NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 5: For six decades, the Indian border has been the raison d’etre — the very reason for existence-of the Pakistan army. Most formations, including its two Strike Corps, are aggressively positioned near the border to counter Indian forces.

So, when the Rawalpindi-based Pakistan GHQ started pulling out elite troops from the Indian frontier for the war against terror in Waziristan, Indian Intelligence agencies knew something had deeply gone wrong along Pakistan’s western flank.

Latest estimates, drawn up by Indian intelligence agencies through various inputs, show that Pakistani force levels along the Indian border have fallen to an all-time low. As many as 15 Infantry Brigades — roughly accounting for 38,000 troops — have been moved to Waziristan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) within the past year.

Five of these brigades — reserve troops and units stringed together from various formations — were sent in last month to fight the Taliban. Not only soldiers from the elite strike corps, trained to slice into India in the event of war, but also reserves with the GHQ in Rawalpindi were mobilized last month.

In New Delhi, the Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by the Prime Minister, was briefed recently by top Army officials that Pakistani troops were being pulled away and force levels across the border were at an all-time low.

Intelligence data shows that elements from the Mangla-based Army Reserve North (ARN) and Multan-based Army Reserve South (ARS), the two strike corps, have been dispatched to either Peshawar or Quetta for deployment along the troubled Afghan frontier.

Units from the Force Command Northern Area (FCNA) that controls PoK and forces from the dual-role XI Corps in Peshawar — tasked with defending the Afghan border but with a secondary strike role against India in the event of war — have also been moved to fight the Taliban.

The last time the Peshawar-based XI Corps moved from its position to Pakistan’s eastern border was in 2001-02 to counter the Indian Army’s troop build-up during Operation Parakram. At that time, the Indian army had been counting on the time that would be needed to bring the Corps to the border from Peshawar.

With the Pak army now stretched along the north-west frontier, intelligence officials say that clearer and bigger voids are now opening up on its eastern border.

“This kind of deployment has led to a clear operational void along Pakistan’s eastern border. All reserves, sectorial and strategic, including the Headquarters reserves have been committed,” said an intelligence official.

In the past few months, and more prominently after the Lal Masjid episode, information gleaned by intelligence agencies suggests that the strain is starting to tell on the regular Pak army.

In October, written instructions were sent by GHQ to all formation commanders to determine the quantity of forces each unit could relieve for deployment along the Afghan border and even the hinterland. Sources say that an internal audit was carried out by all formations shortly afterwards and a classified list of ‘extra troops’ was drawn up by GHQ.

This, military analysts warn, is leading to an abnormally high percentage of Pak troops on active duty — a dangerous factor that has the potential to crack open the Pak army.

Indian intelligence data says that out of the 66 Infantry Brigades (about 1.65 lakh troops) in the Pak army, 33 brigades are currently on active duty. Of these, 18 brigades (45,000 troops) are deployed for counter-terror operations.

With half its troops committed to active duty, the army is finding it hard to rotate and relive formations. “It is a major operational constraint. In the event of war, the whole army gets mobilized but in an ideal scenario, one-third of the troops should be on duty while the rest are in transit or in a peace area. In long term, it will get increasingly difficult to manage the men,” an official said.

However, a broken up Pakistani army, armed with nuclear weapons, is the last thing India would like to see. A worst case scenario for Pakistan, drawn up by strategic affairs expert Stephen Cohen in an article on the Brookings Institution website on Monday, paints a worrisome picture.

“One (of the two desperate scenarios) is that the army itself might lose its coherence. It is a multi-ethnic army, derived from the old British Indian army, and from time to time it, like its predecessor, has had ethnic-based mutinies (the most notable being the revolt of the Bengali elements of all three services in 1970). At present, about eighteen per cent of the Pakistan army are Pushtuns or of Pushtun-origin. There are reports of officers refusing to attack targets, and the astonishing case, still unexplained, of nearly 300 officers and jawans surrendering to the militants in Waziristan — where they are still being held hostage,” writes Cohen, explaining that the US is in for a tough ride as far as its Pakistan policy is concerned.