Pakistan Military Review-Operation Zarb e Azb is Strategic Failure: April 2016 Issue-Monthly Journal of Indo Pak Afghanistan Military Affairs (Pakistan Armys Low Intensity Conflicts) (Volume 70)

Views of Dr Hamid Hussain ,eminent US Pakistani Pashtun Analyst Thanks Agha. I agree with you. In most operations especially post 2008, army asked everybody to leave and then considered the territory ‘hostile’. Along with ‘innocents’ most of the militants also moved out of the operational area. Only a small number remained and those who were killed were mainly when they attacked security forces. The ‘innocents’ who remained were treated as hostiles and also suffered except those who are paid to man some ‘first line’ posts. In Khyber agency they are called ‘askar’ where a local commander (from Barelvi Ansar ul Islam faction) is paid according to how many men he commands. I agree with you that ‘risk averse’ behavior prevented many COs to play offensive. Both from military as well as other point of view, army was given unprecedented authority (not given to Indian or Israeli army) where they could use artillery, air assets as well as leveling residential, commercial etc buildings. Large swaths are now empty and schools and dispensaries are taken over by army. Local resentment is at an unprecedented level and these locals are not militant sympathizers but distressed by indiscriminate bombings. You can now travel for miles in some operational areas and not see a single soul. However, at general public level the ‘success’ is mainly at psychological level where average Pakistani not aware about the nuances came out of depression and some sense of confidence is visible. These were my observations during my recent trip and talking to a number of military and non-military folks. I didn’t go on any military escorted tour but one western defnce attaché based in Islamabad who went on such a tour to Waziristan on my asking a question what he saw, he replied, ‘they have turned the whole town into a large car parking lot’. My brother went on an escorted tour to Tirah and according to him miles and miles on and he never saw a single soul; whole villages empty. The water is getting muddier. Good luck and be safe. Pakistan Army Military Operations – Summary Hamid Hussain “War is uncertainty, characterized by friction, chance and disorder”. Clausewitz From 2003 to 2008, for a variety of reasons, Pakistani state gradually lost control over federally administered tribal areas. The reasons were more related to strategic myopia at the highest level rather than strength of the militants. It took a while before military leadership understood the nature of the threat and started more professional planning, training and overhauling doctrine to face the new threat. The nature of modern militaries is such that from conception to application on the ground takes time.