In Its Own War on Terror, Pakistan Piles Up Heavy Losses Pakistans Army Has Lost Roughly Twice as Many Soldiers in the Conflict with Taliban Fighters as the U.S. Wall Street Journal, Mar. 11| Yaroslav Trofimov RAWALPINDI, Pakistan—Each day, Cpl. Hamid Raza helps strap Cpl. Mohammed Yakub to a physiotherapy bench, lifts it and wipes the sweat off his bewildered comrades forehead. Eyes darting, Cpl. Yakub often screams and grunts through the procedure, flailing his hands. Traumatic head injury, Cpl. Raza says softly. He realizes its me, and he tries to speak, but he cant. He cant eat, he cant talk, he cant remember the words. Both men are fortunate to be alive. A year ago, a Taliban roadside bomb hit a truck ferrying Pakistani soldiers from Cpl. Razas 18th Punjab Battalion after a troop rotation in the North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan frontier. Seventeen men were killed, and only a handful survived. It was their first home leave. The Pakistani army has lost roughly twice as many soldiers in the conflict with Taliban fighters as the U.S. It is a toll that keeps rising as American forces prepare to withdraw from next-door Afghanistan by December amid an intensifying war on both sides of the border. In Washington and Kabul, officials often accuse Pakistan of being a duplicitous and insincere ally, charges fueled by alleged covert aid to the Afghan Taliban from some elements of the Pakistani security establishment. In 2011, the then-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, described the Haqqani network, a group of insurgents operating from bases in North Waziristan who are affiliated with the Afghan Taliban, as a veritable arm of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Pakistans government denied the accusation. Murky as this war is, one fact is clear: The price ordinary Pakistani soldiers pay in the struggle against Taliban fighters is real and high. Since Pakistans army began moving into the tribal areas along the Afghan border to confront the Pakistani Taliban in 2004, more than 4,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and more than 13,000 injured, according to military statistics. By comparison, the U.S. has lost 2,315 service members, just over 1,800 of them killed in combat, in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. Many Pakistanis complain that their efforts arent sufficiently appreciated by the U.S. Pakistan is not sincere, Pakistan is not doing enough—these are buzzwords that I hate so much. They dont see the sacrifices that are being made, says retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistans former national-security adviser and ambassador to Washington. Its a heavy toll. We have not lost so many military people in any other war before this. Just last month, the Taliban executed 23 Pakistani troops they had captured, prompting the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to suspend tentative peace talks with the militants. That bloodshed followed several deadly attacks in January, including a bombing of a convoy heading to North Waziristan that killed 26 and a blast that killed eight soldiers here in Rawalpindi, just a few hundred yards from the armys headquarters. Though the Pakistani Taliban, known formally as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, recognize the spiritual authority of Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, they operate separately. The ISI, an arm of Pakistans military, provides considerable support to the Afghan Taliban, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The Pakistani Taliban, by contrast, consider the Pakistani state as their main enemy and attack military and ISI targets. Much more closely aligned with al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban have also attempted attacks on U.S. soil, such as a 2010 failed car bombing on New York Citys Times Square. Both the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network are based in North Waziristan, the only one of Pakistans seven tribal regions on the Afghan border that has yet to be cleared by the military. The U.S., which provides billions of dollars to fund the Pakistani military, has repeatedly pressured Pakistan to launch an operation against both groups in the area. The Pakistani Talibans recent spate of deadly attacks on army targets is making a military operation to retake North Waziristan increasingly likely once the snows in the mountainous region melt in the spring, diplomats and analysts say. If it happens, the Pakistani army would face a formidable enemy there. Lt. Aqib Nawaz, 23, had his shoulder and back peppered by shrapnel from a Taliban mortar that targeted his outpost in the tribal areas. They were very persistent, and tactically, they were very sound, he says, with grudging respect. Though the Pakistani army is present in bases in North Waziristan—some just a few hundred yards from Taliban compounds—soldiers rarely leave the bases except for resupply convoys. Officials say they currently dont have enough manpower in the region to mount offensive missions. The convoys, such as the one Cpl. Yakub and Cpl. Raza rode in last year, are regularly ambushed or hit with improvised explosive devices and land mines. Every day, without fail, the Taliban would attack—with snipers, with rocket launchers. There is no guarantee that you go to these areas and come back alive, Cpl. Raza says. The luckier victims of such attacks arrive in the halls of the Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in Rawalpindi. The Wall Street Journal was provided rare access to the modern hospital, its rooms packed with amputees, some missing as many as three limbs. In addition to their physical wounds, Pakistans injured soldiers, like U.S. Vietnam veterans in an earlier era, must deal with a society that doesnt always appreciate their service. The conflict with the Taliban pits soldiers against fellow Muslims and fellow Pakistanis, and against a sizable segment of the public that views the war in the tribal areas as imposed by the U.S. and counter to Islamic values. The soldiers are very obedient, very patriotic, but at some level, they are conflicted as to why they are killing Muslims, why they are killing their own people, says Rizwan Taj, a psychiatrist who often treats patients from tribal areas that teem with Taliban. Pakistans army is focused mainly on India, Dr. Taj says, and its soldiers are not psychologically, mentally trained for internal disturbances. In November, Munawar Hassan, the leader of a major Islamist political party that sits in the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, said that Pakistani soldiers killed in battle against the Taliban couldnt be considered martyrs because they fought on Americas behalf. He described as a martyr instead Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed that month in a U.S. drone strike. The Pakistani military denounced Mr. Hassan, demanding an apology but getting none. I was very hurt by his statement, says Pvt. Mohammed Ali, a patient in the Rawalpindi military hospital. What we are doing is protecting our country, putting our lives on the line for our mothers and sisters. A soldier with Pakistans Northern Light Infantry, Pvt. Ali, 28, lost his right leg during a clearing operation in the Kurram tribal area in 2012. He has had three surgeries since then. The Taliban would fire rocket-propelled grenades and attack at night, never showing themselves, he says. Following one of the patrols, which involved a gunfight, Pvt. Ali was returning to his base. He stepped on a freshly planted Taliban mine. I didnt lose consciousness after the blast, and the other soldiers carried me down on a stretcher, he recalls. A fellow amputee, Pvt. Ali Rehman, 21, had just arrived in the Kurram area when his unit was sent to retrieve the body of a soldier killed by the Taliban higher up in the mountains. We were going through the valley in an open-backed vehicle, and thats when we struck an IED, he recalls. The explosion sheared off his right leg. Amputees are usually able to serve in a desk job in the military once fitted with prosthetic limbs. The military hospital in Rawalpindi provides some of the most sophisticated such devices, says Maj. Zaheer Gill, its specialist of rehabilitative medicine. If an army offensive in North Waziristan kicks off this spring, the hospital is likely to deal with a fresh wave of patients. Despite their numbers, the men treated here are just a fraction of the toll. The most seriously injured rarely survive, Maj. Gill adds, and never even reach over here.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 06:26:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015