PAK PULLS WOOL OVER HOLBROOKE EYES
In the light of such strong assertions, a reality check is called for.
When the Taliban threat first emerged in Swat toward the end of 2007, two division strong contingent based in Peshawar was moved to the FATA area. Another division of security forces were shifted from Mangla to Swat. And in January 2008, the then Chief of the Military Operations, Lt. General Pasha (he now heads the ISI) announced that the FATA area had been fully cleared off Taliban. Those were the days of peace accords with the militants.
The peace accord collapsed early this year. Taliban threat knocked at the doors of capital Islamabad itself in April and concern mounted in world capitals over the very future of Pakistan.
So under intense pressure, particularly of the Americans, who were rolling out liberal financial packages, the Pakistan Army finally moved units from different divisions, stationed at permanent peacetime cantonments to Swat, Buner, Dir and other FATA hot spots.
These cantonments are deep inside the hinterland of Pakistan at Jhelum, Lahore, Multan, Karachi and Hyderabad. The total deployment shifted could be around division strong.
The deployments along the Line of Control in Kashmir with India were not affected. In fact, local media reports attributed to senior Pak officials concede that not even a single unit of these LOC centric forward deployments have been disturbed.
Pakistan has little over three divisions of armed forces deployed on the LoC. They include the Force Command of Northern Areas (FCNA) on the upper reaches and Infantry Divisions on the lower reaches. There is no change at all in the deployment pattern of these divisions, local media asserts, underlining that any dilution of the force deployment on LOC could undermine the government’s commitment to Kashmir issue.
Defence experts however view the Pak assertion in a different light. According to them, some of whom had seen ‘action’ in Kashmir, Pakistan always maintains a high level of preparedness and forces on LOC primarily to facilitate infiltration of militants into Kashmir. Since infiltration is rather a continuous exercise, the force strength cannot be diminished and in fact their numbers remain more or less constant through the year.
Expert view is that the shifting of few units from each of various cantonments do not constitute any security compromise nor can it be called a `great sacrifice’, as the Pakistanis are making the world, particularly their American interlocutors, to believe.
There is another aspect to the issue of so called withdrawal of Pak forces from the East to the Western border. It is about the ‘situation’ on the LOC and the International Border (IB) with India.
Pakistani leadership –both civil and military, has literally put gloss over the ground reality in its excessive exuberance to project a readiness to ‘compromise’ security on the eastern flank for focussing on the ‘burning’ western flank.
And with takers in the west to go along the ‘compromise’ myth, Islamabad is milching the Western cows to beef up its war machinery and for something else. That something is to beseech the Americans to push India to the negotiating table. Islamabad’s sales pitch for India dialogue is virtually a call for trade off - ‘eastern compromise’ for the ‘great western sacrifice’.
Interestingly enough, the Americans have fallen flat for the Islamabad line. And are urging New Delhi to resume dialogue with Islamabad and also to withdraw troop deployments on the border with Pakistan as a ‘confidence building measure’ and thereby match Pakistan’s claim of its own troop withdrawals.
One wonders as to whether Pakistanis have pulled wool over the ‘eye in the sky’ – the spy satellites which monitor the fault lines across the world 24×7. Otherwise Ambassador Holbrooke would not have given the certificate he gave to Islamabad on June 10 and State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly would not keep saying ‘India and Pakistan need to continue their dialogue to find joint solutions against terrorism and to promote regional stability’.
Now consider the facts
In contrast to Pakistani deployment of nearly three divisions on the LoC, Indian forces are deployed in small numbers at traditional infiltration points on the LoC. Terrorists are known to try to sneak in batches of tens and twenties under fire cover provided by Pak army. The main thrust of Indian forces is to plug the routes, and to stop the infiltrator. It is not an aggressive posturing. It is a defensive measure by all means.
Pakistan has ‘reserve’ divisions behind the first line of offensive troops deployed on the LOC. India has no such arrangement.
Along the International Border (IB) too (with Pakistan), the Indian sentinels are the para-military forces – the Border Security Force (BSF). Army positions are far behind the front line, as is the practice for years.
On the Pakistan side, its first line of defence on the IB is Pakistan Rangers, a quasi-military force. Like the Pak Army on the LOC stretch, the Rangers on IB are geared to facilitate infiltration of terrorist groups into India.
Knowledgeable sources say the modus operandi involves engaging the Indian side with intermittent fire so that Indian attention is diverted away from infiltrators. Pakistan side fires a few hundred rounds in a particular direction. As the small Indian deployment return the fire in that direction, militants sneak through the opposite direction. For instance, in the first week of June 2009, in Poonch sector, the Pakistan Army indulged in such a gimmick by firing some 100 rounds. Wiser by experience, Indian deployment did not fall for the bait, and foiled the infiltration bid.
The fact of the matter is there is no great security compromise on the part of Pakistan on its eastern flank, as claimed by GHQ in Rawalpindi and Foreign Office in Islamabad. When no troops are pulled out of the border with India for deployment in the Talibanised tribal belt on the border with Afghanistan, the question of sacrifice and compromise do not arise. Therefore the need for a trade off by way of a dialogue wi
th India for putting the clock 60-years back as well.
Pulling troops resting in cantonments is no great deal when the country’s is in the grip of an alarming Islamist revolution. Such deployment doesn’t in any way compromises the security preparedness. Instead it helps protect the territorial integrity of Pakistan. What for an army is there if not warding threats to the survival of the country.
The only nagging question is when the US will zero in on the ground reality in Pakistan?
When will any one of the multitude of think-tanks in Washington and New York care to come to grips with the games of myth and deception Pakistan keeps playing?
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