How Al-Zarrar MBT was destroyed
Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani announced summoning of the Pakistan army to crush militancy and terrorism in Swat and Malakand with an iron hand and vowed to establish the writ of the government at all costs. Addressing the nation on radio and television Prime Minister Gilani said time had come to take serious action against the militants who had disrupted peace and tranquility in parts of NWFP. "Army is being called in for upholding the sanctity and national integrity, for elimination of militants and to ensure security of the people," Prime Minister Gilani said.
Since then Pakistan army has been using its Al-Zarrar MBT for precision day night attack capability and recently we have been able to watch the video in which an Al-Zarrar tank was shown destroyed. Many claims have been made about the destruction of these tanks and how this will affect the moral of Pakistani army in Swat and FATA. But what was unknown until now was the fact how this tank was destroyed? It was part of small force at the front to make first contact with the militants along with force of around 35 personals of Pakistani army.
It was ambushed from three sides of the mountainous road and has to face at least six suicide attack attempts within span of 15 minutes along with attacks through improvised explosive devices that were buried in their way. Crew of the destroyed Al-Zarrar MBT survived without injuries and tank was recovered as neither turret of chassis of Al-Zarrar MBT was penetrated which also proved the recent upgrade was successful.
Survival of the crew form the destroyed Al-Zarrar MBT is also going to be a major moral booster for the crew as they will have more confidence in the crew protection capability of the tank. According to the soldiers participating in this furious battle fought in first week of this recent attempt by the Pakistan army to clear out the areas from Taliban militants, they were attacked from three sides by different militant groups that have divided themselves into smaller groups of four to five. First attack was through improvise explosive devices which resulted in destruction of the tanks and afterwards Taliban started firing at them, they say that it was very difficult for them to access the direction of the fire and strength of the enemy. Soldiers involved in this fight say that it took us some time to estimate their positions and after that we started counter attack by sending our troops to surround them. Taliban felt the heat and started second part of the attack to scatter and destroy the advance party of Pakistan army,
they launched one of their front end weapon against this small advance party; suicide bombers. Because of the magnitude of this attack, one can easily describe it as the largest suicide attack in Pakistan if not the largest in the world, mounted against a small force in shuch a limited time. This attack involved at least six different vehicles and three motor bikes filled with explosives and driven by suicide bombers within short span of time of only fifteen minutes. Pakistani soldiers first gave them warnings to stop as they thought these were civilian vehicles, but later on they recognized the threat in time and started firing at them, most of these vehicles were destroyed but due to high speed these did at front line vehicles of this small military force. According to the commanding officer of this advance force, they were very fortunate that none of their troop involved in this operation was killed and all thirty five of them were able to survive this attack.
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