The Morning Blend
Welcome
Complete Media Kit
FORT HUACHUCA — Pakistan is ground zero in the war on terrorism, a Pakistani army officer told a group of American soldiers Wednesday.
And many Americans don’t appreciate how much Pakistan has done in combating terrorism or taken into consideration the trouble being an American ally creates within Pakistan, Maj. Waheed Zafar said.
Maj. Kashif Javed, another Pakistani Army officer, echoed Zafar’s view.
Both men are students at the Intelligence Center on Fort Huachuca, and both men offered their personal views of the situation in their nation. Waheed is in the captain’s course and Kashif in the basic course, along with other foreign officers.
 Pakistani army Majs. Kashif Javed, left, and Waheed Zafar talk about a Wednesday briefing they made to a group of U.S. soldiers and civilians. The two officers are attending courses at the Intelligence Center on Fort Huachuca. (Bill Hess-Herald/Review) |
Maj. Gen. John Custer, commander of the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, listened to the two officers talk about Pakistan as part of a briefing given by foreign officers who attend the training courses at the center.
“Pakistan is a valued friend and partner in our war against terrorism,” Custer said.
He, too, agreed Americans do not realize what Pakistan has gone through and is going though in supporting the United States.
All three officers said American news media are tilted toward U.S views. But the trio concluded that even Pakistan’s news is presented for the local consumption, not for a wider international audience.
Kashif told the audience of more than 50 people that 1,083 Pakistani military have been killed in countering terrorists and 2,687 have been wounded, mostly in the area known as the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies, where Pakistan’s constitution agreed the Pakistani army would not be used and control of the area would be given by the various tribes.
Pakistan also has been hit by 3,157 bomb blasts that have killed more than 4,000 civilians, Kashif said.
In the process of trying to counter a growing insurgency in Pakistan, 1,340 terrorists have been killed, 2,011 captured and 3,700 Afghan Taliban “extradited to Afghanistan only to be released by the Afghan government,” Kashif said.
With nearly 85,000 Pakistani soldiers involved in the tribal areas, which he and Waheed noted is a smaller area than the United States and coalition forces have in all of Afghanistan, the two majors said there is still a lesson for the United States to learn.
Waheed said the Soviet military had more than 300,00 troops in Afghanistan trying to take over that country and was unsuccessful. With less than 100,000 American and coalition forces now available in Afghanistan, the prospect for victory isn’t realistic, he said.
The growth of the Pakistani Taliban is developing in the region and is impacting Pakistan, Waheed said. The Pakistani Taliban are not part of the Afghan Taliban, and they are separate forces.
As for al-Qaida, Waheed said it is not much of a problem.
In fact, he said he does not believe Osama bin Laden is still living.
Waheed said India continues to make trouble in Pakistan, using the Pakistani Taliban to their advantage to try and destabilize their neighbor. Pakistan and India have fought three wars, and they continue to be at conflict, mostly over Kashmir.
Custer said 90 percent of the Pakistani military “faces east” toward India.
Waheed said many Pakistanis now view the military as being an arm of America, even though military efforts being done are to ensure Pakistan does not fall into disarray.
And, he said, Afghanistan is a key part of regional peace. Unfortunately, there is no central government in Afghanistan, he added.
Kashif said Hamid Karzai, who is president of Afghanistan, is not a national leader.
“He’s just the mayor of Kabul (Afghanistan’s capital city),” Waheed added.
And Karzai and other Afghan leaders are becoming too cozy with India, both Pakistani officers said. They added it’s troubling that India has 16 consulates in Afghanistan.
Custer said that because India is the traditional enemy of Pakistan, India is seen as trying to encircle Pakistan by opening so many consulates in Afghanistan.
Waheed said the consulates are fronts for hiring Pakistanis who believe they have been disenfranchised or lack money. Under the guise of doing construction work in Afghanistan, they are really being trained to cause more problems in the tribal areas of his country, the officer said.
The Pakistani military was once seen as the people’s protectors. But with American drones launching missile strikes in some tribal areas, the Pakistani military is seen as part of killing Pakistanis, Waheed said.
Pakistan’s army chief of staff has warned that those actions have to stop, Waheed added. And, he said, senior Pakistani army officers have told U.S. military leaders to tell them where the suspected terrorists are and Pakistan will handle the problem without causing the deaths of innocent bystanders.
“Collateral damage is not acceptable,” he said.
Kashif added the continued use of missiles targeting Pakistan areas hurts the United States and Pakistan’s joint war on terrorism.
Both officers noted that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the United States sought and received support from the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence group, or ISI, that supported operations inside Pakistan where anti-Soviet Afghans were trained. At the height of the conflict, more than 4 million Afghan refugees fled into Pakistan.
The CIA and ISI worked hand-in-hand then, and there is no reason it cannot do the same now, Kashif added.
There is a growing discontent with the Pakistani military within the tribal areas. Waheed said there have been fatwas, which are religious edicts, issued by Muslim leaders in Pakistan against the nation’s military.
Pakistan must work with the tribal leaders and again allow them to control the region, Waheed said.
Facts about Pakistan
Pakistan has the seventh largest military in the world with 1.5 million members. The total Pakistani population is 172.8 million. The nation is twice as large as California and is bordered by Afghanistan, China, India and Iran. The national language is Urdu, but its official language is English.
Pakistan was created in 1947 when Great Britain gave up its rule of the Indian subcontinent, establishing two nations, one with a majority Muslim population and the other a majority of Hindus, India.
The green in Pakistan’s flag stands for the Muslim population and the white band is for other religious minorities in the country.
Source: Briefing by Pakistani Army Maj. Waheed Zafar
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
Who What Where When y Why wrote on Nov 27, 2008 7:17 AM: