A fort dating back to the British colonial period was recently attacked and overrun by a disputed number of Taliban fighters.  The Christian Science Monitor discusses:

Hundreds of armed militants stormed a border fort overnight Wednesday in Pakistan’s tribal belt, killing at least seven border guards. The militants then abandoned the colonial-era fort on the border in South Waziristan, a lawless zone that US officials say is a launching pad for Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks on Western troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Islamic militants used explosives to breach the fort where about 40 guards were stationed, according to the Pakistan Army. Most of the guards fled, and others were reported missing after the firefight. The militants left the fort later the same day, melting back into the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan.

The attack is a setback for Pakistan’s Army the Associated Press reports. Fifteen guards fled to safety at another Army base. Another 20 were listed as missing, but five were later found. The military claimed that 50 militants died in the firefight, a claim denied by a militant spokesman who said two had died in the assault.

The insurgents who seized the Sararogha Fort were said to be followers of Baitullah Mehsud, an Islamic hard-liner. Since December, Mr. Mehsud has been the sole leader of an umbrella group of Taliban sympathizers and is also thought to have links to Al Qaeda.

Musharraf has blamed Mehsud’s movement, Tehrik-e-Taliban, for 19 suicide attacks that killed more than 450 people over the last three months. Mehsud, labeled enemy No. 1 by the government, also masterminded the brazen capture of 213 Pakistani soldiers last August.

The Washington Post said Pakistani authorities have also linked Mehsud to the Dec. 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mehsud’s fighters have targeted Pakistani troops in South Waziristan with hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings as the battle for territory intensifies.

“It really carries a lot [of] significance,” said Fazal Rahim Marwat, a professor at Peshawar University who has studied the Taliban movement in Pakistan. “This is another daring step on the part of the militants, and it seems that they are getting stronger and bolder with the passage of time.”

While an Army spokesman said the number of militants was around 200, the BBC said that local officials and other reports indicate an attack force closer to 1,000. This is the first time that militants have captured a fort in Pakistan and that is unsettling for authorities as they prepare to hold parliamentary elections next month, the BBC said.

The militants took several of the guards hostage and seized weapons and communication equipment from the fort, the Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn reported. The assault began around 9 p.m. Tuesday with rocket and mortar fire and continued during the night, the newspaper reported.

“Soldiers put up a good fight, but couldn’t hold out for long in the face of an overwhelming militant force,” a source said.

The last distress radio message, according to him, was made at around 3 am to the Ludda Fort, asking for artillery fire at the militants who had broken through the defences and begun pouring into the base.

The fort was manned by the Frontiers Corps, an 80,000-strong paramilitary force recruited from local tribesmen. The US military has announced plans to train and equip these forces as part of a strategy to counter militancy in the semiautonomous tribal region, said The Globe and Mail.

Reuters reports that Navy Adm. William Fallon, head of the US Central Command, said Wednesday that he believed Pakistan was ready for greater US counterinsurgency assistance. But he gave no details of that support, which is politically sensitive in Pakistan, where many strongly oppose the deployment of US troops. Admiral Fallon said he was encouraged by his conversations with Pakistan’s new Army chief, Gen. Ashfaz Kayani, who took over in November after President Pervez Musharraf resigned from the post.

“I was very heartened by his understanding of what the problems are and what he’s going to need to do to meet those, so we want to try and help that,” said Fallon, who plans to visit Pakistan later this month.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club observes that the Taliban and al Qaeda are acting like an army of state, and wonders whether the Pakistani military can conduct conventional operations against them.  To be clear, the Taliban are neither a regular army, nor is it to their advantage to behave as one.  Holding the fort that they took is not to their advantage.

So true to form, they abandoned it as soon as they took it.  Holding territory is the behavior of conventional armies.  The Taliban are indigenous, and live in this area.  There is no reason and no strategic value to having a border fort.  The Taliban own this area, and traffic freely across the Afghan border to conduct operations.  But this points to larger problems.  The Pakistani army is a conventional one, and doesn’t behave like it.

Whether considering regular or irregular (counterinsurgency and guerrilla) warfare, force size and force protection are critical elements of doctrine.  The Pakistani military at this border fort effected neither.  The force size was at least equivalent to a platoon, and the notion that a platoon of U.S. Marines would have been routed from this fort is of course preposterous.

I have observed before that the key to Pakistan is Afghanistan and more specifically the border region, and vice versa.  The key to Afghanistan is Pakistan.  The U.S. has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to engage in warfare against radical militants unimpeded, since Pakistan is acting approvingly of a larger role for the U.S.  NATO cannot be relied upon to contribute to the campaign.  Neither does the U.S. owe any debts to cold war thinking.  Not only Iraq, but also the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region beckons all U.S. forces to their mission.  The Marines soon to deploy to Afghanistan from Camp LeJeune are badly needed, and will fulfil their calling.