The Mehran attack: Disturbing Implications

The Taliban attack on the Pakistan Navy’s Base at Mehran marked the emergence of a new attack profile. It was patterned on the LTTEs Black Tiger attacks on the Colombo’s  Katunyake Air Base in 2001 and the Anuradhapuram Air Base in 2007. 14 Tigers had launched the first attack and destroyed 10 aircraft and damage another 10. In the second attack, 24 Tigers were involved and managed to destroy 10 aircraft and damage 15. The Mehran attacks were equally focused on the destruction of high value military equipment and not so much on killing people. It destroyed two P-3C Orion Maritime Surveillance aircraft and damaged a helicopter. It was launched by 6 Taliban suicide Mujahideen and used an RPG to destroy the parked air craft.

As per eyewitness report s, these men were wearing Black overalls and had night vision goggles. They were carrying M-16 Stoner rifles and Heckler and Koch MP-5sand had come logistically prepared to fight on for at least three days. They appeared to be highly trained professionals who moved by fire and move and were expert marksmen.  Their aim possibly was to destroy as many aircraft as possible and thereafter create a hostage situation as reportedly 11 Chinese and 6 American Air Force personnel were in the base. When they moved to capture the Chinese (they  knew the precise location of their quarters), the Pakistani SSG-N( Navy) commandoes whisked the Chinese away in an Armoured Personell Carrier. It was only then that the terrorists took up position in the office complex for their last stand. An accurate sketch map of the airfield complex was recovered from one of the slain terrorists. The attack has been a major setback as Pakistan has lost two of the Orion Maritime Recce aircraft sold to it by the USA along with a hundred Harpoon missiles. Reportedly 5 of these aircraft have been delivered so far by the Americans. These had no role whatsoever in the global war on terror. However they had put India’s entire western seaboard till Karwar under risk along with India’s off- shore oil platforms at Bombay High.

The attack on a well guarded military installation occurred at a time of the highest alert in Pakistan in the wake of Bin Laden’s elimination. From the statements of Pakistan’s interior Minister Rehman Malik ,it was apparent that the Taliban attackers scaled the perimeter wall at a point where there was a dead zone in the coverage of the Surveillance cameras. Such precise information about surveillance gaps could only have come from inside the Naval Base and points to complicity at the lower level of some personnel within the Base. It is this complicity that is cause for serious concern. The Masroor Air Base where Pakistani F-16 s( modified for toss bombing of nuclear weapons) are based, is just 15 miles from Mehran. Reportedly, nuclear air delivered bombs are stock piled at this base. It could easily have been targetted instead of Mehran with dire consequences not just for Pakistan but the entire region and the world.

Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal. In the last four years it has expanded from 30-80 warheads to over 110 nuclear weapons. Pakistan also has the most radicalized population in the world, where some 11,803 Registered Madrasas and another 34,000 unregistered Madrasas constitute a Jihad factory churning out highly radicalized young men each year. There is a second juxtaposition that makes the situation explosive. Some 75% of the Pakistani Army is recruited from five districts in West Punjab’s Potwar Plateau. Punjabi Taliban’s Jihadi Tanzeems like the LET and JEM also do the bulk of their recruitment from this region. Thus from the same family sons join the Armed Services as also the Jihadi Tanzeems. Surely, family ties remain strong and the Jihadi recruits interact freely with their military brethren. This situation is tailor-made to lead to insider support/ complicity in attacks on military installations. In fact there are media speculations in Pakistan that the Taliban attackers were either retired or serving Pakistan Army personnel. It is precisely this insider support which has been highlighted by the Mehran attack. Some 10,000 Pakistani soldiers seconded to the Strategic Plans Division guard the nukes.

In such a highly radicalized society – how can these be insulated from the  population in general which has been programmed to extol Jihad and martyrdom. This society showed the depths of its radicalization when it lionized  Quadri , the murderer of Salman Taseer, the Governor of West Punjab as also the killers of the Christian Minister for Minorities. Both victims  had been opposing the draconian Blasphemy laws. Quadri ,incidentally, was detailed 18 times in the year 2010 to guard the President/Prime minister of Pakistan! The Pakistani Guards of President Zardari and PM Gilani are reportedly now  being replaced by American Guards.

Mehran has now highlighted the dangerous implications of insider support and complicity for attacks on such vital installations. These are no longer in the realm of hypothesis and conjecture, wiki leak cables have highlighted incidents of sabotage of Pakistani F 16 planes which are a primary vector for delivery of nuclear ordinance. Prof Shaun Greogry has reported that in the past five years militants have attacked three Pakistani nuclear facilities/ storehouses at Wah, Sargodha Air Base and Kamra. Coupled with the most recent Mehran attack these illustrate a clear set of weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Pakistani security regime for its Nuclear weapons.

One of the least known and most startling episode however has been the insurgent attack on the Khauta Nuclear Plant for Reprocessing Uranium. Reportedly armed insurgents attacked the Railway sidings where wagons carrying Uranium for enrichment were being marshaled.

These attacks have very grave implications for global Security per se. They could actualize catastrophic terrorism of a magnitude that has not been seen so far. The entire discourse of nuclear deterrence is premised upon rational state actors whose territory and population can be held hostage. How do you deter radicalized Jihadis with suicidal tendencies. Even as America continues to pour billions of dollars into Pakistan, it must ponder over this mounting threat to its own security. it is time for a serious reality check in Pakistan.

Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi (Retd) is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS)

(The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the centre for land warfare studies).