Sitting Ducks:

By Noorilhuda

Kamra is the name of a flat-land village in District Attock. PAF Base Kamra is the biggest
establishment of Pakistan Air Force. It comprises of Minhas Air Force Base as well as Pakistan
Aeronautical Complex (PAC). Though the official PAF spokesperson refused to state what the
place is like, interviews with retired Airforce officers provide a picture: Minhas Base is a formal
fighter base for carrying out military operations. The base was at the forefront during the Soviet
Invasion and subsequent Afghan War and is known as the Vanguard Base of that time. It is
closest to the Northern Areas and was the commanding base even during the Kargil War though
no offensive operations were carried out. It has 2 fighter squadrons, 1 search and rescue squadron
and an air-surveillance squadron which has the expensive Saab-2000 Airborne Early Warning &
Control Systems. Pakistan is supposed to have five of these surveillance systems; the first one
was handed over by Sweden in 2008. These are rumored to have cost the country a sum closer to
hundred million dollars.
PAC primarily rebuilds planes to extend their life span. Everything from panels, nuts, connectors
for airframe to aeroplane engines are rebuilt here. A scheduled inspection of components,
replacement etc. is done. Pakistans famous JF-17 fighter jets are produced and developed here.
The Chinese planes are checked here. Generally, a single cock-pit aeroplane costs $10 million.
PAC consists of 4 main factories: the aircraft manufacturing factory, avionics (electronic)
production factory, Mirage repair factory and aircraft rebuild/ overhauling factory. Airborne
weapons are produced elsewhere in another factory located near the Wah Ordinance Factory but
the weapons are stored at the Kamra Base. It has a single 9,900 foot long runway. Residential
complexes, many schools and degree-level colleges, markets for grocery items (including
poultry, fruits and vegetables), and a huge hospital encompass the large area.
It is a complete township with all necessary provisions so that people living there can meet their
requirements, elaborates Air Marshal (R) Shahid Lateef over the phone. He retired as Vice
Chief of Air Staff in 2009. Everyone from officers to people working on the premises,
contractors etc. live inside, but there are people who have to rent small houses outside the
premises and these people come and go on a daily basis. Army schools usually have a very good
reputation in remote areas so children from surrounding area come and study inside the Base
Approximately 20,000-35,000 people live inside the premises (ratio of people in Minhas base
versus PAC is 1:3). People come from all over Pakistan to live there, be they doctors, teachers,
engineers or pilots. Vendors from surrounding villages are frequent visitors. Gardeners, caterers,
waiters, suppliers, administrators, logistics crew, maintenance staff, JCOs, NCOs and the rankers
like Warat officers (PAF equivalent of Army subaydaar), Chief Technicians (PAF equivalent of
Army havaldar) live on the factory and base.

The land was acquired from the locals by the government in the 70s. Attock District is bordered
by Haripur and Swabi of KP to the north, Rawalpindi to the east, Chakwal to the southeast,
Mianwali to the southwest and Kohat and Nowshehra of KP to the west and northwest (Source:
Global Security website).
Originally it was just a rebuilt factory for F-6 aircrafts. Later on we created the fighter base to
support the factory where evaluation is done and testing is done before aircrafts are sent to
operational units. Economic activity in nearby villages picked up once the Base was established.
It is the most prized possession of PAF, says Air Marshall (R) Masood Akhtar.
Its value is not lost on the terrorists. Kamra Base has been attacked four times since December
2007 when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into a PAF employees school bus near
one Base gate on GT Road. Children were wounded in that attack. Then on 16th January 2008,
four rockets were fired from outside the Base which hit a mess, while some news reports suggest
it hitting the Mirage Rebuild Factory. No loss of life was reported. On 23rd Oct. 2009, a suicide
bomber was successful in killing 8 people, including two PAF personnel, near a check post
outside the Base.
But the most audacious attack has to be the most recent one: On 16th Aug. 2012, in the dead of
the most auspicious night of Ramazan, at 2 am, eight militants dressed in army uniforms and
loaded with guns, rocket launchers, blackberry phones and night vision goggles, managed to
scale the 9ft. wall of the Base through a wooden ladder that they brought themselves, cut the 3ft
barbed wire circled on top of the wall and jump inside. They were immediately intercepted by a
young sepoy by the name of Mohammad Asif Ramzan sitting on a sentry tower-post nearby.
Sepoy Asif lost his life in the ensuing gun battle. SAAB-2000 aircraft was mildly damaged when
a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near it. Fire, explosion and gun shots filled the air. It lasted
two hours. The militant leader overseeing the operation from outside the Base wall exploded
himself when forces reached near him. Ten hours later the Base was confirmed as being safe by
PAF spokesman.
On the West side, the Base is protected by the GT road. It is 10ft away from the Base wall but
theres 24-hour traffic there, so obviously they couldnt come from it. Ghazi Brotha Canal is on
the South side where it turns back into Indus, so couldnt come from there either. This was the
weak spot, the only route and it was very very easy for them. They could easily disappear into
the nearby village says the 61-year old Air Marshal (R) Akhtar sitting in the drawing room of
his house in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi. There were four cordons of security. Wall was the first
cordon. Sepoy Asif challenged them and was killed. Someone reported the infiltration. Second
cordon engages them in a small action. He is the one guarding the hangar - where airplane is
parked. Third cordon were the Unit Reaction Force and Quick Reaction Force teams that reached
the spot in 15-20 minutes time. This was the moment where base commander also took part in
action and was injured. And look at the precision. Not a single friendly-fire casualty in cross-fire
with enemy in pitch darkness.

The PAF Spokesperson Tariq Mehmood was contacted repeatedly by this reporter. He refused to
give details of the total number of team members in URF and QRF who fought the nine militants
saying that such information would be useful for the enemies.
However, Dawn newspaper reported on 18th Aug. 2012 that two companies of special services
commandos, around 150, were mobilised from nearby Tarbela as well. The Base was already on
high-alert following intelligence reports of likely terrorist attack. Rs. 1 million was announced by
Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique for Sepoy Asifs family. PM Ashraf
attended his funeral. PAF placed a 4-member Board of Inquiry into the incident headed by a
three-star officer, Air Marshal Athar Hussain Bukhari.
Now comes the difficult part: Who to blame for the security breach?
In the beginning, walls from GT Road were so low that airplanes could actually be seen from
the villages taking off from the runway, says Air Marshal (R) Akhtar who retired after 34 years
of service in the year 2000. He served the last two years of service as base commander Kamra.
Initially we didnt take this up as there was sparse population and there was no insurgency. No
such problem existed before. Now even the job of a base commander has changed. He not only
has to command and lead all aspects of a base for safe and efficient flying operations but he has
to defend the base during peacetime as well. Todays leadership is under far greater stress. The
villages being checked out are right outside the base. And the criticism is that why were they not
checked before as if these are enemy territory! We do screen them, but after years of bad policy
we have created the environment where locals harbor hostile people. What is the primary mission
of Air Force? To fly aeroplanes or watch the villages?
I was very surprised by this attack. I thought the armed forces had learnt their lesson, says the
defence analyst, Hassan Askari Rizvi, speaking on the phone from Lahore. Perhaps they are too
over-confident. Perhaps they have still not made up their mind whether the militants are their
enemy or not. But I was surprised that terrorists were able to enter an installation after Mehran
Base Attack.
On 22nd May 2011, nine militants dressed in naval uniforms entered the Mehran Base premises
by cutting barbed wires in an attack that lasted 17 hours. When terrorists hit GHQ on 10th Oct.
2009, ten armed militants wearing military jackets and suicide vests were at the premises for 22
hours. At Kamra Base attack, the militants were wearing army uniforms presumably because the
security for the facility is handled by Pak Army - Defence Security Guards are trained by Army
and integrated into PAF and Army people are attached at operational level as well. At Mehran
base, BBC had reported presence of 17 foreigners including 11 Chinese aviation trainers. At
Kamra, there were unconfirmed reports of the presence of Chinese workers.
The important things for me is that a security breach occurred. It doesnt matter whether it was
contained, and how long it was taken to contain it, says Rizvi. Firstly, they need to upgrade all
installations. Secondly, they need to determine whether the terrorists have help from inside the

premises. Reports on the Kamra Attack suggest that these militants came from Punjab. They
usually train in the Tribal Areas but most of these militant groups exist in Punjab. And their aim
is just to create a crisis, a headline where your credibility ends up being questioned. In the
Kamra Base attack, arrests have been made in areas of Taxila, Qasur, Multan and Lahore.
Air Marshal (R) Lateef believes that as long as military installation remain within populated
areas, such problems will continue to arise. We moved the Air HQ from Peshawar to Islamabad;
Navy also shifted in the private E-8, E-9, E-10 sector area. But the Army complexes were being
made when COAS Kayani surmised that the Army could not afford the expenditure of the new
buildings in Islamabad. Hence work (shifting the Army offices from GHQ Rawalpindi to
Islamabad) stopped.
Another aspect of such attacks is the help from serving officers or ranks within the armed forces.
Military is not an island. They are part of a mindset, says Air Marshal (R) Akhtar. We formed
a policy two decades ago to not allow any extreme right activity. But there could be elements. In
that attack on Musharraf, airforce personnel were involved. Musharrafs convoy was attacked
near Jhanda Chichi Bridge, Rawalpindi in December 2003 where explosives were laden over the
road. Musharraf later disclosed in a TV interview that junior officers of Army and Airforce were
involved in the complex assassination attempt where explosives were shifted from the tribal belt
to Multan and then Islamabad to pindi. The GHQ attack mastermind, Dr. Usman, was a soldier of
the armys medical corps. Now our psychological tests for ranks are such as to detect the
mindset.
On the other hand, Air Marshal (R) Lateef believes that civilian law enforcement agencies also
failed in detecting the Karma Attack. Civil security force needs to share the blame, he says.
Its a little unfair to say army is overconfident. Housing colonies have mushroomed near such
installations. Safety zones outside establishment are well-defined but not followed. A lot of these
colonies violate security zone. You can actually see movement of people inside the PAC from the
rooftops of houses in the village. It is the duty of the civil administration to look after adjacent
areas. Dawn newspaper reported in a 17th Aug. story that in Kamra Bara, a village near the
Base, a couple of mosques and seminaries were seen with hoisted flags of Sipah-i-Sihaba, the
Sunni Islamist faction banned as a terrorist organization in 2002 by Musharraf. The orgnaisation
is still functioning in Pakistan under a new name Ahl-e-Sunnat Al Jamaat.
Pointing out to the specific nature of the Kamra attack, Lateef says These militants came atleast
months or weeks before they decided to hit the target. Where did they gather? How did the
weapons come into the village or the territory? Someone must have accommodated them on
some checkpost leading up to the area! Its a small place with villages. There had to be help from
local people.
Air Marshal (R) Akhtar concurs. It is the job of local SHO to know who is coming and going in
his area. The bearded ones apparently are allowed in a village during iftaar, sehri time. We
cannot put a soldier after every 10 yards. You can have automated control rooms and technology

but the biggest asset will always be the people. Look at Sepoy Asif. If he was not inspired he
wouldnt have been awake at that time. It is all about what ideal you identify with. He goes on
to elaborate the need to create an identity of Pakistani citizen and to form a policy that the
terrorists are wrong and should not be welcome in Pakistan. In 5-6 decades, we have built them.
Now they have started to bother us. What was done at Kamra, the way the base was defended, it
was beyond the responsibility of PAF.
Air Marshal (R) Lateef feels that more can be done to safeguard the base. It is worth more than
a $100 billion dollars referring to the equipment, aircrafts and building structures that the
facility consists of. One would assume that such an investment would be better protected and
would not be infiltrated by a simple wooden ladder taken to the wall! They need to have an
electrical wire system. In U.S. you will not see a shadow of a person but the facility would be
tightly secure through cameras and electronic system. Yes, our security system needs to be
reviewed.
Air Marshal (R) Akhtar has two sons in the Airforce, one is a squadron leader and the other is
Flight Lieutenant. He has a long list of things that should be used for proper security: We need
more money. We need Armored Personal Carriers; more commandoes; better communication
systems, cameras. Air Marshal (R) Lateef also stresses the need to put in more money in the
Airforce. The days of wars being fought on ground are over. Every country like India, Israel are
investing in their Airforce because all future conflicts will be lead by strengthening the Air
support. Army being the traditional force, it still wants to have the main pie.
Hassan Askari Rizvi finds the idea that Armed Forces are strapped for cash a bit whimsical. You
can always get budget. Its all a matter of what is your priority. Army has enough resources of its
own, in the form of varied businesses. A graded security that involves motion detectors should be
in place. However, he rejects the notion that such facilities can be attacked and overtaken.
There are many units operating at the premises. They are all autonomous. The area is less than
that of Pindi but no one can take it over. The units are all scattered all over the place. But you
need to be very clear that militants are bad whether they are a threat to you or not. They are the
enemy.
As Air Marshal (R) Akhtar puts it If people dont believe in something, you cannot win war or
peace.