During Operation Mountain Storm in 2004, the Pak Army went in with 80,000 troops, and made it thru Kaniguram north all the way to Razmak. Opposition melted away from head to head fighting just like now.
But trying to keep the lines of communication open between Kaniguram and Razmak bled the Pak army over time until they pulled back out. Just like the Brits back at the turn of the century. The Kaniguram fighters make some of the best steel on earth, and according to old Brit pilots, one guy with a rifle seems like ten with machine guns, due to accurate fires at high volumes. They can fight, and armies are afraid of them, with some justification.
You are seeing a demonstration. Pakistan stages them any time the question of their US funding comes up. The powers that be are willing to spend troops lives to secure that funding.
They will push into the FATA, just as they have before, and they will regularly publicise apparant successes, quite loudly at times, but they will not base large numbers there over the long haul, and they will not push regular patrols into the numerous mountain passes that control the heart of the Shawal Valley, and they will not endure the political and violent opposition necessary to implement checkpoints, not long enough to have real effect.
They are not up against just Taliban/AQ here, the people that live there have enjoyed relative freedom from national government for centuries now, they are of similar mindset as the Taliban/AQ, and they have beaten some of the greatest military’s on earth to defend that freedom, in the recent past and in the distant past.
Don’t get your hopes up too high, this is probably just another iteration of deja vu.
Not sure how the US is gonna win this with militants fighting over there trained supported and supplied by our own govt.
>>>You are seeing a demonstration. Pakistan stages them any time the question of their US funding comes up. The powers that be are willing to spend troops lives to secure that funding.
Certainly there is a history of such dog and pony shows. This campaign is different I think, a response to the attack on the Pakistani army HQ that targeted senior Pakistani generals. Burying dead generals gets their colleagues attention .
Thanks jeffers.