Not a week goes by without a fresh round of hyper-ventilation over the future of Pakistan. If America's operation to kill Osama bin Laden put a question mark on the role and preparedness of the Pakistan military, an equally daring but more disturbing attack on its naval assets by Taliban/al-Qaida this week shook the very foundations of that country's strongest institution. On May 22, Pakistan Taliban announced they had sent in 15 jihadi attackers into the high-security Mehran naval airbase in Karachi. After a bloody 18-hour gun-battle in which terrorists destroyed two new P-3 C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft and apparently took some Chinese engineers hostage for a while, it became clear this was no ordinary terror strike. For a Pakistan military suffering its worst crisis of confidence after the Osama killing, this was a devastating blow.
No comments:
Post a Comment