Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
March 30, 2008
Pg. 17
By Candace Rondeaux and Imtiaz Ali, Washington Post Foreign Service
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A project to send U.S. military advisers to train Pakistani border forces could begin as early as this summer. But the advisers, according to Western and Pakistani military officials, face serious challenges if they are to transform an ill-equipped paramilitary group into a front-line bulwark against terrorism.
Twenty-two American advisers are being tasked with training a cadre of officers in Pakistan's Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency and intelligence-gathering tactics, according to U.S. officials in Pakistan familiar with the plan. The goal is to bolster the force's operations along the country's porous 1,500-mile-long border with Afghanistan, an area that has become a hotbed for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as their sympathizers.
But military analysts say that cultural and political fault lines within the Frontier Corps and Pakistan itself could prove the undoing of the U.S. program. The bulk of the force's rank-and-file troops are ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom are wary of going into battle against a Pashtun-dominated insurgency. Commanders, meanwhile, are regular army officers who often have little in common with their subordinates.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Alam Khattak, the top commander of the Frontier Corps, said the move to train and equip his 80,000-strong force was long overdue. He expressed frustration with a slow-moving military bureaucracy that has left his troops to fight an insurgency with World War II-era rifles. In a recent interview at a newly opened Pakistani-Afghan border intelligence center, Khattak said his troops have been stymied by a doctrine of conventional warfare in an age of counterinsurgency.
"It's very difficult, but our force is an old force," Khattak said. "This is not the first eruption of an insurgency that we've seen. We are on a global geopolitical fault line."
About 30,000 Frontier Corps troops are deployed in the southeastern province of Baluchistan; about 50,000 are deployed in North-West Frontier Province, which has witnessed a fierce resurgence of Taliban activity since 2006.
Those units, poorly equipped and lacking support from the army, have suffered devastating defeats over the past six years. About 300 troops have been killed since 2001. Low salaries and inconsistent medical evacuation services for wounded troops have also dimmed morale, Khattak said. "Many of our casualties were not warranted. If we had been better equipped, we would not have seen so many casualties," he said.
In January, seven Frontier Corps troops were killed and 15 were missing after more than 200 Taliban fighters overran a fort in a nighttime assault in the remote tribal area of South Waziristan. The next day, another brutal assault on a nearby Frontier Corps post forced several more troops to flee.
Kidnappings of Frontier Corps members have also become common. Last August, pro-Taliban militants took 16 soldiers hostage in South Waziristan. One was beheaded, his killing later shown on a DVD distributed in the tribal areas. The remaining 15 troops were freed in a deal brokered by tribal leaders and local officials. But such incidents have fueled an increase in desertions and further hurt morale, according to troops, military officials and analysts.
"When you have a position that is only manned by five or six men and it's confronted by a contingent of dozens of Taliban militants, there's not a lot of incentive to stay and fight," a Western military official said. "As far as some of these Frontier Corps guys go, they think: 'What's the point in resisting these guys? If I don't fight, I live to see another day.' "
About 8,400 Frontier Corps troops are to receive training in a program that calls for U.S. advisers to remain in the country for up to two years. The $400 million program also calls for the paramilitary force to be equipped with more modern weaponry, body armor and better medevac services.
Many officials have expressed confidence that the program will improve the chances of survival for members of the paramilitary force. Yet almost all agreed that trainers will have to move fast to ready the troops for what could be a years-long conflict with rapidly growing militant forces inside Pakistan.
"These guys are Pashtuns, so they know the local areas. But there are problems. There's been this kind of historical stepchild relationship with the army," said a Western diplomat, who like many officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the training program. "They've got different levels of equipment, different levels of medevac services than the army. One of the concerns we've heard about is: 'What happens if we get killed? What happens to our families?' "
Low wages, bribery, nepotism and poor equipment are just a few of the complaints among rank-and-file troops. Sadiq Ali, a former member of the corps, said he served two years before deciding to desert. He had spent most of his time on the front lines, in the troubled tribal area of North Waziristan, which has become a refuge for al-Qaeda and its pro-Taliban supporters.
"I personally fought against Taliban on several occasions in different places near the Afghan border, and some of them were really fierce. The Taliban are skillful fighters," Ali said.
Ali said he joined the Frontier Corps to help his family financially. But the meager wages were hardly enough to keep him in. He said his family pressured him to leave his post after the Frontier Corps suffered several widely publicized and bloody defeats in North Waziristan. "My family was very much concerned about my life when they would read news about all the bloody clashes in Waziristan," Ali said. "No parents would risk their children's lives just for a few thousand rupees a month."
Frontier Corps soldiers average $60 to $70 a month, or a little more than half what their counterparts in the regular Pakistani army make and a third less than Afghan army troops do. Part of the U.S. military aid will go toward improving the paramilitary force's salaries, Khattak said.
But money might not be much of a motivator for troops who have grown up in a region where religious conservatism is deeply entrenched. Besides sharing a common ethnic bond with the militants, many of the Frontier Corps troops attended the religious schools, or madrassas, run by the Taliban members that they now find themselves fighting.
Zeeshan, a 21-year-old Frontier Corps deserter who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said he left his unit in December after witnessing dozens of bloody skirmishes during his two-year tour in North and South Waziristan. He left his post after getting leave to attend a cousin's wedding in North-West Frontier Province, and decided never to pick up arms again for the Pakistani military.
"I didn't know why we were fighting this war," he said. "It was all about following the orders of my senior officers, and that's it."
March 30, 2008
Pg. 17
By Candace Rondeaux and Imtiaz Ali, Washington Post Foreign Service
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A project to send U.S. military advisers to train Pakistani border forces could begin as early as this summer. But the advisers, according to Western and Pakistani military officials, face serious challenges if they are to transform an ill-equipped paramilitary group into a front-line bulwark against terrorism.
Twenty-two American advisers are being tasked with training a cadre of officers in Pakistan's Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency and intelligence-gathering tactics, according to U.S. officials in Pakistan familiar with the plan. The goal is to bolster the force's operations along the country's porous 1,500-mile-long border with Afghanistan, an area that has become a hotbed for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as their sympathizers.
But military analysts say that cultural and political fault lines within the Frontier Corps and Pakistan itself could prove the undoing of the U.S. program. The bulk of the force's rank-and-file troops are ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom are wary of going into battle against a Pashtun-dominated insurgency. Commanders, meanwhile, are regular army officers who often have little in common with their subordinates.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Alam Khattak, the top commander of the Frontier Corps, said the move to train and equip his 80,000-strong force was long overdue. He expressed frustration with a slow-moving military bureaucracy that has left his troops to fight an insurgency with World War II-era rifles. In a recent interview at a newly opened Pakistani-Afghan border intelligence center, Khattak said his troops have been stymied by a doctrine of conventional warfare in an age of counterinsurgency.
"It's very difficult, but our force is an old force," Khattak said. "This is not the first eruption of an insurgency that we've seen. We are on a global geopolitical fault line."
About 30,000 Frontier Corps troops are deployed in the southeastern province of Baluchistan; about 50,000 are deployed in North-West Frontier Province, which has witnessed a fierce resurgence of Taliban activity since 2006.
Those units, poorly equipped and lacking support from the army, have suffered devastating defeats over the past six years. About 300 troops have been killed since 2001. Low salaries and inconsistent medical evacuation services for wounded troops have also dimmed morale, Khattak said. "Many of our casualties were not warranted. If we had been better equipped, we would not have seen so many casualties," he said.
In January, seven Frontier Corps troops were killed and 15 were missing after more than 200 Taliban fighters overran a fort in a nighttime assault in the remote tribal area of South Waziristan. The next day, another brutal assault on a nearby Frontier Corps post forced several more troops to flee.
Kidnappings of Frontier Corps members have also become common. Last August, pro-Taliban militants took 16 soldiers hostage in South Waziristan. One was beheaded, his killing later shown on a DVD distributed in the tribal areas. The remaining 15 troops were freed in a deal brokered by tribal leaders and local officials. But such incidents have fueled an increase in desertions and further hurt morale, according to troops, military officials and analysts.
"When you have a position that is only manned by five or six men and it's confronted by a contingent of dozens of Taliban militants, there's not a lot of incentive to stay and fight," a Western military official said. "As far as some of these Frontier Corps guys go, they think: 'What's the point in resisting these guys? If I don't fight, I live to see another day.' "
About 8,400 Frontier Corps troops are to receive training in a program that calls for U.S. advisers to remain in the country for up to two years. The $400 million program also calls for the paramilitary force to be equipped with more modern weaponry, body armor and better medevac services.
Many officials have expressed confidence that the program will improve the chances of survival for members of the paramilitary force. Yet almost all agreed that trainers will have to move fast to ready the troops for what could be a years-long conflict with rapidly growing militant forces inside Pakistan.
"These guys are Pashtuns, so they know the local areas. But there are problems. There's been this kind of historical stepchild relationship with the army," said a Western diplomat, who like many officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the training program. "They've got different levels of equipment, different levels of medevac services than the army. One of the concerns we've heard about is: 'What happens if we get killed? What happens to our families?' "
Low wages, bribery, nepotism and poor equipment are just a few of the complaints among rank-and-file troops. Sadiq Ali, a former member of the corps, said he served two years before deciding to desert. He had spent most of his time on the front lines, in the troubled tribal area of North Waziristan, which has become a refuge for al-Qaeda and its pro-Taliban supporters.
"I personally fought against Taliban on several occasions in different places near the Afghan border, and some of them were really fierce. The Taliban are skillful fighters," Ali said.
Ali said he joined the Frontier Corps to help his family financially. But the meager wages were hardly enough to keep him in. He said his family pressured him to leave his post after the Frontier Corps suffered several widely publicized and bloody defeats in North Waziristan. "My family was very much concerned about my life when they would read news about all the bloody clashes in Waziristan," Ali said. "No parents would risk their children's lives just for a few thousand rupees a month."
Frontier Corps soldiers average $60 to $70 a month, or a little more than half what their counterparts in the regular Pakistani army make and a third less than Afghan army troops do. Part of the U.S. military aid will go toward improving the paramilitary force's salaries, Khattak said.
But money might not be much of a motivator for troops who have grown up in a region where religious conservatism is deeply entrenched. Besides sharing a common ethnic bond with the militants, many of the Frontier Corps troops attended the religious schools, or madrassas, run by the Taliban members that they now find themselves fighting.
Zeeshan, a 21-year-old Frontier Corps deserter who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said he left his unit in December after witnessing dozens of bloody skirmishes during his two-year tour in North and South Waziristan. He left his post after getting leave to attend a cousin's wedding in North-West Frontier Province, and decided never to pick up arms again for the Pakistani military.
"I didn't know why we were fighting this war," he said. "It was all about following the orders of my senior officers, and that's it."