconnaissance bombers and electronic warfare aircrafts. The Soviet Army was fully mechanised: they always travelled in vehicles. The Russian Spetsnaz troops including VDV put on Afghan clothes and grew beards; they looked a bit like Afghans but we always managed to ambush them. ISI contaminated the main water supply lines to these three crucial bases and in return around 40 percent of Soviet Union personnels were affected by polluted water then which then resulted in several diseases. We improvised guerrilla warfare technique for which the Soviet Union army was unprepared. Their troops were stationed mostly in remote areas far away from their actual bases which was an advantage for the Afghan Mujahideen to disrupt Soviet Union’s main supply routes for weapons. Soviet Union forces did not even had special boots for the rugged mountainous terrain because of which they suffered whereas the ISI provided special boots made for mountain warfare to Afghan Mujahideen.
What will be the outcome If we go to war against India in the nearby future?
War involving countries includes many factors. Yes the size of Indian Armed Forces gives them the edge over us but Pakistan Armed Forces by the grace of Allah have overcome major obstacles in the past. We might be less in numbers but we do know how to defend Pakistan and its borders. NATO could not defeat Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan; whereas Pakistan Armed Forces have almost defeated a large scale counter-insurgency in Waziristan. By the grace of Allah, we have got one of the finest armed forces in the world and we should be proud of it.
Credits: Faisal Aijaz:
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