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Operation Rah-e-Rast (Swat)

well blain, u r a Lt. Gen, more experienced then me :), may be i am wrong, but S-2 mentioned american SF, and as per my information, US SF have a unified command, even rangers come under american SF command, meaning rangers are SF too.

My understanding was that S-2 wanted to say that SSG just does the war fare which the american ranger battalions are supposed to do, SSG cant do other kind of operations, as in USSOCOM there are many units, even SF transportation units are termed as SF. Their notorious Delta Force does things which u described, so i was in this context disagreeing with u that SSG can be used as rangers, but also just as many of the USSOCOM units which are for special purposes.
 
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12 miscreants killed in Orakzai airstrikes | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online

12 miscreants killed in Orakzai airstrikes

Twelve miscreants were killed and others were injured as jet fighters pound in various parts of the Orakzai tribal region. The jet fighters conducted raids at suspected hideouts of the militants in Mamondzai and other areas of Orakza tribal Agency. Jet fighters still overflying the region and people fleeing from the region to safer places, reports said.
 
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All I know (and I can be wrong) is that is that the SSG is now under a major-general's command and the following is off a post that MuradK had posted on PDF.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/members-club/8072-pakistani-commandos-vs-indian-commandos-2.html

"It was decided to upgrade the command structure of SSG to better support the newly created units by raising it to Divisional level from Brigade level. The re-structuring plan was approved in June 2003 and now SSG command structure is very similar to any traditional Divisional HQ. The re-structuring plan also included the creation of sub-HQ’s to support various SSG units during operations since it was understood that re-structuring would also entail additional duties for sub units. 3 Commando Battalion was converted into a Special Operations Battalion (Spec Ops Bn) to deal with Low Intensity Conflicts (LIC). After converting 2 Commando Battalion into Spec Ops Bn, a need was felt to create another Battalion for its replacement in the army to deal with the traditional style operations. 4 Commando Battalion was raised to fill this gap. The manpower for this 4 Commando battalion was raised by taking one Company each from other three Battalions. For this process a special meeting of CO’s was OC’s was held and Company names were selected via a draw."

If anyone can verify the above.

if a Maj.Gen. is in command, it dosnt necessarily mean that the officer is commanding a Division. at present the SSG is not Div strength - maybe in the not too distant future yes (as blain2 has indicated)

if you go through the World Armies thread on Pakistan you will find a lot of info on the such!:enjoy:
 
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The Associated Press: Possible audio of Swat Taliban chief surfaces

Possible audio of Swat Taliban chief surfaces

(AP) – 32 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's army says it is investigating if the leader of the Swat Valley Taliban delivered a recent radio address, days after the military said he had been wounded.

A local resident says the suspected message from Maulana Fazlullah was heard Tuesday.

Fazlullah long used illegal FM radio transmissions to rally support. The army has been fighting his militants for nearly three months.

Swat resident Mohammad Yaseen Khan said he heard Fazlullah for a few minutes.

He said he recognized the militant's voice but it lacked its usual vigor.

Khan said Fazlullah asked his supporters not to lose spirit in the face of the army onslaught.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas says it's possible it was an older recording that was played.
 
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Taliban go from hero to zero in Pakistan

Jul 19, 2009 04:30 AM

Haroon Siddiqui

The news from Afghanistan is depressing and will remain so for months. But the news from neighbouring Pakistan, which has had an adverse impact on NATO's Afghan mission, is encouraging.

The Pakistan army says it has killed 1,700 Pakistani Taliban and recaptured the Swat valley north of Islamabad, and that the 2 million displaced civilians may return.

But the more significant development is the decisive shift in Pakistani public opinion against the Taliban and associates. They are no longer seen as waging a worthy anti-American jihad.

There is widespread revulsion against their gruesome tactics – suicide bombings, blowing up girls' schools, decapitating tribal leaders and imposing "Islamic" strictures on the population.

"This is not Islam, for God's sake," declared Musarrat Zaid, who runs a war widows' centre in the Swat valley. "These people don't know the meaning of Islam."

Another critic was Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a theologian in Lahore. He had issued a fatwa against suicide bombings, called the Taliban "a stigma on Islam" and supported the offensive in Swat. He was blown up by a suicide bomber in his mosque – fuelling further public fury.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the influential Jamaat-e-Islami party, a long-time Afghan Taliban supporter, turned against the Pakistani Taliban. He characterized them as Islamic illiterates, led by ill-educated village clerics.

"This is the first time in years that mainstream religious figures and parties have turned against the militants," says Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Centre of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. "This is a major breakthrough," he told me. "This offers a glimmer of hope."

Only a glimmer.

All that the army has done is to retake the populated areas. It had been stung by public anger that it had created an existential threat by ceding too much to the militants, signing 14 peace deals in three years, only to see each broken.

Retaking Swat does not mean that all the Taliban are gone. Many may simply have been driven back north into the mountains. Also lost in the body count is the fact that no Taliban leader has been captured.

There is not enough police or civilian backup to hold and administer the territory well enough to inspire the refugees to return and stay. Hence Washington's offer of $300 million of the $543 million called for by the United Nations for refugee settlement. Hence the proposal before Congress of $7.5 billion over five years for economic development and jobs for the young.

In the 440 words that you've just read, there was no mention of the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Areas (FATA) or South Waziristan and North Waziristan. Those are the mountainous, semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border, home to the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban as well as Al Qaeda, perhaps even Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistan army says it's headed next to South Waziristan, home to Baitullah Meshud, the alleged mastermind of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and a series of suicide bombings in urban centres.

That's not likely, says Nawaz.

"You don't announce two weeks in advance that you are coming."

The army does not have the resources. With 50,000 troops in Swat and another 100,000 spread over the tribal region, it's stretched. Expect only limited forays to back up U.S. drone attacks on Meshud's suspected positions.

Expect even less in North Waziristan, another wild and remote area along the most porous part of the border, where the Afghan Taliban go back and forth.


Pakistan has reportedly got four major Afghan factions from there to agree to come to the negotiating table. If so, Barack Obama would be keen to explore the possibility as part of his exit strategy.

To sum up: Pakistan is not being overrun by militants. It has some on the run, with strong public backing. The U.S. is, at last, showing an understanding of the complexities involved. Both are working together better than before.

That's a good start for Pakistan – and Afghanistan.
 
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AFP: Time to talk to Taliban: Musharraf

Time to talk to Taliban: Musharraf

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

LONDON — Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said dialogue had to be established with the Taliban and political progress, rather than military might, would achieve a solution in Afghanistan.

"I think the strategy is right but we need to put in a little more input, more forces required, and maybe we need to concentrate also on the long-term strategy. We are following a short-term military strategy only," the former general told Britain's Sky News television.

"The Taliban have done wicked things. But then we have to come to a solution.

"Military is never the ultimate solution. The military can buy you time, it can create an environment, but ultimately it is the political instrument which has to be used.

"I personally think that you need to establish a political dialogue and political dialogue with senior elements within the Taliban.

"Unfortunately, the Taliban or the senior elements in the Taliban, I don't think are open at the moment to any discussions or any negotiations with (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai.

"We need to have people, whether through a jirga or whether it is the president himself, to have access into the Taliban."

Musharraf said the Taliban's influence in Pakistan's Afghan border areas had strengthened since he resigned the presidency in August last year.

"There is a degree of instability that has come up because of this resurgence of Talibanisation activity in the settled districts of the frontier, especially Swat, but I am very sure as long as the armed forces of Pakistan stay and they are strong, Pakistan will remain stable," he said.
 
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The Canadian Press: EU foreign policy chief to visit Pakistan to boost humanitarian aid

EU foreign policy chief to visit Pakistan to boost humanitarian aid

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP) – 33 minutes ago

BRUSSELS — The EU says its foreign policy chief will visit Pakistan to seek ways to help the government alleviate the humanitarian crisis caused by the army's recent anti-Taliban offensive.

A spokeswoman says that during the two-day visit Javier Solana will tour the Swat valley, the scene of the recent operation that displaced more than two million civilians.

Solana is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad early Monday.

The EU recently granted euro72 million ($100 million) in humanitarian relief aid for the region, on top of euro485 million that it pledged at a donors conference in April. The 27-nation bloc has backed Pakistan's efforts to confront the Taliban in the Swat Valley and in an expected campaign against militants in South Waziristan.
 
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DO YOU GUYS THINK A CHAIR LIFTER LIKE FAZAL ULLAH ALONE CAN
HANDLE ALL THESE INSURGENCY ACTIVITIES ALONG THE WHOLE MALAKAND DIVISION
I THINK THERE MUST A BIG COUNTRY'S(intelligence agency) HAND BEHIND HIM
 
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Who do you think behind the Hafiz Riaz of sipah sahaba(recent Mianchunu convict) who dumped a 700 kg explosive in madersa???
All these terrorist has same agenda to kill every non-Muslim and Muslim sects (except their own) and impose their sharia all over the world.
 
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Pakistan upping border force along Helmand stretch

By NAHAL TOOSI (AP) – Jul 2, 2009

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's army has deployed more troops to a stretch of the Afghan border to stop Taliban militants fleeing a major U.S. offensive in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman said Thursday.

Nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines plus 650 Afghan forces moved into Afghanistan's Helmand province early Thursday to take on the Taliban in one of their strongholds.

Pakistani and U.S. officials have expressed concern the American troop buildup in southern Afghanistan could push the militants across the poorly guarded and mountainous border into Pakistan.

"We've mustered more troops from the other areas of the border" to deploy opposite the Helmand region, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. "We expected that the effect of this operation would be that the pressure would come on the border. We are rearranging where the pressure is less on the border of crossing. It is sort of a reorganization and redeployment of the forces."

Abbas declined to give specifics, such as how many troops were being sent to bolster those already along that stretch of the border or exactly how much of the move was coordinated with the United States.

But he added: "It started months ago. (The U.S.) had indicated that they will be coming to Helmand and the eastern part of Afghanistan. The threat was visualized. The possibility of crossing was visualized. We have addressed it by beefing up the border posts."

Pakistan shares a 1,600-mile (2,600-kilometer) border with Afghanistan. The section opposite Helmand is around 160 miles (260 kilometers) long and lies in Baluchistan province, where U.S. officials believe the Afghan Taliban's top leadership are hiding out.

Last year, NATO and Pakistani forces cooperated in a series of complementary operations on the border between Afghanistan's Kunar province and the Bajur region in Pakistan. The operation was praised by NATO commanders, who likened it to a hammer and anvil squeezing the militants.

It was unclear, however, if the latest troop movement in Pakistani was part of a larger operation involving both sides. The stretch affected lies far from the main insurgent battlegrounds in Pakistan: the tribal areas farther north.

The overall commitment of Islamabad to Washington's aims in Afghanistan has been questioned. Pakistan has frequently been accused in the past of failing to stop — and sometimes aiding — the movement of insurgents into Afghanistan from its side of the border.

Abbas said Pakistan has 1,100 posts along the whole border, with some 60,000 paramilitary and military troops deployed there.

Abbas criticized efforts to secure the border on the Afghan side, saying "the strength of their side is very thin on the border."

He said Afghanistan has not accepted Pakistani offers to fence long stretches of the border or put land mines along certain crossings to control the traffic, he said.

"What do you expect from us to do? We have more troops on the border, we have more posts on the border. It should be matched at least on the other side. They don't even have 10 percent of what we have," said Abbas, who extended his criticism to include other NATO forces operating in Afghanistan.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.
 
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Pakistan upping border force along Helmand stretch

By NAHAL TOOSI (AP) – Jul 2, 2009

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's army has deployed more troops to a stretch of the Afghan border to stop Taliban militants fleeing a major U.S. offensive in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman said Thursday.

Nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines plus 650 Afghan forces moved into Afghanistan's Helmand province early Thursday to take on the Taliban in one of their strongholds.

Pakistani and U.S. officials have expressed concern the American troop buildup in southern Afghanistan could push the militants across the poorly guarded and mountainous border into Pakistan.

"We've mustered more troops from the other areas of the border" to deploy opposite the Helmand region, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. "We expected that the effect of this operation would be that the pressure would come on the border. We are rearranging where the pressure is less on the border of crossing. It is sort of a reorganization and redeployment of the forces."

Abbas declined to give specifics, such as how many troops were being sent to bolster those already along that stretch of the border or exactly how much of the move was coordinated with the United States.

But he added: "It started months ago. (The U.S.) had indicated that they will be coming to Helmand and the eastern part of Afghanistan. The threat was visualized. The possibility of crossing was visualized. We have addressed it by beefing up the border posts."

Pakistan shares a 1,600-mile (2,600-kilometer) border with Afghanistan. The section opposite Helmand is around 160 miles (260 kilometers) long and lies in Baluchistan province, where U.S. officials believe the Afghan Taliban's top leadership are hiding out.

Last year, NATO and Pakistani forces cooperated in a series of complementary operations on the border between Afghanistan's Kunar province and the Bajur region in Pakistan. The operation was praised by NATO commanders, who likened it to a hammer and anvil squeezing the militants.

It was unclear, however, if the latest troop movement in Pakistani was part of a larger operation involving both sides. The stretch affected lies far from the main insurgent battlegrounds in Pakistan: the tribal areas farther north.

The overall commitment of Islamabad to Washington's aims in Afghanistan has been questioned. Pakistan has frequently been accused in the past of failing to stop — and sometimes aiding — the movement of insurgents into Afghanistan from its side of the border. One of those non useful journalistic comments that only help the negativity at this time. Pathetic and typical.

Abbas said Pakistan has 1,100 posts along the whole border, with some 60,000 paramilitary and military troops deployed there.

Abbas criticized efforts to secure the border on the Afghan side, saying "the strength of their side is very thin on the border."

He said Afghanistan has not accepted Pakistani offers to fence long stretches of the border or put land mines along certain crossings to control the traffic, he said.

"What do you expect from us to do? We have more troops on the border, we have more posts on the border. It should be matched at least on the other side. They don't even have 10 percent of what we have," said Abbas, who extended his criticism to include other NATO forces operating in Afghanistan.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Oh Hark! The word border arises again and again for ever..:agree:

Again I would refer people to the following “FATA – A Most Dangerous Place, by Shuja Nawaz; Center for Strategic and International Studies; Jan 2009
From this some recommendations:

The Government of Pakistan, (near term)
End treatment of FATA as a buffer zone between Afghanistan and Pakistan and treat the Durand Line as a true border, with greater regulation of travel through more numerous formal border crossing points. All other crossing points would then be seen as hostile and liable to interdiction with force. This would be helped if there is Afghan recognition of the Durand Line as a de jure border

FATA – A Most Dangerous Place, by Shuja Nawaz, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jan 2009, Page 36

US Government (medium term)
Help arbitrate recognition of the Durand line as an international border and thus help eliminate a long-standing problem between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

FATA – A Most Dangerous Place, by Shuja Nawaz, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jan 2009, Page 40

Unless both sides do something really constructive with this border it’s one heck of a big sieve with huge holes.
It is also in the active interests of the US to have something really constructive done here

But heck do they al really care?
Leave holes and then one can complain that the Taliban are getting through or was that helped through.

Wake up...

I am gullible, like sh!t, how about you lot?
 
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Taliban go from hero to zero in Pakistan

Jul 19, 2009 04:30 AM

Haroon Siddiqui

The news from Afghanistan is depressing and will remain so for months. But the news from neighbouring Pakistan, which has had an adverse impact on NATO's Afghan mission, is encouraging.

The Pakistan army says it has killed 1,700 Pakistani Taliban and recaptured the Swat valley north of Islamabad, and that the 2 million displaced civilians may return.

But the more significant development is the decisive shift in Pakistani public opinion against the Taliban and associates. They are no longer seen as waging a worthy anti-American jihad.

There is widespread revulsion against their gruesome tactics – suicide bombings, blowing up girls' schools, decapitating tribal leaders and imposing "Islamic" strictures on the population.

"This is not Islam, for God's sake," declared Musarrat Zaid, who runs a war widows' centre in the Swat valley. "These people don't know the meaning of Islam."

Another critic was Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a theologian in Lahore. He had issued a fatwa against suicide bombings, called the Taliban "a stigma on Islam" and supported the offensive in Swat. He was blown up by a suicide bomber in his mosque – fuelling further public fury.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the influential Jamaat-e-Islami party, a long-time Afghan Taliban supporter, turned against the Pakistani Taliban. He characterized them as Islamic illiterates, led by ill-educated village clerics.

"This is the first time in years that mainstream religious figures and parties have turned against the militants," says Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Centre of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. "This is a major breakthrough," he told me. "This offers a glimmer of hope."

Only a glimmer.

All that the army has done is to retake the populated areas. It had been stung by public anger that it had created an existential threat by ceding too much to the militants, signing 14 peace deals in three years, only to see each broken.

Retaking Swat does not mean that all the Taliban are gone. Many may simply have been driven back north into the mountains. Also lost in the body count is the fact that no Taliban leader has been captured.

There is not enough police or civilian backup to hold and administer the territory well enough to inspire the refugees to return and stay. Hence Washington's offer of $300 million of the $543 million called for by the United Nations for refugee settlement. Hence the proposal before Congress of $7.5 billion over five years for economic development and jobs for the young.

In the 440 words that you've just read, there was no mention of the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Areas (FATA) or South Waziristan and North Waziristan. Those are the mountainous, semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border, home to the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban as well as Al Qaeda, perhaps even Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistan army says it's headed next to South Waziristan, home to Baitullah Meshud, the alleged mastermind of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and a series of suicide bombings in urban centres.

That's not likely, says Nawaz.

"You don't announce two weeks in advance that you are coming."

The army does not have the resources. With 50,000 troops in Swat and another 100,000 spread over the tribal region, it's stretched. Expect only limited forays to back up U.S. drone attacks on Meshud's suspected positions.

Expect even less in North Waziristan, another wild and remote area along the most porous part of the border, where the Afghan Taliban go back and forth.


Pakistan has reportedly got four major Afghan factions from there to agree to come to the negotiating table. If so, Barack Obama would be keen to explore the possibility as part of his exit strategy.

To sum up: Pakistan is not being overrun by militants. It has some on the run, with strong public backing. The U.S. is, at last, showing an understanding of the complexities involved. Both are working together better than before.

That's a good start for Pakistan – and Afghanistan.

that's a very well written article. it took years and hundreds of suicide bombing for general public to see taliban's true face but dair aye drust aye.
Though, it's true Pakistan has yet to launch a full-scale operation in waziristan and taliban may have escaped from malakand and swat's population areas into mountain but there is a positive aspect to this and that is that taliban aren't living fearless anymore. They're not roaming around freely with their arms terrorizing people, they're dug up in their holes in the mountains and no matter what anyone says living like that with fear of being bombed by a drone or a jet even toughest of men have their limits.
 
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Pakistan Army kills 14 militants

Pakistan Army kills 14 militants
Pakistan Telegraph
Monday 20th July, 2009
(IANS)

Islamabad, July 20 (Xinhua) Fourteen militants, including three rebel commanders, were killed in fighting with the security forces in northwest Pakistan, officials said Monday.

In the past 24 hours to Monday evening, the security forces killed 14 terrorists, including three rebel commanders, in a search operation in the Swat and Malakand districts in northwest Pakistan, the Pakistan Army said in a statement. A number of weapons were also seized.

A Pakistani Army major was also killed in the operation, the statement added.

In a separate development, some 3,000 displaced families, who were living at the relief camps following the army offensives against the militants in northwest Pakistan, returned to their homes Monday.

The army said more than 45,000 families have returned to their homes in the Malakand Division since July 13.
 
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'Shaved' Taliban fighters sneaking into new region of NWFP

'Shaved' Taliban fighters sneaking into new region of NWFP
Pakistan Telegraph
Sunday 19th July, 2009
(ANI)

Peshawar, July 19 : The Pakistan Army may have been claiming that it has forced the Taliban and other extremists to retreat from the Swat Valley and that it was now safe for the displaced people to return to their homes. However, it is learnt that taking advantage of the slack security, hundreds of insurgents have sneaked into other parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) through Dir and Buner.

A resident of Matta region claimed that he himself has seen several Taliban fighters scattered in Qadar Banda, situated just on the boundaries between Dir and Swat.

He said the insurgents were changing the way they look by shaving beard and shunning their ethnic clothes to prevent from being identified.

Hundreds of Taliban militants are still ruling the roost in certain parts of Buner and the adjacent mountains, The Nation reports.

Meanwhile, in Chagharzai area the situation is more alarming as around 800 extremists have gathered on the banks of the Indus River and are on the look out to slip into the Hazara region.

The Taliban has established check-posts and patrolling on main roads and streets in Chagharzai.

It has also established a 'torture cell' in the premises of a government school in the region, residents said.
 
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