The World As I see it

Indian Weapons found in Swat

20 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment

by Hina Safdar in Current Affairs, Pakistan, Politics Tags: IDPs, India, Indian weapons, Machine guns, Malakand, Pakistan, Swat

The Pakistani military through its own channels has shared evidence with the U.S. military about Indian support for terrorism in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Swat.

The Pakistani military through its own channels has shared evidence with the U.S. military about Indian support for terrorism in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Swat.
The evidence was embarrassing for the Americans because they have been defending Indian presence in Afghanistan and have also been defending the opening up of Indian consulates in areas close to the Pakistani border.

More embarrassing for the Americans is that besides some Indian weapons and the proof on the presence of Indian-origin special forces personnel and assets, a large amount of standard issue U.S. military weapons have been confiscated by the Pakistanis from dead terrorists. Washington is explaining this by saying these weapons were sold on the black market by the U.S.-trained new Afghan army. But the quality of the weapons – including anti-aircraft guns and launchers – and their quantity eliminates the possibility that smuggling is the only explanation.

The Pakistani government is reluctant to make the evidence public, possibly because it does not want a confrontation with the Indians and the Americans. But the Pakistani military has made its strategic red lines clear.

This is one explanation for why U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns raised for the first time in New Delhi last week the need to “trim” the Indian consulates working in Afghanistan, among other things.

A number of the Indian army standard issue Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine gun, manufactured in India, have been found by the Pakistani military in the hands of the terrorists in Swat. This LMG has a 30-round box magazine and a bipod stand, and is sometimes mistaken for the Bren. Apart from India, it was only sold to a few Baltic and South American states. The picture here has been procured by BRASSTACKS from its own sources in Swat.

In addition to weapons and local assets, a large number of trained special operations personnel working for intelligence agencies are believed to be moving along with the local recruits of the Pakistani Taliban. These foreign operators pose as ‘Islamic fighters’. These foreigners are in addition to foreign fighters that have existed in the area before 2001. The mysterious new foreigners are believed to have introduced in Pakistan actions such as group throat slitting, mass executions, brutal murders, and kidnapping, molesting and raping of women of the poor villagers in the tribal belt in the name of religion. Pakistani soldiers have been consistently discovering uncircumcised dead terrorist fighters in the area over the past three years, something unusual for a militia fighting in the name of Islam. Pictures were posted on this forum of the latest discovery of such fighters. Click here to see the pictures.

The bulk of the heavy weapons, communications equipment and huge stacks of cash owned by the so-called Pakistani Taliban are all supplied by unknown sources in Afghanistan. The size of this entire enterprise precludes the possibility that this is the work of unorganized elements. Supporting evidence suggests that there is more than one intelligence agency in Afghanistan involved in this operation.

It is unthinkable that the Indians would risk sending Indian-made weapons to terrorists. It is believed that these weapons were sent in small numbers to a select group of operatives who slipped from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal belt. The most probable thinking might have been that the agents operating these weapons will not fight on the front lines and will not be captured. Obviously the foreign backers of the so-called Pakistani Taliban did not anticipate that the Pakistani military might at some go for an all-out war against these terrorists by draining the swamp, which means emptying up Swat from its civilian population in order to have a free hand against the terrorists.

Courtesy: Pak Alert