Saleem's Post

  Indian forces crossing the border, launched a full-scale invasion in East Pakistan on night 20 th  /21 st  November 1971, attacking simultaneously as many as 23 salients along the border. The purpose of these attacks was to knock the Pakistani forces away from the border and gain space for the establishment of firm bases to be used subsequently for launching major attacks. In many places, these attacks were beaten back by the defenders. However, the much larger Indian forces kept the defenders embroiled.  The Government of Pakistan just issued a proclamation of a state of emergency. The Opposing Forces Eastern Theatre Order of Battle   Night 20th-21st November  Districts Pakistan India        Dhaka Tangail Mymensingh 36 Adhoc Div   101 Comm Zone 95 Mtn Bde FJ Sector Bde 167 Inf Bde 5 Mtn Bde   ...

  Is Anoth er December 71-Like Situation Upon Us? There is a well-known and much thrashed-out political background to the 1971 War. We all know that the war resulted due to a struggle for power between the Awami League and the Peoples Party. This power struggle degenerated into a civil war, which was exploited by India to dismember Pakistan. I had written earlier:  The civil-military differences have reached a point where they have started blaming each  other for Pakistan’s ailments. The polarization has been such that some politicians do not hesitate to seek help from India, Pakistan’s archenemy. The trend, started by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, has now influenced even some of Pakistan’s mainstream parties. Though the Cold War terminology of left, center, and right has become redundant, old affiliations die hard. It is in this context that some politicians to the left and center now question Pakistan Army’s threat assessment and accuse it of holding the nation hostage to the ...

 Islamabad: 17  November 2021 The Pakistan Parliament, in a joint sitting on Wednesday passed The International Court of Justice (Review and Re-consideration)Bill that will give Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav the right to appeal against the death sentence  , pronounced  on 10April 2017 by a military court, for espionage and terrorist activities.  The Indian spy was caught by Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence from Balochistan in March 2016.  The bill ,originally passed by the National Assembly on 10 June, was rejected by the Senate the same month. It  aimed at allowing Jadhav to have consular access in line with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict. The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay. According to the media reports, Kulbhushan Jhadav is a serving officer o...

According to Clary (2013);   “East Pakistan was surrounded by India on three sides, resulting in a more than a 4000-kilometer border between present-day Bangladesh and India. In such circumstances, shorter interior lines of communication can sometimes compensate for inferior numbers.  In this case, the quantitative overmatch by Indian forces in the eastern theatre included six full divisions, portions of an additional mountain division and several brigades, and the equivalent of three armoured regiments.   Pakistan faced this force with three infantry divisions (two of which were without their normal accompaniment of artillery and vehicles). Two additional divisions were raised on an ad hoc basis out of spare brigades and division headquarters staff, and one regiment of light tanks ( The terrain of East Pakistan substantially discounted the utility of tanks).  At the theatre level, it is easy to argue India enjoyed 2:1 superiority- even without assumin...