March 22, 2004

WHERE THE WAR ENDS:

Terror suspects may have escaped through secret tunnel, officials say (Ahsanullah Wazir, 03/22/2004, Associated Press)

Top al-Qaida terrorists may have escaped a siege by thousands of Pakistani soldiers through several secret tunnels leading from mud fortresses to a dry mountain stream near the border with Afghanistan, a security chief said today.

The longest tunnel found so far was more than 1 mile long and led from the homes of two local men - Nek Mohammed and Sharif Khan - to a stream near the frontier, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, head of security for Pakistan's tribal regions. [...]

The militants may have used the tunnel to escape during the disastrous first day of the operation on Mar. 16, when at least 15 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting. Still, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, the commander of the operation, said over the weekend that authorities believe an important terrorist remains inside, based on the level of resistance of the holdouts.


The important thing here is the Pakistani willingness to take casualties and keep fighting.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2004 3:46 PM
Comments

Having to escape through a tunnel is a pretty good sign that your side has lost.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 22, 2004 8:32 PM

As you noted earlier, this is the strategy called "resource burn" in the online gaming community. If you can't immediately break your opponent's defenses, you arrange to force him to consume irreplaceable resources to stay in the game. The leadership may have escaped but they've lost heavy in the resource department.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 22, 2004 10:04 PM

Now the Paks need to learn to inflict casualties until they win.

Posted by: Tresho at March 23, 2004 12:36 AM

Tresho;

I would counter that they did win here. The sacking of a Caliphascist base with the near capture of their leaders can hardly be counted as a win for the Caliphascists.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 23, 2004 1:05 PM

But they can only do this once. The next time, the Good Guys will know to look carefully for tunnels.

And will undoubtedly prepare nice Surprize Packages at the mouths of any tunnels they find.

Posted by: fred at March 23, 2004 2:06 PM
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