The BBC reports that Pakistan is trying a new strategy to catch militants associated with Al-Qaeda. They’re using a classic technique from spy movies, so hoary it’s almost a staple Bollywood plot:

The game plan involves letting loose dozens of suspects known to have been affiliated with or at least sympathetic to al-Qaeda, in the hope that they would eventually lead the authorities to some top wanted figures in the terrorist organisation.

Top security experts admit that it is a dangerous game but argue that a similar approach in the past has reaped rich dividends. Security experts say former Guantanamo detainees – released by the Pakistan authorities on being returned – unwittingly led security agencies to many previously unknown hideouts used by local and foreign militants… Pakistani authorities have now clearly decided to extend this strategy on a scale that some feel could lead to unexpected results. [BBC]

The Pakistani government claims that this strategy has led to important arrests in Waziristan, Balochistan and Karachi.

I have no idea whether to believe the Pakistani government, because they have plenty of other incentives to want this strategy. From a political standpoint, this is convenient. The Pakistanis obtain the domestic benefits of getting their citizens out of gitmo without the headaches of locking them up in Pakistan:

In immediate terms, the strategy means easing some of the restrictions imposed earlier on top Pakistani militants. The visible part of the plan unfolding in recent weeks came in the shape of the release of about 150 Pakistanis who had returned from Guantanamo Bay. After extensive debriefing lasting between nine to 10 months, most of these men were allowed to go free.  [BBC]

More importantly, it also gives the Pakistani government an excuse for not cracking down harder on certain extremist groups at home. They can say that it is all part of their grand strategy.

Some security analysts in Pakistan have been critical of the government’s seemingly soft stance in relation to Harkat and Jaish – wondering why they have not been dealt with as severely as some of the other groups. [BBC]

We’re leaving these groups intact, not for any political benefit, but so we can catch Osama. Really. That upsurge of violence in Afghanistan? The attempt on the life of the US Ambassador there? It’s all part of our grand plan …

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Abhi posted earlier about the India-Pakistan fight over the high-altitude Siachen glacier. Let’s take a closer look at the economic aspect: the 23-year-old Siachen conflict is the epitome of inefficient war engineering, even worse than the kill ratio of musket warfare in the 18th century. The enemy here isn’t the other nation, it’s the territory you’re purportedly saving. It’s like fighting on Mars or the ice planet Hoth (photos):

Ninety-seven per cent of casualties here are due to the extreme weather and altitude, rather than fighting. “On the glacier you have to first survive the elements and then you fight the enemy,” says a senior officer…. [Link]

… with winter temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, the inhospitable climate in Siachen has claimed more lives than gunfire. [Link]

India has lost more than 2,500 men in Siachen, most of them to the hostile weather. [Link]

Every ounce of supply is hauled on specialized high-altitude helicopters and snowmobiles. The cost has been $10B (extrapolated), or $30B adjusted for purchasing power. The cost of supplies is a hundred times more expensive than on a normal battlefield, and India’s paying platinum rates to airlift human feces. Instead it could have bought fourteen Russian aircraft carriers:

… a chapatti delivered to a soldier there cost Rs 500. Even the excreta of soldiers manning these posts has to be lifted by helicopters and brought to base for disposal… [Link]

Islamabad political analyst Hussain calculates that it costs the Indians $438 million a year to fight for Siachen (Indian officials claim it is less than $300 million), while Pakistan’s bill is estimated at $182 million… [Link]

I have been intently following the plight of the four missing U.S. Navy SEALS over the past weekend. Knowing that they were out there on the 4th of July just trying to survive in the mountains was pretty moving. As of today, one of them has been rescued, the bodies of two were recovered, and a fourth is still missing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who exhibit such extreme self-discipline and self-reliance. Soldiers in mountainous areas epitomize these qualities regardless of the rationale behind their orders.

The most brutal mountain fighting in the world has been along the India-Pakistan-China border at 19,000 ft. high on the Siachen Glacier, in the Karakoram. This classic 2003 article in Outside Magazine is essential reading for anyone who is a student of the absurdity of war:

Here’s what is beyond dispute: Never before have troops fought for such extended periods in such extreme physical conditions. At least twice a week a man dies, occasionally from bullets or artillery, but more often from an avalanche, a tumble into a crevasse, or a high-altitude sickness—perils usually faced only by elite climbers. Not surprisingly, the men who serve in the war regard it as the supreme challenge for a soldier.

“Minus 50 at 21,000 feet—it’s beyond anything the human body is designed to endure,” an Indian officer on the Siachen told me. “This is the ultimate test of human willpower. It’s also an environmental catastrophe. And—no doubt about it—things can only get worse.”

…Life at such forward positions is brutal, and the Indians begrudgingly admit that the Pakistanis are tough customers. “They are sitting right underneath us on an 80-degree slope,” one Indian officer who was stationed above Tabish would tell me later. “We can throw grenades just like pebbles on top of them. It really takes guts to be there.” Captain Waqas Malik, 26, who served at Tabish, grimly described the hopeless feeling of such positions. “Once a ridge has been occupied,” he said, “you require a heart with the capacity of the ocean to accept the casualties you will incur in the taking of it.“

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