Bang Galore
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Praveen Swami
Its finished: the fighting in the mountains around a ghost village the general said didn’t exist, against invisible enemies who’ve melted back across the Line of Control, leaving just a haze of smoke and questions hanging in the air. Earlier today, the Indian army announced that it was calling off the search for Pakistani intruders in the mountains around Shala Bhata, exhibiting weapons and combat equipment recovered during searches. There’s no word, though, on who the intruders were, why they came, and why it took so long to get them out.
For the best part of ten years now, ensuring the Line of Control stayed peaceful was the keystone of the Prime Minister’s Pakistan policy — an objective maintained even the cost of absorbing body-blows, from 26/11 to the killing of Indian soldiers in cross-border raids.
In the mountains around Shala Bhata, the fighting has ended — but the policy is facing its moment of truth. No full account of just what happened at Shala Bhata has emerged in the week since Firstpost broke news of the intrusions. But intelligence and army sources have given some insights into the most serious fighting on the Line of Control in a decade. The fighting was sparked off, military sources say, when two observation positions on the Line of Control, code-named Khukri and Kullar, were briefly left unheld. Troops of the 3-3 Gurkha Regiment failed to replace their counterparts from the 20 Kumaon Regiment on time, for reasons that still aren’t clear. Troops who later headed towards the posts, which dominate Pakistan’s own forward positions around Shala Bhata, were then fired on by Pakistani positions from across the Line of Control. The army denies these posts are occupied by Pakistani troops — a claim which seems accurate. It has been equivocal, though, on the question of whether the positions were left unheld, and, if so, when they were reoccupied. Major-General Bobby Matthew, Additional Director-General for Public Information at Army Headquarters, did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Even as firing at Kullar and Khukri gathered momentum, meanwhile, Pakistan launched intrusions across the Line of Control, perhaps seeking to target Indian troops moving towards the Line of Control. XV corps commander Gurmit Singh had said on 27 September that drone imagery established that ten to twelve intruders had been killed by his troops. Their bodies, though, are no longer there, showing the cordon the 268 Brigade had thrown around Shala Bhata wasn’t able to choke off Pakistani resupply and evacuation lines. “Let’s assume it took just two men to carry away each of the twelve bodies”, a military officer says. “That means Pakistan was able to push at least 24 personnel across the Line of Control, and get their bodies back without Indian troops being able to retaliate or block their progress”. The 268 Brigade, as well as the adjoining 68 Brigade, began combing the mountains — but came up blank. Fresh infiltration efforts on the flanks of the Shala Bhata belt were blocked. Three terrorists were killed by the 17 Punjab regiment, some four kilometers away from Shala Bhata, and another two at Gujjardor. Four more by the 12 Garhwal along the Ratu Nar stream near Farkian. These bodies have been found — but the army’s claims of success elide over the fact they were killed outside the Shala Bhata cordon, in unconnected counter-infiltration operations Heat, but little light, has been shed by senior military commanders.
In remarks to journalists on Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Singh described the Shala Bhata skirmish as a “desperate infiltration bid”, rather than an intrusion. He had earlier said, though, that Pakistani special forces personnel were involved. General Bikram Singh, the chief of army staff, insists the Shala Bhata intrusion wasn’t a serious military operation. He claims trained soldiers wouldn’t have occupied positions the mountain stream where ten of them were claimed killed. This, however, begs the question of why it took the army so long to clear the intrusion, and how the infiltrators escaped a cordon that was claimed to have closed in around them on all sides days ago. Line of Control incursions by jihadists don’t routinely involve crack Pakistani forces: faced with the army, they retreat, hoping for success the same time. Fire contact has been made, hoping for success the next time. This time, they stayed on to fight — and kept it up for days. “Holding territory across the Line of Control crosses thick, red line”, notes Chandigarh-based military analyst Mandeep Bajwa. “There is a plan underlying this”.
The thick red line was drawn with the blood of Indian soldiers in Kargil — and its been a decade since it was last breached. In July, 2002, a Sikh Light Infantry patrol was ambushed near Point 3260 — a peak so-named for its height in metres — as it headed out to Loonda Post, an unheld position north of the ongoing fighting on the Line of Control. Then commander of the 268 Brigade, sources familiar with decision-making at the time say, had warned of the post’s vulnerability. He’d been told, though, not to station troops on the feature: with the Line of Control not yet fenced, large-scale jihadist infiltration underway, and full-scale war looming, it wasn’t considered prudent to expend troops defending every vulnerable position.
The XV corps responded with massive force to the Point 3260 intrusion, opening fire with FH-77B 155-millimeter howitzers on the intruders and the forces supporting them from across the Line of Control. In the face of a counter-bombardment which cost the lives of eleven soldiers from the Sikh Light Infantry and the Ladakh Scouts, Mi-17 helicopters flew in special forces. Finally, after a week of fighting, the Indian army asked for air support. Following an authorisation by Union Defence Minister George Fernandes, the 7 Squadron was tasked with destroying Pakistani fortifications. At 1.15 pm on 2 August, eight Mirage 2000 jets, commanded by Wing-Commander Rajesh Kumar, arrived over Point 3260 — and dropped four precision-guided bombs. Now, the red line drawn at Point 3260 has been erased at Shala Bhata. Burnt by Kargil, the National Democratic Alliance government was willing to risk war to make its point. Prime Minister Singh, Pakistan’s army knows, won’t reach for a howitzer if he can help it. From the time he took office, Prime Minister Singh has been persuaded that the costs of even a limited war will outweigh its likely benefits. Large-scale retaliation, his advisors argue, comes with unforseeable risks of escalation —unacceptable in a nuclear environment, and deeply damaging to the economy. It will, the argument goes, play into the hands of hawks in Pakistan’s army, rallying the country’s people behind them. It will allow the army to rebuild its fences with the jihadists it is now fighting in Pakistan’s north-west. To avoid these outcomes, they argue, its well worth India absorbing a few body-blows.
Yet, doing nothing has ended up giving Pakistan’s army a free pass to ratchet up tensions — knowing there will be no price to pay. “India can’t decide whether the Pakistan army will choose war or peace”, says former Research and Analysis Wing chief Vikram Sood. “What we can do is make clear to them that the wrong decision will have serious costs they can’t afford”. “That’s the message we’re not sending”.
Keran operation ends; now it's gunsmoke and unanswered questions | Firstpost
Its finished: the fighting in the mountains around a ghost village the general said didn’t exist, against invisible enemies who’ve melted back across the Line of Control, leaving just a haze of smoke and questions hanging in the air. Earlier today, the Indian army announced that it was calling off the search for Pakistani intruders in the mountains around Shala Bhata, exhibiting weapons and combat equipment recovered during searches. There’s no word, though, on who the intruders were, why they came, and why it took so long to get them out.
For the best part of ten years now, ensuring the Line of Control stayed peaceful was the keystone of the Prime Minister’s Pakistan policy — an objective maintained even the cost of absorbing body-blows, from 26/11 to the killing of Indian soldiers in cross-border raids.
In the mountains around Shala Bhata, the fighting has ended — but the policy is facing its moment of truth. No full account of just what happened at Shala Bhata has emerged in the week since Firstpost broke news of the intrusions. But intelligence and army sources have given some insights into the most serious fighting on the Line of Control in a decade. The fighting was sparked off, military sources say, when two observation positions on the Line of Control, code-named Khukri and Kullar, were briefly left unheld. Troops of the 3-3 Gurkha Regiment failed to replace their counterparts from the 20 Kumaon Regiment on time, for reasons that still aren’t clear. Troops who later headed towards the posts, which dominate Pakistan’s own forward positions around Shala Bhata, were then fired on by Pakistani positions from across the Line of Control. The army denies these posts are occupied by Pakistani troops — a claim which seems accurate. It has been equivocal, though, on the question of whether the positions were left unheld, and, if so, when they were reoccupied. Major-General Bobby Matthew, Additional Director-General for Public Information at Army Headquarters, did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Even as firing at Kullar and Khukri gathered momentum, meanwhile, Pakistan launched intrusions across the Line of Control, perhaps seeking to target Indian troops moving towards the Line of Control. XV corps commander Gurmit Singh had said on 27 September that drone imagery established that ten to twelve intruders had been killed by his troops. Their bodies, though, are no longer there, showing the cordon the 268 Brigade had thrown around Shala Bhata wasn’t able to choke off Pakistani resupply and evacuation lines. “Let’s assume it took just two men to carry away each of the twelve bodies”, a military officer says. “That means Pakistan was able to push at least 24 personnel across the Line of Control, and get their bodies back without Indian troops being able to retaliate or block their progress”. The 268 Brigade, as well as the adjoining 68 Brigade, began combing the mountains — but came up blank. Fresh infiltration efforts on the flanks of the Shala Bhata belt were blocked. Three terrorists were killed by the 17 Punjab regiment, some four kilometers away from Shala Bhata, and another two at Gujjardor. Four more by the 12 Garhwal along the Ratu Nar stream near Farkian. These bodies have been found — but the army’s claims of success elide over the fact they were killed outside the Shala Bhata cordon, in unconnected counter-infiltration operations Heat, but little light, has been shed by senior military commanders.
In remarks to journalists on Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Singh described the Shala Bhata skirmish as a “desperate infiltration bid”, rather than an intrusion. He had earlier said, though, that Pakistani special forces personnel were involved. General Bikram Singh, the chief of army staff, insists the Shala Bhata intrusion wasn’t a serious military operation. He claims trained soldiers wouldn’t have occupied positions the mountain stream where ten of them were claimed killed. This, however, begs the question of why it took the army so long to clear the intrusion, and how the infiltrators escaped a cordon that was claimed to have closed in around them on all sides days ago. Line of Control incursions by jihadists don’t routinely involve crack Pakistani forces: faced with the army, they retreat, hoping for success the same time. Fire contact has been made, hoping for success the next time. This time, they stayed on to fight — and kept it up for days. “Holding territory across the Line of Control crosses thick, red line”, notes Chandigarh-based military analyst Mandeep Bajwa. “There is a plan underlying this”.
The thick red line was drawn with the blood of Indian soldiers in Kargil — and its been a decade since it was last breached. In July, 2002, a Sikh Light Infantry patrol was ambushed near Point 3260 — a peak so-named for its height in metres — as it headed out to Loonda Post, an unheld position north of the ongoing fighting on the Line of Control. Then commander of the 268 Brigade, sources familiar with decision-making at the time say, had warned of the post’s vulnerability. He’d been told, though, not to station troops on the feature: with the Line of Control not yet fenced, large-scale jihadist infiltration underway, and full-scale war looming, it wasn’t considered prudent to expend troops defending every vulnerable position.
The XV corps responded with massive force to the Point 3260 intrusion, opening fire with FH-77B 155-millimeter howitzers on the intruders and the forces supporting them from across the Line of Control. In the face of a counter-bombardment which cost the lives of eleven soldiers from the Sikh Light Infantry and the Ladakh Scouts, Mi-17 helicopters flew in special forces. Finally, after a week of fighting, the Indian army asked for air support. Following an authorisation by Union Defence Minister George Fernandes, the 7 Squadron was tasked with destroying Pakistani fortifications. At 1.15 pm on 2 August, eight Mirage 2000 jets, commanded by Wing-Commander Rajesh Kumar, arrived over Point 3260 — and dropped four precision-guided bombs. Now, the red line drawn at Point 3260 has been erased at Shala Bhata. Burnt by Kargil, the National Democratic Alliance government was willing to risk war to make its point. Prime Minister Singh, Pakistan’s army knows, won’t reach for a howitzer if he can help it. From the time he took office, Prime Minister Singh has been persuaded that the costs of even a limited war will outweigh its likely benefits. Large-scale retaliation, his advisors argue, comes with unforseeable risks of escalation —unacceptable in a nuclear environment, and deeply damaging to the economy. It will, the argument goes, play into the hands of hawks in Pakistan’s army, rallying the country’s people behind them. It will allow the army to rebuild its fences with the jihadists it is now fighting in Pakistan’s north-west. To avoid these outcomes, they argue, its well worth India absorbing a few body-blows.
Yet, doing nothing has ended up giving Pakistan’s army a free pass to ratchet up tensions — knowing there will be no price to pay. “India can’t decide whether the Pakistan army will choose war or peace”, says former Research and Analysis Wing chief Vikram Sood. “What we can do is make clear to them that the wrong decision will have serious costs they can’t afford”. “That’s the message we’re not sending”.
Keran operation ends; now it's gunsmoke and unanswered questions | Firstpost
