Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 43
COIN IN PAKISTAN
operations, and TSNM founder and ideologue Sufi
Mohammad was booked under sedition charges after
the police registered thirteen cases against him.17
The military did not leave the area, but administration was handed over to the civilian authorities. The
police thus played an important ro le in the “transfer”
and “shape” stages of the COIN campaign. In addition,
during the Malakand military operations, the police
were responsible for securing and maintaining the
internally displaced people camps, which were established in the adjacent districts, as many of the TTP
rank-and-file had taken refuge there.
Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (2004–2009)
Between 2004 and 2009, during the height of the
Islamist insurgency in FATA’s Khyber District, the
police thwarted numerous direct attacks on civilian
and military installations in Peshawar City. The KPK
government was even considering shifting the provincial capital from Peshawar to Abbottabad because
MILITARY REVIEW November-December 2016
Training officers of the Special Security Unit attend a field briefing
30 November 2015 at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Police Training
School, Razzakabad, Karachi, Pakistan. (Photo by Farhan Zahid)
of the proximity of Peshawar to the tribal areas from
where the Islamist militants were launching their
attacks.18 Police had taken the primary responsibility
of securing the access points to Peshawar in order to
check the movement of TTP militants. In response
to this security arrangement, the TTP beheaded a
number of police officers patrolling the area in the
outskirts of Peshawar.19 Two superintendents of police
were killed while on duty. Superintendent of Police
Khurshid Khan was leading a patrol when he was
surrounded and beheaded by the TTP militants on the
spot in October 2012, whereas Abdul Kalam Khan
was killed in a suicide bombing in March 2012.20 Since
the police had no jurisdiction in the tribal areas, the
insurgents took full advantage of this by using these
areas for strategic depth, moving back and forth into
Peshawar from the tribal areas.
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