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EXCLUSIVE: PAKISTAN ARMY – HINDUS & SIKHS

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on February 27th, 2012

Hit parade: Lt Hercharn Singh does a guard of honour
EXCLUSIVE: PAKISTAN ARMY – HINDUS & SIKHS
The First-Timers
The Pak army is a no-go zone. Outlook peeks into what it means to be outside the faith here.
In the picturesque region of Kakul, Abbotabad, in the North West Frontier Province, stands the quaint colonial building of the PMA, the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy. This is the land that shares, with the rest of Pakistan, the phenomenon of the Taliban striving to squash the remaining semblances of religious tolerance. So I’m consequently surprised to hear about a scene the PMA witnessed two years ago—as the sound of azaan echoed in the PMA, a cadet in his room rolled out the prayer mat facing west.  Lt Hercharn Singh, the Pak army’s first Sikh officer, was even chosen for guard duty at Jinnah’s mausoleum. Aspires to become a brigadier. His mate, however, turned to his own sacred corner, where there were gathered symbols of the Sikh religion. Their prayers over, they returned to their chores, oblivious to the history they had created. It wasn’t that the PMA proscribed other forms of worship; there simply hadn’t been a Sikh cadet till then.

Narrating this story is Hercharn Singh, Pakistan’s first Sikh officer and a symbol of the changing face of its army. Now 23, dressed in a smart khaki uniform and sporting a solitary star on his shoulder, Lieutenant Singh and I are sitting in the posh Officers’ Mess of Malir cantonment, Karachi. Providing us company are Capt Danish in his Rangers uniform and Capt Aneel Kumar, both Hindu and doctors at the Combined Military Hospital. Capt Danish (who says he’s just Danish) is considered the first Hindu officer of the army. 


MASH patrol: Capt Aneel Kumar (left) and Capt Danish

As we talk, they display some sense of occasion, listening in rapt attention to the experiences of each other in the army. Says Singh about his PMA days, “At times, I used to wonder where I had landed myself. I stood out like a sore thumb, many of the cadets had never seen a Sikh in the flesh. I had a tough time because of my appearance.

Capt Danish is a Hindu doctor from Tharparkar district who has served in the Wana tribal area. The others—Hindu and Christian—at least look like ‘ordinary’ cadets.” 

For nearly two years now, Outlook has been seeking access to Singh and the two Hindu officers. It took months of persistent lobbying by the Inter Services Public Relations director-general, Gen Athar Abbas, before the army agreed to allow an Indian publication to interview the three officers. As Col Atif coordinated to fly me to Karachi last week, new obstacles kept surfacing. Lt Col Idrees Malik had to implore his superiors to grant permission for Singh to miss a day’s class of the course he’s taking, and bring Capt Danish from interior Sindh.

At the officers’ mess, amidst smiles and a display of palpable pride, Singh begins his story from the day his romance sparked with the Pakistan army. Like all such stories, it was ignited with a chance glimpse and an irrepressible tug at the heartstrings. It was nearly three years ago, and he and his friends had decided to apply to the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore. On the way, they passed an army recruitment centre. Something about it spoke to him, perhaps. “But no one had any idea of a Sikh being allowed entry into Pakistan’s military institutions,” Singh recalls.

Singh got admission to the NCA but he decided to visit the recruitment centre to make inquiries. When told the law didn’t proscribe Sikhs from the army, he promptly submitted an application, apparently arousing curiosity at the centre even then about the “Sikh who wants to join the army”.  Capt Aneel Kumar, a doctor at the Combined Military Hospital, says his Hindu family had no idea what the army was like.

He was selected, in the process grabbing headlines countrywide. But his family was opposed to him joining the army, the elders wanting him to head the business of his deceased father. And then there was Singh’s mother who believed a career in the army would shame the family. Shame? “All our lives our community had been ridiculed. Especially in the electronic media where Sikhs were portrayed as drunks, womanisers and villains. My mother said that I wouldn’t be respected and this would bring shame to the family.”

At the PMA, the callow, sensitive Sardarji was baffled by some insensitive souls asking him to convert to Islam. “I wondered what kind of people are these who are not happy with the way I am, who offered to convert me. I didn’t mind jokes about Sikhs because these are so common,” he says wryly. But at Kakul, with young cadets and their irritating inquisitiveness, it took some chutzpah to ensure his religion or culture was not compromised. But he had his sergeant on his side. As Singh puts it, “My sergeant told me I was free to follow my religion and that everything would be done to make me comfortable.”

Singh now did two things—he told his room-mate if they had to share a room they must show tolerance for each other’s religious codes of living; his second act was daring and sagacious. He approached the commandant to make a presentation about his faith. “With the help of a documentary from the Golden Temple and my own literature I gave a presentation about the Sikh religion and culture. I explained why I looked the way I did, the symbols of faith a Sikh is never found without. Then I asked for questions,” says Singh, bubbling with confidence. “In the next two years at the PMA, no questions were asked.”

But Singh’s glory days didn’t end at the PMA. His excellent drill at Kakul prompted the army to choose him for guard duty at the Quaid-e-Azam Mazar, or the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. “I couldn’t believe it, no Sikh here could even imagine such a thing.” In these days of jehadi intolerance, a new chapter had opened. Of course, it was also a huge PR win-win situation, his duty at the mausoleum invited international media attention, and his family was flooded with calls from Sikhs the world over. 

The induction of Singh, Danish and Aneel marks a revolutionary change for the Pakistan army, but then it poses new challenges too. The sheer enormity of this change can be gleaned from a reading of Dr Aneela Zeb Babar’s Texts of War: The Religio-Military Nexus in Pakistan and India. She writes, “In Pakistan, the military officer is not just a professional. Placed on a pedestal, he is glorified as a hero. The public feels he is performing his religious duty…. All advertisements for recruitment in the Pakistan military and all publicity material start with Quranic verses.” Dr Babar quotes junior Muslim officers describing their motivational lectures, “We are taught that in the Quran one Muslim is equal to 10 kafirs and after every lecture, slogans praising God and caliph Ali are raised.” Will the trio’s induction prompt a change now in the army’s ethos, perhaps a dilution of its Islamic orientation or at least some understanding of those officers who belong to minority communities.

Perhaps this is already happening—the three non-Muslim officers, like most others here, wear their religion on their sleeves with a confidence quite remarkable for their age and ambience. Both Danish and Aneel testify to this. “We are very comfortable with our Hindu faith. We too had been assured by the sergeant (during their training) that we were free to worship as we wanted and if there was any way he could help, we shouldn’t hesitate to come to him.” Danish, incidentally, hails from the remote poverty-stricken Tharparkar, and graduated as a doctor before he saw an advertisement for a post in the army. He applied without taking his family into confidence and was selected. “Initially, there were constraints…about how a Hindu could fit in the army but today they are proud of me and I have even been sent to Wana (a tribal area) to deal with patients there. It was a very different experience. The place and people were so different from the desert of Sindh,” he says.

Aneel, who belongs to Hyderabad, says the army’s ignorance about religions other than Islam is matched by the Hindu community’s sketchy knowledge about cantonment life. “People from my community had earlier interacted only with the police…we had no idea what the army was like,” admits Aneel, even as he expresses hope that youth from his community would see Danish and him as role models and strive to join the officer cadre. Singh, however, doubts whether many Sikhs would join the army, largely because his community is engaged in business with their counterparts in India. Army officers who have relatives doing business with Indians would be a major problem, Singh declares.

For Sikhs at least, an army career marks a snapping of the umbilical cord tying them to religious places in India. Singh, for instance, has given up on his dream of visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar. “I am a Pakistani army officer now and I can’t even think of performing my religious duties in India. Even my mother will not be allowed to go, with a son in the army,” he laments.

So what do these three officers think of Pakistan going to war in the future? They reply in unison, “We are now a nuclear power. Besides, there are so many internal threats.” I ask them the question which most insular Pakistanis harbour in their hearts: would they be willing to kill others of their faith in a war? Danish replies, “Of course, we will or else we will be killed. Even our mothers will not ask us why we fired, they will just be glad that we survived.”

Both Danish and Anil don’t nurture lofty ambitions, hoping to negotiate one step at a time in the army. What about Singh? “Well, I have set my sight on wearing red pips, that is become a brigadier,” he says. When I tell him that army rules don’t debar him from the rank of Chief of Army Staff, his eyes glitter and a smile lights up his face.

Courtesy: OUTLOOK – INDIA

 

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US does it again: Pakistan gets P3C-Orions as replacements for ones destroyed by India trained terrorist attacks

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on February 21st, 2012

Pakistan and US have a love-hate relationship. US in its new found love for chicanery riddled India had started growling at Pakistan. But, over 60 years of trust between Pentagon and GHQ, cannot be ignored. Trust is like blood, it is thicker than water. Despite, its policy tilt towards India, US is well aware of Indian back-stabbing and double dealing. As they say in US, they knew where their bread is buttered.  In Pakistani colloqialism, US is not a Phuddho Phatta. On the other hand, Pakistanis have felt a deep sense of anger and betrayal by the US.  The killing of our 24 young lions cannot be forgotten or covered by such gestures. This gesture will be appreciated and will go a long way to repair the tattered relationship. However, let us not dance till the fat lady sings.  Pakistan needs to see more of such gestures, including release of all items in FMS pipeline, especially, the F16 D Fighter jets. Pakistani people starve but pay for these weaponary with hard cash. This brings jobs to US workers suffering almost 10-11 percent unemployment. So, this gesture will be win-win for both the nations.

 

Pakistan receives US surveillance aircraft

(AFP) – 7 hours ago

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani navy took delivery Tuesday of two state-of-the-art, US-made surveillance aircraft nine months after Islamist militants destroyed two similar planes, officials said.

Pakistan said the P3C aircraft, modified with the latest avionics, are designed to improve surveillance in the North Arabian sea, one of the world’s most important shipping routes deeply troubled by Somali piracy.

“The two aircraft have been delivered to the Pakistan navy. These aircraft have been provided under the foreign military funding programme,” a spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad, told AFP.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States were severely damaged last year by a covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the alliance remains tense.

The navy said the aircraft would help “maintain requisite vigil in our vital area of interest in the North Arabian Sea”, which it said was “home to intense maritime activity both legal and illegal and thus warrants continuous guard”.

Pakistan is to receive six P3C aircraft from the United States in three batches. The first two, received in 2010, were destroyed during a 17-hour siege of a key naval base in Karachi last May blamed on the Taliban.

The attack killed 10 personnel and deeply embarrassed the military, just three weeks after bin Laden was killed in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

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Pakistan Navy: Ready To Face Challenges

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on February 20th, 2012

 

Defence & Diplomacy

 

By Raja G Mujtaba

 

Akula II Russian Submarine

“The persistence of unresolved regional conflicts makes nuclear weapons a powerful lure in many parts of the world—to intimidate neighbours and to serve as a deterrent to great powers who might otherwise intervene in a regional conflict.” Henry Kissinger

YouTube – Veterans Today –

Whenever any country acquires some ambitious role, be its own or playing proxy to some bigger power like the USA; it changes the dynamics of the region. Till the late 70s, India solely focused on Pakistan but thereafter it was prompted up by the USA to counter China. Whatever India acquires under this pretext would be free to use against Pakistan. To meet the threats, Pakistan is acquiring what it needs for an effective deterrence.

In May 1998, India exploded nukes thereafter, India’s language and tone changed immediately. Vajpai began to threaten Pakistan, some of the words still echo in our ears but within days, Pakistan demonstrated her nuclear capability that was superior to that of India. It brought a gloom over the Indian sky.

This initiative brought US sanctions against Pakistan that she faced with determination to overcome the difficult times.

One of the fundamental objectives of the US to move into Afghanistan was to isolate Pakistan from China and take out her nukes. To that end all sorts of pressures have been applied on Pakistan to destabilise her in every possible way. This has been no easy time; every day brought new threats that Pakistan had to face. Internally through media manipulation and political pawns, the public perception against Pakistan Army took new dimensions. Here some mismanagement by the army leadership cannot be ruled out. This perception became very dangerous; a gulf had been created between the public and the army that had to be bridged. To overcome this perception, army leadership went very cautious and it did succeed.

Then post 9/11 America showed a major tilt towards India, declared her as a strategic ally and treaties signed to that effect.  Pakistan was declared as the frontline state to counter so called terrorism where Pakistan was made to suffer heavily through her economy, human loses and political destabilisation. India was not only given lucrative contracts but also was provided room to establish herself in Afghanistan.

During this period, besides civilian nuclear technology, India was also offered massive defence hardware including fighter aircraft and strategic air transporters. Taking advantage of the situation, India extended its reach and dominance even beyond the region.

Recently, Obama announced the new US policy to contain China that resulted in a shift from Atlantic to Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean known as the Pacific Club.  This club has the US, UK, Australia and other NATO members where India has also been given a role. Only time would tell if India remains a committed member of the Pacific Club but through this club it will acquire what it needs to dominate the region and work on its expansionist agenda – Hindutwa Manifesto.

India on the pretext of Chinese threat core philosophy of dominating the Indian Ocean to dominate the world is spending on her military muscle that is very threatening for the region, more so for Pakistan with which it has open and declared hostility. Under this doctrine, the major shift has come in her naval fleet where it has acquired nuclear submarines to extend its reach and dominance not only over the region but to some extent in the global context.

Pakistan Navy has never been adverse to the situation or the new developments taking place, she kept augmenting her fleet through up-gradations and modifications. Some are known but most are kept as operational secrets.

The development of nuclear weapons and its delivery systems were effectively integrated within the Pakistan Navy; even without nuclear submarines, Pakistan Navy has developed sub-surface nuclear strike capability that can engage targets both on sea and land. In spite of this, to maintain an edge, the need to acquire nuclear submarines cannot be ruled out for its obvious strategic advantages.

In the 60s, India had only one aircraft carrier, Vikrant an old vintage that could not pose any threat to Pakistan both in 1965 and 1971 wars; instead it was a liability for the Indian navy to hide and protect it from a smaller but more aggressive Pakistan Navy. In 1965 war, Pakistan Navy was the only navy in the region that had submarine capability that was utilised effectively. In 1971 war though India had acquired Russian Foxtrot class submarines but did not play any role of significance. Now with the new developments, Pakistan Navy is making all efforts to maintain her over half a century dominance of the sea.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, it was an opportunity for India that it acquired INS Vikramaditya that is expected sometimes this year. Indian navy that has INS Viraat is decommissioning it after the induction of the first domestically built Vikrant class aircraft carrier.

Besides acquisition of the aircraft carriers, Indian navy has also acquired nuclear powered submarines; the first of Akula II Class has already been handed over to the Indian Navy to augment its fleet of 14 diesel electric powered submarines (4 Shishumar and 10 Sindhugosh class submarines) and a dozen midgets known as chariots.

Indian navy as mentioned by Commander M Azam Khan in his article S-2 Options For Pakistan launched INS Arihant SSBN, ATV based on Kilo class Russian submarines. An indigenous effort that is currently undergoing trials is said to be facing some problems with its reactor.

Nuclear submarines have glaring advantages over conventional diesel electric powered that are as follows:

  • A nuclear submarine is a strategic weapon that gives a navy the unique strategic advantage over its adversary to attain strategic goals.
  • The nuclear subs are truly independent AND CAN OPERATE UNDERWATER FOR MONTHS UNLIKE CONVENTIONAL SUBMARINES THAT HAVE LIMITED ENDURANCE BELOW SURFACE.
  • The nuclear reactor allows it to operate at high speeds for SUSTAINED PERIODS

Akula class nuclear submarine is officially deemed Project 971 Shuka B designed as follow-up to Victor and Sierra classes to set a new standard in stealth operations and serve as the vanguard of the modern Russian Navy. Some analysts opine that Akula is superior to American Los Angeles class (that was US Navy’s hallmark) but not being disclosed by the Russians.

Like the shark, this Russian machine is a deadly killer that needs very little reaction time. According to the available information, it attains underwater speed of 35 knots or more and can sit at 500 meters below water.

Its weapons configuration is formidable that it can singularly take on multiple targets without being located. It carries a mix of nuclear and conventional weapons. But her weaponry is only meant for sea warfare and not hitting the land targets. If modified, it can also launch nuclear attack on land based targets.

Agosta 90-B PNS Saad

Pakistan that has a total compliment of 7 submarines comprising of Agosta 70s and 90s, would not only be outnumbered but also put on the back foot. In conventional weaponry, French and Germans are leading builders of submarines; by opting for French Agostas, Pakistan had maintained her parity over others in the region that is now threatened with the induction of Akula II nuclear submarines.

A diesel-electrical submarine has to surface to periscope depth to recharge the batteries using the diesel engine, leading to increased risk of detection. The MESMA air-independent propulsion system, being fitted to the Agosta 90B submarines for Pakistan, allows the submarine to remain submerged three times longer.

The MESMA system consists essentially of a turbine receiving high-pressure steam from a combustion chamber, burning a gaseous mixture of ethanol and liquid oxygen. The Agosta 90B’s dimensions remain the same in all other respects, except that the length increases from 67m to 76m and submerged displacement from 1,760t to 2,050t.

In future conflicts, it is very likely that even Israel would also conduct a covert operation in tandem with India to take out Pakistan’s nukes; an opportunity that it has always been looking for in the past.

Therefore the options of the bigger powers become the compulsion of the smaller countries that find themselves in catch 22 situation but with calculated measures, such adverse situations can always be averted. Pakistan defence forces have such a history to back them up.

On this, S M Hali conducted a lively debate in his weekly episode of Defence & Diplomacy with Vice Admiral Ahmed Tasnim and Advocate Tariq Peerzada.

*Quoted by Commander M Azam Khan in his article S 2 Options for Pakistan

Ref

 

 

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Did the United States use the Kashmir earthquake to send intelligence operatives into Pakistan?

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on February 15th, 2012

Did the United States use the Kashmir earthquake to send intelligence operatives into Pakistan?
Monday, February 13, 2012 – 11:05 AM     
That’s the charge the National Journal’s Marc Ambinder makes in his very interesting new book on Joint Special Operations Command, coauthored with D.B. Grady.

The U.S. intelligence community took advantage of the chaos to spread resources of its own into the country. Using valid U.S. passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and contractors flooded in without the requisite background checks from the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Al-Qaeda had reconstituted itself in the country’s tribal areas, largely because of the ISI’s benign neglect. In Afghanistan, the ISI was actively undermining the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai, training and recuiting for the Taliban, which it viewed as the more reliable partner. The political system was in chaos. The Pakistani army was focused on the threat from India and had redeployed away from the Afghanistan border region, the Durand line, making it porous once again. To some extent, the Bush administration had been focused on Iraq for the previous two years, content with the ISI’s cooperation in capturing senior al-Qaeda leaders, while ignoring its support of other groups tha would later become recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda.
A JSOC intelligence team slipped in alongside the CIA. The team had several goals. One was prosaic: team members were to develop rings of informants to gather targeting information about al-Qaeda terrorists. Other goals were extremely sensitive: JSOC needed better intelligence about how Pakistan tranported its nuclear weapons and wanted to pentrate the ISI. Under a secret program code-named SCREEN HUNTER, JSOC, augmented by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and contract personnel, was authorized to shadow and identify members of the ISI suspected of being sympathetic to al-Qaeda. It is not clear whether JSOC units used lethal force against these ISI officers; one official said that the goal of the program was to track terrorists through the ISI by using disinformation and psychological warfare. (The program, by then known under a different name, was curtailed by the Obama administration when Pakistan’s anxiety about a covert U.S. presence inside the country was most intense.)
Meanwhile, rotating teams of SEALs from DEVGRU Black squadron, aided by Rangers and other special operations forces, established a parallel terroris-hunting capability called VIGILANT HARVEST. They operated in the border areas of Pakistan deemed off limits to Americans, and they targeted courier networks, trainers, and facilitators. (Legally, these units would operate under the authority of the CIA any time they crossed the border.) Some of their missions were coordinated with Pakistan; others were not. As of 2006, teams of Green Berets were regularly crossing the border. Missions involved as few as three or four operators quietly trekking across the line, their movements monitored by U.S. satellites and drones locked onto the cell phones of these soldiers. (The cell phones were encrypted in such a  way that made them undetectable to Pakistani intelligence.) Twice in 2008, Pakistani officials caught wind of these missions, and in one instance, Pakistani soldiers operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas fired guns into the air to prevent the approach of drones.
Forward intelligence cells in Pakistan are staffed by JSOC-contracted security personnel from obscure firms with insider names such as Triple Canopy and various offshoots of Blackwater, but it is not clear whether, as Jeremy Scahill of the Nation has argued, the scale of these operations was operationally significant or that the contractors acted as hired guns for the U.S. government. Sources say that only U.S. soldiers performed “kinetic” operations; Scahill’s sources suggest otherwise. The security compartments were so small for these operations (one was known as QUIET STORM, a particularly specialized mission targeting the Pakistani Taliban in 2008) that the Command will probably be insulated from retrospective oversight about its activities. A senior Obama administration official said that by the middle of 2011, after tensions between the United States and the Pakistani government had reached an unhealthy degree of danger, all JSOC personnel except for its declared military trainers were ferreted out of the country. (They were easy to find using that same secret cell phone pinging technology.) Those who remained were called Omegas, a term denoting their temporary designation as members of the reserve force. They then joined any one of a dozen small contracting companies set up by the CIA, which turned these JSOC soldiers into civilians, for the purposes of deniability.

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Pakistani Navy to Develop Nuclear-Powered Submarines

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on February 12th, 2012

ISLAMABAD — Media reports on Feb. 11 state the Pakistan Navy intends to build nuclear-powered submarines as a matter of priority.

No sources were quoted in the reports, which indicated the first submarine would be operational in five to eight years.

When contacted by Defense News, a spokesman for the Pakistani Navy said he could not comment as to the veracity of the reports.

Mansoor Ahmed, a lecturer at Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University who specializes in nonconventional weapons and missiles, believes the reports are the result of a calculated leak by the Navy, and that a message may be being sent to India.

“This news … appears to be some kind of signaling to the Indians seeing as they are taking delivery of a new nuclear-powered submarine from the Russians as well as their own Arihant Class SSBN,” he said.

“So Pakistan is signaling to the Indians that they are mindful of these developments and taking due measures in response.”

Ahmed said he has for some time believed Pakistan was working on a nuclear propulsion system for submarine applications and that Pakistan already has a functional submarine launched variant of the Babur cruise missile.

The Babur cruise missile is very similar to the U.S. BGM-109 Tomahawk, and perhaps derives at least some technology from Tomahawks which crashed in Pakistan during U.S. strikes on al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in 1998. It can be armed with conventional or nuclear warheads.

Ahmed believes Pakistan is now gearing up to build its own SSN/SSGN flotilla as a way of deterring India and maintaining the strategic balance in South Asia.

However, in the long term in order to fully ensure the credibility of its deterrent Ahmed said he believes Pakistan should build ballistic missile submarines.

Reference

 

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