Dissecting the Terrorist attack on the Pathankot Air base

The Pathankot Attack shows the Inefficiency of Indian reaction

Indian anti-terrorist elite troops have shown that they are not as professional as touted. Here is a case of 6 terrorists who had sneaked into India to attack the IAF front line base at Pathankot and an operation that should have been over in 4 hours dragged on for 4 days. This base was home to squadrons of MIG 21 and attack helicopters namely the MI 25 and 35.

The biggest culprit is Ajit Doval. He is an intelligence man and has in fact zero operational experience of actual battle or counterinsurgency operations. Yet this man who is the national security advisor was allowed to run this operation. The fact is he never used the army and just rushed in 150 of his elite guards from Mansi in Haryana. These men who had little knowledge of the land and topography could not neutralize the terrorists for 4 days. Perhaps in case he had some experience and not wanting to corner the “glory” he would have called in the army, which had 50000 troops on hand in the Pathankot area.

All the actions of Doval makes sad reading and worse are the dubious role of the Punjab police SP who was abducted and released. This is itself cause for worry and there is a chance this man was a pawn in the entire attack. Maybe he had sold his soul to the devil, but now that there is an investigation on, perhaps the truth will come out.

One must remember that the Mumbai police had shown cowardice during the 26/11 Mumbai carnage and the security forces then took 6 days to neutralize the terrorists with over 200 deaths. What a colossal failure. No lessons have been learnt and this attack on a prime asset like a Pathankot air base was allowed to linger on as there was no clear cut SOP laid down and lastly why was a man like Doval allowed to run the operations when he had no experience.