Weapons of mass embarrassment

Several “highly trained” gunmen carrying “sophisticated weapons” attacked a navy base in Karachi last week, destroying two key aircraft in a 16-hour standoff, officials said. The statement was not meant as a comment on the level of training and the sophistication of weapons of the Pakistani military. Experts ruled out that the grenade attacks had initially been dismissed as fireworks at the banquet hall that the navy runs on the premises. “We reacted immediately, and called 15,” an official said.

Defence analysts said the attackers were foreigners who had been trained and equipped and sent into Pakistan to destabilise the country. They strongly rejected claims that bringing foreign terrorists and weapons into Pakistan is like bringing your own snow to Mount Everest, or bringing your own drugs to Amsterdam.

The interior minister said the gunmen were dressed like “characters from Star Wars”, implying alien involvement. A reporter who had CLAIMED Al-Qaeda had links in the navy has mysteriously disappeared. He was not available for comment. Highly unreliable sources told this scribe he had been abducted by aliens.

This scribe talked to several military experts about the state-of-the-art weapons used by the gunmen that allowed four gunmen to engage numerous troops for 16 hours, and that, according to the interior minister, “no common man can afford to buy”. Following are the profiles of the weapons.

Rocket-propelled grenades:

“The people who think the pen is mightier than the sword have perhaps not encountered rocket-propelled grenades,” a defence expert said. This Soviet-designed weapon system can be highly effective against unarmored vehicles and very slow moving human targets, such as cricketer Inzamamul Haq. The Afghan Mujahideen abandoned RPGs after the smarter surface-to-air Stinger missiles were made available to them, but some reports reveal continued nonmilitary uses, such as trout fishing.

The AK-47:

The Avtomat Kalashnikova is an assault rifle capable of selectively firing bullets that travel at very high speed and are therefore not visible to the human eye. Upon hitting the target, these bullets are known to cause extreme pain, retired military officials opined. They were unaware of the inner workings of the weapon but said it was more effective when firing accompanies revolutionary slogans. The soviet-designed gun has a very short range of 350 metres. “That means when your enemy is in your range, you are in their range,” a soldier said. Nonmilitary uses of AK-47 include accidentally killing guests at weddings, as props in Punjabi and Pashto movies, and for decorative purposes on the flag of Mozambique.

Both these futuristic weapons were designed six decades ago. Asked why they are still too sophisticated for Pakistan’s security forces, a defence analyst said, “Sixty years are a very small period in the history of a nation.” Pakistan came into existence 64 years ago. “We cannot fight these weapons with wisecracks,” he responded.

Security has been heightened throughout the country after the incident, especially in the wedding hall on the navy base. However, body-search requirements for brides were waived after threats by grooms and protests by religious groups. Security measures are now focused on confused motorcyclists, two-stroke rickshaws and rich kids carrying alcohol.

The interior minister paid tribute to Lt Yasir Abbas who was martyred while leading the fight against the attackers, but most opinion makers in the media paid tribute to the senior military officials and defence experts who had, in the past, supervised the training of the militant groups who killed him.

The writer is a media critic and the News Editor, The Friday Times. He can be reached at [email protected]