The following analysis is the first part of a two-part series on Pakistan military operation famously known as “Operation Black Thunderstorm”.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”–WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY IV

Insurgencies and shadow wars are fought without any defined battle space. April-2009 brings back memories when the rise in terrorism and militancy generated obstacle after obstacle for Pakistan’s survival. How quickly we tend to forget when the Army, Frontier Corps, elements of Special Forces faced a full-blown insurgency and were cluttered in the most crucial battles, starting from the military offensive in Bajaur (2008), which I discussed previously by putting special emphasis on its tactical side.

The Army and Frontier Corps saw the rise in terrorism & militancy, and the people unfortunately dubbed the war itself as an “American War”, failing to realize that the war on terror provided an opportunity for Pakistan and its military. The civilian population went on quickly to term the United States as an adversary; failing to realize that Pakistan was immersed in a non-linear war, in which the zones of war and peace are not defined and that the threat was active in tribal areas prior to 9/11.

Before 2008, the military deployed its troops in the area without any battle training for conducting operations in such an unforgiving terrain. Post-2008, counter-terrorism (CT) training centers were envisaged and established by the former commander CENT-COM Lt. General Tariq Khan, who was then commanding 14 Division. Before assessing military operations in FATA, we must appreciate the environment of this conflict. It requires a comprehensive understanding of the entire campaign against terrorism by Pakistani military. Things must be seen in true perspective and not in isolation.

In fact, no military operation can or should be seen in isolation. When the military deployed to FATA in 2002, it was ill-prepared to tackle the insurgency. There was no CT doctrine and its training was purely traditional. The turn in CT Operations came when 14 Division was handed over the charge to lead Operation Zalzala in South Waziristan Agency. Pre-induction training was imparted to troops and special emphasis was put on new fighting techniques & CT schools. That was the time, when Baitullah Mehsud, the Emir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), declared war against Pakistan, because 14 Division was inducted in South Waziristan. Before Lt. General Tariq Khan (Retired) took over the command of Frontier Corps in 2008, the dimension of the combat capacity of the Frontier Corps was different and was definitely not there to conduct CT Ops in FATA and other districts.

Let us, briefly, review the situation [2006-2007] before the full-fledged military operations, which began in early 2008:

1. The Indus Highway was inaccessible
2. The Kohat Tunnel was blocked.
3. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Government was in the process to move to Abbottabad from Peshawar.
4. The Peshawar Airport was closed.
5. Corps Commander house in Peshawar was subjected to mortar attacks.
6. Mohmand Agency was a no-go area.
7. Bajaur Agency was governed by Afghan militants, using Afghan currency in the local revenue system till Frontier Corps under the command of Lt. General Tariq Khan (Retired), conducted Operation Sherdil in August 2008. Read my previous
8. piece: The Bajaur Offensive
9. Dir & Buner were occupied by the TTP and came close to occupy Margalla Hills.
10. The ICRC declared Dir as a war zone.
11. Swat had its own constitution and was governed by TNSM.

I have argued in my previous piece that although the military application alone is not the solution to an insurgency, they do create an indispensable space for the administrative and development work such as political integration, development, opportunity-building and the de-radicalization of society. Had Pakistan not conducted the military operations post-2007, we would have muddled-up in an abyss without an exit. One can surely analyze the insurgency campaign waged by JVP in Sri Lanka, led by Rohana Wijeweera. Military operations conducted under the watch of then General Sepala Attygalle during the 1971 insurgency, paved way for the government to establish their writ in the area.

This is how David Kilcullen described insurgencies in his book The Accidental Guerrilla:

“In mid-2005, Eliot Cohen invited me to a private conference, held at a beautiful resort on the leafy shore of a lake in the far northern United States. There I met Hank Crumpton, a legendary figure in the Central Intelligence Agency, an old Africa hand who had many years’ experience in counterterrorism and had led the Agency’s in Afghanistan after 9/11.

We discovered that we saw the conflict in very similar terms, and diagnosed the key challenge-the complexity of fighting local “small wars” in the midst of a globalized conflict, while better integrating the military and non-military aspects of national power-very similarly.”

Remember: The capture of physical space in CT operations, cannot be used as the only benchmark for measuring success.

Let us now analyze the military resources the Frontier Corps and the Army had while entering Dir and launching Operation Black Thunderstorm.