ISLAMABAD:
For those addicted to action, the flight from Tarbela was probably not
worth it. By the time the Zarrar Company of the Special Operations Task
Force got in the game, it was almost over.
Pakistan’s
toughest crack team of commandos — the same unit that saw action and
sacrifice in the Lal Masjid operation in 2007 — didn’t get to do much at
the Jinnah International Airport on Monday morning except secure some
aircraft that were idling on the tarmac. Ghosts, entering shells, at
around 0430 hours, as the call to Fajr prayers soared across the Jinnah
Terminal’s tarmac.
A directive from an infantryman who was
watching from afar had decreased their workload. The country’s most
powerful soldier – some still maintain that he’s also the country’s most
powerful man – General Raheel Sharif, was up all night: demanding
‘SitReps’, getting updates from the V Corps Commander and in direct
contact with the operational brains on the ground behind the
counter-assault, the Director General of the Pakistan Rangers.
“Spare
no quarter. Show no mercy,” is what the Chief of Army Staff had told
Lt. Gen. Sajjad Ghani and Major General Rizwan Akhtar, according to the
military spokesperson, Major General Asim S. Bajwa. “Do not wait for the
battle to evolve. Win the fight, now.”
If the television
media’s hyper narratives were to be believed, no was really in charge in
those first few hours. If social media were to be believed, PAF’s
drones and the Navy’s frogmen were in the mix, too. But detailed
conversations with senior and mid-level officers on the ground indicate
that despite intelligence and security lapse - or is it failure, for how
else would ten terrorists infiltrate Pakistan’s busiest airport but
without proper reconnaissance and surveillance that “probably took
several days, even weeks”, according to an insider - the heavy lifting
was done by those who were responsible for it: The Airport Security
Force. And quick, aggressive operational decision-making and joint
coordination between multiple intelligence, security and even
information machines took care of the rest.
Led by
Brigadier Azam Tawana, JIA’s ASF contingent is slightly larger than a
proper army-sized brigade, around 3,000 officers and men. Pakistan is
one of the few countries in the world that maintains a purpose-built
force – around 10,000 across all of Pakistan’s airports. Not fully
military, not fully civilian, the ASF usually gets its fair share of
criticism for being in on airport-related scandals, usually smuggling.
Detractors also recall how the same ASF had caused a serious lapse in
letting Palestinian hijackers play havoc with the same target, Karachi’s
old terminal, in 1986 when Abu Nidal terrorists were actually saluted
on their way to the tarmac as they took over Pan-Am flight 73. Just like
this contingent, the Arabs of ‘86 were sporting ASF uniforms.
But
those were different times. The ASF went through a beefing up in the
‘90s, as it saw its now redundant elite Air Guards occupy a First Class
seat in every PIA flight between Pakistan and everywhere.
By
the early 2000s, budget cuts and decreased threat indices caused the
ASF to scale back and limit its Air Guard program, forcing it to morph
the commandos into a dedicated company-sized Quick Reaction Force, that
came into play when terrorists broke cover at the second barrier of the
old terminal on Sunday night and caused the initial casualties to
regular ASF personnel. It would be that same QRF contingent’s role in
the fighting that would ensue from around 2330 hours to 0130 hours,
which would be decisive.
By the time regular contingents
of the paramilitary Rangers, led by the Bhittai Sector that watches over
this area, had set up the outer cordon, the ASF had “borne the initial
brunt and stood their ground”, according to Major General Bajwa.
“It’s
their home. It’s their area of responsibility. They are not as well
trained as our boys, nor do they see as much as action as we do, but
they were very brave,” said a senior commander from the Rangers who took
part in the action. “Even when some of them ran out of ammo, they threw
aside their weapons and acted as our guides”
As the
Rangers own Special Operations force – the RATS (Rangers Anti-Terror
Squad), and the crack troops of the 4th Frontier Force Regiment, which
is an armoured infantry battalion based nearby and connected to the 25th
Mechanized Division had joined the action, the ASF had taken hits but
also managed to isolate the terrorists into two groups. It’s dedicated,
terminal-centric training – apron cordoning, parameter fencing - had
paid off. The militants were holed up, and even though it would take 450
men to clear one hangar, and more good guys than bad guys would be lost
– 11 ASF personnel and one Ranger, versus 10 militants - “it had to be
done that way”, according to a senior commander.
“At the
height of it, it was room to room combat, and we moved in two groups,
left and right, and kept on forming inner and outer cordons and forcing
tighter concentric circles around the terrorists” said a senior officer
who participated in the fighting. “And the fact that the DG Rangers and
the IG Police and everyone else got there fast, only helped in
aggressive decision-making. Frankly, we were done in the first one and
half hours because nobody was in the mood for a debate.”
Security
experts would have a field day in dissecting all that went wrong with
the way the operation was handled: The media’s coverage of weapons,
platforms and contingents of troops that were deployed was a straight
giveaway, a serious compromise, of the security footprint that was being
committed to the cause of saving the airport; the Sindh Chief
Minister’s token arrival and photo-op at the scene, which only created
more chaos than security; the confusing contradictions between Sharjeel
Memon, the Sindh Rangers public relations officials and the
Inter-Service Public Relations Directorate (especially regarding the
“Indian connection”); and the hyper-activity on social media, even by
responsible politicians, ‘journalists’ and ‘religious leaders’, which
only compounded the insurgent confusion.
But these are the
facts: The attack was unequivocally a failure on the part of the state;
as an international news editor in London I was updating through the
night eventually pointed out, “it’s pretty humiliating to have the
largest airport of the largest city of the world’s fifth largest country
taken on by a bunch of thugs, especially given the size the military
and intel apparatus you guys have.”
But, remembering the
attack on PNS Mehran, I will go on a limb and claim, as my sources do,
that it could have been worse. Given what the attackers had on them
besides their weapons - dry rations to keep them going, blood
thickeners like Oncodox 50 to keep them fighting – anything was
possible: a long-haul hostage drama; a blown up international airliner; a
live suicide-bombing caught on tape. As a worn-out operational
commander who had spent the night in combat brusquely pointed out: “They
got inside our house, but they couldn’t touch our mothers and sisters:
our vital assets remained.”
