JeM's Masood Azhar calls on Pakistan govt to give free hand for jihad: Report

Azhar argues that organisations like his JeM can achieve victory for Pakistan in Kashmir and avenge the 1971 defeat

Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) head Masood Azhar has called on the Pakistani government to "shows a little courage" and allow jihadist organisations a free hand in escalating their attacks in India, in order to "resolve" the Kashmir dispute, the Indian Express reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Azhar, alleged to have masterminded the Pathankot attack in January this year, was addressing the Pakistani establishment in the current issue of the JeM weekly magazine al-Qalam.

Quoting Azhar, the national daily's report said: “If the government of Pakistan shows a little courage... The problem of Kashmir, as well as the dispute over water, can be resolved once and for all right now. If nothing else, the government simply has to open the path for the mujahideen. Then, god willing, all the bitter memories of 1971 will be dissolved into the triumphant emotions of 2016."

The appeal was meant to stir up memories of Pakistan's defeat in the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, where Indian armed forces and the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini handed the Pakistani armed forces in then East Pakistan a decisive defeat, a historical event which still feeds into the bellicose narrative of those like Azhar and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed.

Jihadist policy has "damaged" India

Lobbying for greater role and freedom for terrorist organisations like the JeM, Azhar, according to the national daily, wrote that jihad by Pakistan-based organisations had left “every one of its (India's) limbs badly injured”.

Touting the success of jihad as a military strategy, Azhar added, “What remained of its military prowess was exposed in Pathankot and Uri." Read Full Story

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Continued jihad in Kashmir

Surgical strikes achieve tactical closure, not strategic detente: Former NATGRID CEO

Surgical strikes achieve tactical closure, not strategic detente: Former NATGRID CEO

Military power is never about the number of troops, tanks, ships or aircrafts. If military power was all a country needed to establish superiority, America would not have been beaten by Vietnam, the Soviet Union would not have been routed by Afghan tribes and the juggernaut that is the Indian Army would not have been held at bay by a few thousand Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

A country’s military power is actually determined by a combination of economic realities, governance frameworks, national will and strategic thinking – which work together to deliver a punch worthy of its weight.

Comparing India’s military power to Pakistan’s from this perspective actually yields a startling conclusion.

In 1999, Pakistan’s army chief at the time was mid-air when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to sack him. Surgical Strikes Denied permission to land in Pakistan and faced with the option of making an emergency landing on Indian soil, the sacked general decided to land in Karachi anyway. He communicated his orders to his military subordinates through the civilian aviation channel and by the time his plane landed, Pervez Musharraf was firmly back in the saddle while Sharif had been toppled off his. That is the power of the Pakistani military.

Now compare the Pakistani army’s swiftness to India’s handling of the Kandahar hijacking in 1999. When the Indian Airlines flight was taken over by terrorists and parked in Amritsar over the course of its long journey, the Indian establishment could not decide between blocking the aircraft’s departure or letting it go. That ambivalence cost India the advantage it had in being able to control events happening on its own turf. Read More

Three nuances of national strength

Three strategic realities India cannot overlook

Using economic leverage to influence Pakistani economy

Expose and target value chains of Pakistan’s military businesses

Combine ‘strategic depth’ with ‘strategic stretch’

Article Source : Business Standard

Surgical strikes: How the world conducts them and how India did it

Surgical strikes: How the world conducts them and how India did it

Indian armed forces conducted surgical strikes in the early hours of Thursday across the Line of Control (LoC), involving not more than 100 commandos, in what is seen as a paradigm shift in how this government plans to deal with terrorist camps across the border.

The term "surgical strike" has been prevalent in the international media since the days of the Gulf War, and it came to typify operations conducted by the US thereafter.

Going by the generally accepted definition offered by experts, a surgical strike comprises a swift, intelligence-driven attack on a specific target or targets with minimum collateral damage to structures, infrastructure or civilians in the target's vicinity.

The operation can involve special forces units on the ground, strikes conducted by military aircraft or vessels. Read More

How India conducted its strikes

How the big hitters do it

Article Source : Business Standard

Nawaz Sharif's UNGA speech: Top 10 things he said and India's rebuttals to his accusations

Nawaz Sharif's UNGA speech: Top 10 things he said and India's rebuttals to his accusations

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif raked up the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and tried to burnish his country's credentials as an opponent of global terrorism.

His speech, which also referred to the prevailing situation in Europe and the Middle East, attempted to paint India as an uncooperative neighbour which had rebuffed Sahrif's overtures for peace.

His speech came days after suspected Pakistan-based terrorists attacked an Indian army camp in Uri, in Kashmir, and killed 18 Indian soldiers. The four terrorists who participated in the attack were also eliminated by the security forces during the attack.

ALSO READ: Pak PM Sharif should have talked about Balochistan not Kashmir: Baloch activist

India for its part reacted very strongly to the Pakistani prime minister's speech, calling it an act of "self-incrimination" on the latter's part.

Here are the top 10 things Sharif said at the UNGA and India's rebuttal to some of them: Read More