Indian Special Forces

[Water Car Engineer]

Pampore encounter

Pampore encounter

Cockroaches roasted.

 

[Abingdonboy]

@Abingdonboy brother
the casualties of IA is killing me right now, just two days back we have lost two son of soil, right now a young cap of 10th para.Why this rate is so high 3 soldiers in a couple of days

Isn't the right time for the RRs and PARAs or CRPF deployed in valley should revisit there SOPs. What about introducing APCs in room/building intervention process.

I was about to ask the gurus here something similar. What is causing these many casualties even among the most elite of our units? What is being done at the infantry level to prevent loss of life? Very pained seeing brave young men going away so frequently.

One needs to understand the nature of these operations and the Indian Mil's COIN doctrine.

The established COIN doctrine adhered to by Indian forces is to use the minimal force possible- no airpower, no heavy arty- the most they will use is 120mm morters or 40mm grenades.

Remember, this is a war being fought on Indian soil, they cannot destroy each and every building with terrorists in it- at least not as a first resort especially when you don't know if all the innocents are safe. Addtionally a lost of emphasis is placed on capturing these vermin alive, where possible, and thus the result is protracted operations and close quarter combat in many instances.

One may have become accustomed to the Western SF/military way of fighting in foreign lands- overwhelming force ("shock and awe"), little consideration given to collateral damage, standoff weapon employment etc etc but this is not how the Indian Mil fights.


Let's not forget- the Security forces evacuated 120+ civlians out from this building which clearly where the target of these rats.


SF are the tip of the spear and are not superhuman- they are as prone to injury as anyone else. This is a tragic operation but it was a success at the end of the day and is just onf of 1000s of missions SF teams conduct every year.

View attachment 294828

R.I.P. Capt. Pawan. He was just 23 !!

That's is unfathombly young to be losing your life in this way, RIP warriors.

Should have used armoured vehicle or tanks
It was stupidity to take direct infantry action

Armoured vehicles were used but that doesn't help in room to room fighting.

Its a stupid idea to use SF.

Nonsense, this is what the SF lives for.


Of course we are all sad that these scum have taken the lives of some of the best of us but do not forget that they all died as warriors- on their feet and fighting an enemy that seeks to harm their nation, this is how these men would have wanted to go.

Indeed . If you take example of last few encounters we had zero casualties.@Abingdonboy what you think of usING NSG instead who are better suited for such door to door operation? One good unit to station there only in case of such hostage situations. Not the search and cordon operations. I think if PARA had protective bullet proof shields, these casualties should have avoided.

The NSG would be a good choice also but the IA would never ask for NSG help- the entire state is under their command.

RIP Capt Pawan Kumar, 10 Para (SF):

So f*cking young


@Levina @anant_s @Vauban @MilSpec @PARIKRAMA @Guynextdoor2 @nair @Taygibay @SpArK @AUSTERLITZ @knight11

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

This is the building. There are no buildings nearby as cover. Rooftop abseiling also is difficult. The terrorists have clear field view and therefore no blind spots. So the room intervention is difficult for them. The army is now resorting to mortar attack. That's the best thing to do.

View attachment 294861

Why not just use snipers? Or if the area is free from civilians - then use gas instead of destroying the building with mortar firing.

 

[Levina]

RIP Capt Pawan Kumar, 10 Para (SF):

So f*cking young

Capt.Pawan Kumar was a lucky guy.
He lived his dream. He wanted to be an army officer and kill terrorists - that was his childhood dream.
RIP brave soldier!
You will be missed.

 

[anant_s]

RIP Capt Pawan Kumar, 10 Para (SF):

Rest in Peace!

 

[for truth]

sorry for the off topic comment.

@Abingdonboy , do you happen to live on Abingdon road, just off the earls court road in central London?

 

[noksss]

One needs to understand the nature of these operations and the Indian Mil's COIN doctrine.

The established COIN doctrine adhered to by Indian forces is to use the minimal force possible- no airpower, no heavy arty- the most they will use is 120mm morters or 40mm grenades.

Remember, this is a war being fought on Indian soil, they cannot destroy each and every building with terrorists in it- at least not as a first resort especially when you don't know if all the innocents are safe. Addtionally a lost of emphasis is placed on capturing these vermin alive, where possible, and thus the result is protracted operations and close quarter combat in many instances.

One may have become accustomed to the Western SF/military way of fighting in foreign lands- overwhelming force ("shock and awe"), little consideration given to collateral damage, standoff weapon employment etc etc but this is not how the Indian Mil fights.


Let's not forget- the Security forces evacuated 120+ civlians out from this building which clearly where the target of these rats.


SF are the tip of the spear and are not superhuman- they are as prone to injury as anyone else. This is a tragic operation but it was a success at the end of the day and is just onf of 1000s of missions SF teams conduct every year.


That's is unfathombly young to be losing your life in this way, RIP warriors.



Armoured vehicles were used but that doesn't help in room to room fighting.

Nonsense, this is what the SF lives for.


Of course we are all sad that these scum have taken the lives of some of the best of us but do not forget that they all died as warriors- on their feet and fighting an enemy that seeks to harm their nation, this is how these men would have wanted to go.


The NSG would be a good choice also but the IA would never ask for NSG help- the entire state is under their command.

RIP Capt Pawan Kumar, 10 Para (SF):

So f*cking young


@Levina @anant_s @Vauban @MilSpec @PARIKRAMA @Guynextdoor2 @nair @Taygibay @SpArK @AUSTERLITZ @knight11

The point here is PARA SF has handleded hostage situation earlier with either less casualty or almost no casualty so my question is what makes this operation so complex that the Elite's has to take such a high casualty . Is the Terrorist getting better than our Elite guys ? or Should we revisit some Flaws in our doctrine or Improving the training or not sure what we have to do to have less casualty in such a complex operation

 

[Brahmaputra Mail]

Why not just use snipers? Or if the area is free from civilians - then use gas instead of destroying the building with mortar firing.

The buildings had too many rooms to hide.

The point here is PARA SF has handleded hostage situation earlier with either less casualty or almost no casualty so my question is what makes this operation so complex that the Elite's has to take such a high casualty . Is the Terrorist getting better than our Elite guys ? or Should we revisit some Flaws in our doctrine or Improving the training or not sure what we have to do to have less casualty in such a complex operation

There were civilians near the encounter area who were resorting to stone pelting and sloganeering. Chances are these civilians alerted the militants while 9&10 Para (SF) units were attempting room intervention.

 

[knight11]

Why not just use snipers? Or if the area is free from civilians - then use gas instead of destroying the building with mortar firing.

Para SF have marksman, what you termed as sniper here, but for the sucessful sniper stike, you need clear line of sight. The situation presented here, made the SF to do close range gun to gun fight.

The point here is PARA SF has handleded hostage situation earlier with either less casualty or almost no casualty so my question is what makes this operation so complex that the Elite's has to take such a high casualty . Is the Terrorist getting better than our Elite guys ? or Should we revisit some Flaws in our doctrine or Improving the training or not sure what we have to do to have less casualty in such a complex operation

SF are the most capable force in the kashmir, due to vast on battle experience, and knowledge of terrain, tactics, and ground realities. Casualty was high due to the Millitants in the Suicidal Mission, and the advantage of taking cover of the civilians. Be assured, the SF won't mind the demolishment of the whole building with RDX or the Tractor Bomb, if there was no risk of colleteral damage.

 

[rockstarIN]

SF are the most capable force in the kashmir, due to vast on battle experience, and knowledge of terrain, tactics, and ground realities. Casualty was high due to the Millitants in the Suicidal Mission, and the advantage of taking cover of the civilians. Be assured, the SF won't mind the demolishment of the whole building with RDX or the Tractor Bomb, if there was no risk of colleteral damage.

It is all good for RR/Para for any such missions.

But if there is a hostage situation, better to use NSG who is much expertize in CQB.

Para is 'Army' Unit.

 

[knight11]

It is all good for RR/Para for any such missions.

But if there is a hostage situation, better to use NSG who is much expertize in CQB.

Para is 'Army' Unit.

Wanna wait for the NSG to come to the scene, evaluate the situation, make planning, and need coordination, firepower to get inside the building to to hand to hand encounter. My friend don't live in dreams, and come to reality, SF have knowledge of the ground situation, experience of the weapons, mines, tactics, group operating in the region to take on this situation. When involved in fight, all rules of judo, karate, kumbhoo, boxing GAYI TEEL LENE, and the one use all fist, knee,stone, dirt, piss, shit are used as the weapon to kill the opponent.

Yes NSG are used for the hostage situation, and not the army because Army don't have the Special armed force right in those areas like Kashmir and when the enemy comes with the superior firepower instead of few AK-47, and granade, SF Para is the Choice not by the rule of the book, but by the Requirement Brother.

 

[rockstarIN]

Wanna wait for the NSG to come to the scene, evaluate the situation, make planning, and need coordination, firepower to get inside the building to to hand to hand encounter. My friend don't live in dreams, and come to reality, SF have knowledge of the ground situation, experience of the weapons, mines, tactics, group operating in the region to take on this situation. When involved in fight, all rules of judo, karate, kumbhoo, boxing GAYI TEEL LENE, and the one use all fist, knee,stone, dirt, piss, shit are used as the weapon to kill the opponent.

Yes NSG are used for the hostage situation, and not the army because Army don't have the Special armed force right in those areas like Kashmir and when the enemy comes with the superior firepower instead of few AK-47, and granade, SF Para is the Choice not by the rule of the book, but by the Requirement Brother.

Dude everybody knew NSG is not there in Kashmir. Nobody gonna wait for them too. Also is SF everywhere?(no only state police & CRPF) they are readily available in that state upon notice, which you can do in case of NSG too for hostage situations...make a hub there for them just like PARA travels around in Helis whenever they are required.

 

[Abingdonboy]

sorry for the off topic comment.

@Abingdonboy , do you happen to live on Abingdon road, just off the earls court road in central London?

Haha, no my friend, the "Abingdon" my name refers to is the actual town in Oxford not a road.

The point here is PARA SF has handleded hostage situation earlier with either less casualty or almost no casualty so my question is what makes this operation so complex that the Elite's has to take such a high casualty . Is the Terrorist getting better than our Elite guys ? or Should we revisit some Flaws in our doctrine or Improving the training or not sure what we have to do to have less casualty in such a complex operation

I think this is a bit of strange framing, why assume something has changed in the SF's abilities? All combat vetrans will tell you they are adherants to Murphy's Law " Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". Every situation is unique, all the variables change, all the risk elements are different. Previous success does not guarentee future success. Who knows what the very set of specific circumstances that occured led to this outcome at EDI? One thing I don't doubt is the SF's abilities- they are built for this, this is what they do. As I have said- they carry out 1000s of ops every year, we hear about 4-5, at most?

Look around the world- SFs have "bad days" where they get killed but does that mean their enemy is better than them? What I see is a succesful hostage rescue operation 100+ civlians evacuated and all terrorists sent to hell- to frame this as failure is extremely unfair and a repeat of the post-Pathankot analysis debacle. What defines any military operation is meeting mission objectives and here they were all met, the loss of life is tragic but they died fighting for these objectives.

@Levina

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

Para SF have marksman, what you termed as sniper here, but for the sucessful sniper stike, you need clear line of sight. The situation presented here, made the SF to do close range gun to gun fight.



SF are the most capable force in the kashmir, due to vast on battle experience, and knowledge of terrain, tactics, and ground realities. Casualty was high due to the Millitants in the Suicidal Mission, and the advantage of taking cover of the civilians. Be assured, the SF won't mind the demolishment of the whole building with RDX or the Tractor Bomb, if there was no risk of colleteral damage.

I understand, but what about gas? Russia used a similar tactic during the school siege - it resulted in successfully capturing all terrorists without a single military casualty.

Look around the world- SFs have "bad days" where they get killed but does that mean their enemy is better than them? What I see is a succesful hostage rescue operation 100+ civlians evacuated and all terrorists sent to hell- to frame this as failure is extremely unfair and a repeat of the post-Pathankot analysis debacle. What defines any military operation is meeting mission objectives and here they were all met, the loss of life is tragic but they died fighting for these objectives.

It was a successful operation indeed - A mission is a mission; if all objectives were completed, then it is successful - but were the 100+ civilians really the target of those militants?

In the SSG - they are taught that their lives are expendable; this reflects off their motto. "Mann Janbazam" - which can literally mean one who bets with their lives. So sometimes we receive casualties as well. In one case during APS attack, a commando shielded students from hail of fire, so the students could escape, in return he was martyred. Any prolonged fighting or delays could have meant to end for those students.

But bottom line - Soldiers were made and are meant for/to protect citizens of its territory. They are meant to die protecting their citizens.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain
SF in the below= Security Forces, not Special Forces

Almost a year to the date, Archana Masih of Rediff.com carried an interview with me in the online publication. In that I termed the situation in the Valley, 'The Last Mile'. I then went on to explain what exactly this means.

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'The Last Mile' is simply a situation which is a symbolization of the last stages of conflict stabilization in the military domain; quite different from the political, ideological and social domains. The strength of terrorists is at the lowest ever, the LoC is well dominated to prevent easy calibration by the other side. High profile leadership is missing due to inability to infiltrate without the terrorists facing heavy attrition in the march to the hinterland. Even if successfully infiltrated the ability to strike root is difficult due to all round domination by the SF and intelligence agencies. Terror groups avoid contact with SF and attempt only small scale actions and await their day for a larger deliberate operation, like the current one underway in Pampore. The Army, in particular, is used to high octane stuff; big ticket events, large scale contacts and regular contacts with intelligence inputs. It confirms the high energy levels and the desire to do more; no one in the Army has the patience to sit it out and that is how an Army always is. Everyone is out to kill the last terrorist so that the ugly face of terrorists is eliminated. However, the lesser the terrorist presence and more that the Army tries the results will never be commensurate with statistics of the past. Take it from me; there will be casualties on the Army side higher in ratio than at the time when there were a larger number of terrorists.


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In the Last Mile the attention of the Army will also be diverted by other issues. Human rights take bulk of the attention as do political and legal correctness and a host of other issues. Among many of these issues is something that commanders, staff and junior ranks never faced before; that is the issue of crowds and flash mobs descending on contact sites and attempting to divert SF attention or assist the terrorists to somehow get away. Hence, the greater urgency to finish operations at the earliest. This has been a phenomenon prevalent in South Kashmir in particular over the last two years or a little more. It instigates the SF and leads to responses where civilians are injured or die and that leads to fresh cycle of violence. Shupiyan and Pulwama districts have been the centers of this. Flash mobs can be unnerving and it is to the credit of the CRPF that it has done its task of crowd control rather well. Given the number of times it does it and the nature of instigation there will be occasions when mistakes will be made leading to loss of lives. This can never be justified but nevertheless will remain a factor among the challenges of the Last Mile.

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The Pampore encounter is one of its kind; in fact a very rare one. Having witnessed hundreds of these in the Valley, to me it would probably appear as one of the better planned actions by the terrorists. They first targeted the CRPF administrative convoy taking advantage of the weak road protection; inflicted casualties there. They then withdrew either by design or by default to one of the largest buildings in the Pampore built up area. Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) is a five floor building with many people inhabiting it in the late afternoon. The CRPF and 50 RR did well to quickly cordon the building.


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The EDI building is not an easy one to assault to carry out an intervention operation. The CRPF was brave in attempting it but after suffering casualties decided to hand over to the Army’s Victor Force which looks after South Kashmir. The Army has a couple of Special Forces teams dedicated to the two RR Force HQ. Given the circumstances, the nature of objective and the fact that it would be a matter of time before flash mobs moved in to upset the Army and CRPF’s equilibrium the Army decided to use the Special Forces teams to carry out intervention operations. I can say with complete assurance that if I was in the position of Major Gen Arvind Datta (GOC Victor Force) my decision would have been the same. I write with the experience of also having been the Colonel General Staff of Victor Force during the heyday of militancy. The Special Forces teams did a professional job of it. Two officer casualties that they suffered, along with a L/Nk

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Coming to the operation itself, there have been many allegations that intervention was unnecessary and that the building should have been brought down using explosives. In the mind’s eye of all those making these allegations, including veterans, there is this usual picture of a typical Kashmiri house made of brick and cement and perhaps even mud, along with an attached cowshed. This wasn’t the case here. To wire up and lay the explosives for bringing down the cement and concrete five floor building would have taken fairly long. In the bargain the flash mobs would have created a major problem. These are the issues impinging on minds of senior officers and their advisers and decisions have then to be taken. The factors are hardly evident to those who may never have had the chance of going through such loops of decision making under stress.

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In the final word, let me state clearly that fatal casualties are most regrettable but they will take place in such operations where Indian Army officers will always lead from the front. That is their ethos; it is a part of their DNA. Citizens of India must empathize with the travails that their warriors undergo in keeping them safe and express concern about casualties just as they have done in this instance. However, they must also be aware that in the peculiar security situation of the Last Mile there will be occasions when the last post will have to be played quite often. Those who have the honor and privilege of donning the Indian Army’s uniform and embellishments are fully aware of it. It is a measure of their patriotism, their energy and their professionalism that they never flinch from their duties to the Nation.

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain's Blog : Encounters in J&K: Reiteration of the 'Last Mile Philosophy'



@Levina @PARIKRAMA @rockstarIN @noksss @anant_s @knight11