# Army Special Forces trains commandos in Pakistan



## jasion (Feb 23, 2009)

Interstting info:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/23/asia/23terror.php
Enjoy:)

*BARA, Pakistan:* More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country's lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.


   The Americans are mostly Army *Special Forces* soldiers who are training Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, the officials said. They do not conduct combat operations, the officials added.
   They make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan's government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged.


   Pakistani officials have vigorously protested American missile strikes in the tribal areas as a violation of sovereignty and have resisted efforts by Washington to put more troops on Pakistani soil. President Asif Ali Zardari, who leads a weak civilian government, is trying to cope with soaring anti-Americanism among Pakistanis and a belief that he is too close to Washington.
   Despite the political hazards for Islamabad, the American effort is beginning to pay dividends.

A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.
   Four weeks ago, the commandos captured a Saudi militant linked to Al Qaeda here in this town in the Khyber Agency, one of the tribal areas that run along the border with Afghanistan.
   Yet the main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, including its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and its leader in the Swat region, Maulana Fazlullah, remain at large. And senior American military officials remain frustrated that they have been unable to persuade the chief of the Pakistani Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to embrace serious counterinsurgency training for the army itself.

   General Kayani, who is visiting Washington this week as a White House review on policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, will almost certainly be asked how the Pakistani military can do more to eliminate Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the tribal areas.
   The American officials acknowledge that at the very moment when Washington most needs Pakistan's help, the greater tensions between Pakistan and India since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November have made the Pakistani Army less willing to shift its attention to the Qaeda and Taliban threat.

   Officials from both Pakistan and the United States agreed to disclose some details about the American military advisers and the enhanced intelligence sharing to help dispel impressions that the missile strikes were thwarting broader efforts to combat a common enemy. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the increasingly powerful anti-American segment of the Pakistani population.

   The Pentagon had previously said about two dozen American trainers conducted training in Pakistan late last year. More than half the members of the new task force are Special Forces advisers; the rest are combat medics, communications experts and other specialists. Both sides are encouraged by the new collaboration between the American and Pakistani military and intelligence agencies against the militants.
   "The intelligence sharing has really improved in the past few months," said Talat Masood, a retired army general and a military analyst. "Both sides realize it's in their common interest."

   Intelligence from Pakistani informants has been used to bolster the accuracy of missile strikes from remotely piloted Predator and Reaper aircraft against the militants in the tribal areas, officials from both countries say.
   More than 30 attacks by the aircraft have been conducted since last August, most of them after President Zardari took office in September. A senior American military official said that 9 of 20 senior Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan had been killed by those strikes.

   In addition, a small team of Pakistani air defense controllers working in the United States Embassy in Islamabad ensures that Pakistani F-16 fighter-bombers conducting missions against militants in the tribal areas do not mistakenly hit remotely piloted American aircraft flying in the same area or a small number of CIA operatives on the ground, a second senior Pakistani officer said.

   The newly minted 400-man Pakistani paramilitary commando unit is a good example of the new cooperation. As part of the Frontier Corps, which operates in the tribal areas, the new Pakistani commandos fall under a chain of command separate from the 500,000-member army, which is primarily trained to fight Pakistan's archenemy, India.


A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.

   Four weeks ago, the commandos captured a Saudi militant linked to Al Qaeda here in this town in the Khyber Agency, one of the tribal areas that run along the border with Afghanistan.
   Yet the main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, including its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and its leader in the Swat region, Maulana Fazlullah, remain at large. And senior American military officials remain frustrated that they have been unable to persuade the chief of the Pakistani Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to embrace serious counterinsurgency training for the army itself.
   General Kayani, who is visiting Washington this week as a White House review on policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, will almost certainly be asked how the Pakistani military can do more to eliminate Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the tribal areas.
   The American officials acknowledge that at the very moment when Washington most needs Pakistan's help, the greater tensions between Pakistan and India since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November have made the Pakistani Army less willing to shift its attention to the Qaeda and Taliban threat.
   Officials from both Pakistan and the United States agreed to disclose some details about the American military advisers and the enhanced intelligence sharing to help dispel impressions that the missile strikes were thwarting broader efforts to combat a common enemy. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the increasingly powerful anti-American segment of the Pakistani population.
   The Pentagon had previously said about two dozen American trainers conducted training in Pakistan late last year. More than half the members of the new task force are Special Forces advisers; the rest are combat medics, communications experts and other specialists. Both sides are encouraged by the new collaboration between the American and Pakistani military and intelligence agencies against the militants.
   "The intelligence sharing has really improved in the past few months," said Talat Masood, a retired army general and a military analyst. "Both sides realize it's in their common interest."
   Intelligence from Pakistani informants has been used to bolster the accuracy of missile strikes from remotely piloted Predator and Reaper aircraft against the militants in the tribal areas, officials from both countries say.
   More than 30 attacks by the aircraft have been conducted since last August, most of them after President Zardari took office in September. A senior American military official said that 9 of 20 senior Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan had been killed by those strikes.
   In addition, a small team of Pakistani air defense controllers working in the United States Embassy in Islamabad ensures that Pakistani F-16 fighter-bombers conducting missions against militants in the tribal areas do not mistakenly hit remotely piloted American aircraft flying in the same area or a small number of CIA operatives on the ground, a second senior Pakistani officer said.
   The newly minted 400-man Pakistani paramilitary commando unit is a good example of the new cooperation. As part of the Frontier Corps, which operates in the tribal areas, the new Pakistani commandos fall under a chain of command separate from the 500,000-member army, which is primarily trained to fight Pakistan's archenemy, India.


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## demo18c (Mar 1, 2009)

not so secret anymore


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## moobob (Mar 1, 2009)

yeah...


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## AssadUSMC (Mar 1, 2009)

And thank you Feinstein for your idiocy about the UAV program...  Fucking traitors.


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## JBS (Mar 1, 2009)

It will keep happening until there are consequences for it.


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## AWP (Mar 3, 2009)

JBS said:


> It will keep happening until there are consequences for it.



Yep.

I've seen so many OPSEC violations firsthand with zero consequences that leaks no longer surprise or anger me. Until we start burning some people at the stake this will get worse and worse.


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## Josh466 (Mar 3, 2009)

Freefalling said:


> Yep.
> 
> I've seen so many OPSEC violations firsthand with zero consequences that leaks no longer surprise or anger me. Until we start burning some people at the stake this will get worse and worse.



What's stopping this from happening?  The bureaucracy?


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## AWP (Mar 3, 2009)

Josh466 said:


> What's stopping this from happening?  The bureaucracy?



A lot of things, but apathy is high on the list. We pay lip service to OPSEC but when it is breached nothing is done. Sure, a few units may take action, but when I've brought it up, or watched it brought up, the answer was something like, "Oh, that? That isn't OPSEC, nothing's wrong with saying that." When you point out that pieces are used to make a puzzle, that out own MI guys use a fragment here and there to to do their jobs so why won't the bad guys, I'm told not to be so paranoid or how can they possibly see or hear x, y, or z.

I do not know of a single case where anyone was punished for breaching OPSEC, even with Secret level material, and I've witnessed US and coalition forces do it, O and NCO, Army and AF, since 2004.


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## RackMaster (Mar 3, 2009)

I've brought it up countless times in my career up here.  I think it's the mentality that we are "better" than the enemy; perhaps because they do not appear as an organized, uniformed force.  It's like they think they are not intelligent enough to figure out even the simplest of things out.  

This is the same mentality that hurts us domestically, with organized terrorist cells within our midst and people afraid to act against them properly.  I think that they are all forgetting the lessons of our past, during all major conflicts against a known enemy; they used espionage of all forms, including terrorism to undermine and scare our society's.  This is the same thing happening now.


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## JBS (Mar 3, 2009)

Freefalling said:


> Yep.
> 
> I've seen so many OPSEC violations firsthand with zero consequences that leaks no longer surprise or anger me. Until we start burning some people at the stake this will get worse and worse.




What is the COC waiting for?  For someone to die because of it?

The lack of initiative, the lack of desire to take ownership in this is disturbing.  Its like leaving a sewer manhole uncovered on a running trail; it keeps getting bypassed until someone falls in.


			
				gdamadg said:
			
		

> I've brought it up countless times in my career up here. I think it's the mentality that we are "better" than the enemy; perhaps because they do not appear as an organized, uniformed force. It's like they think they are not intelligent enough to figure out even the simplest of things out.



I've seen that kind of arrogance (superiority) and its disgusting. It always comes from the people who fail to understand that the only thing that makes one superior to their enemy is adherence to the strictest discipline (including matters like opsec and persec).


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