OPERATION DRAGONFIRE

AUTHOR OF OPERATION 'FOX-HUNT'

Also by the same author Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’ Operation Hellfire

SIDDHARTHA THORAT

Srishti

PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS

Srishti Publishers & Distributors A unit of AJR Publishing LLP 212A, Peacock Lane Shahpur Jat, New Delhi – 110 049 [email protected] First published by Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2022 Copyright © Siddhartha Thorat, 2022 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This is a work of fiction. The characters, places, organisations and events described in this book are either a work of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, places, events, communities or organisations is purely coincidental. The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.

Dedicated to The Heroes of Galwan Valley

On 15 June 2020 at Galwan Valley, Col B. Santosh Babu, Commanding Officer, 18 Bihar, led the Quick Reaction Force of 18 Bihar and attached troops tasked to evict the People’s Liberation Army Observation Post (PLA OP) from Y Nala and move further to Patrol Point (PP) 14. The column successfully evicted the PLA OP from Y Nala and reached PP14 where a fierce skirmish broke out between the Indian Army and the PLA troops. Col B. Santosh Babu led from the front and his troops fought gallantly in hand to hand combat, causing heavy casualties to the PLA. In the ensuing fight, twenty “Gallants of Galwan” were killed in action. To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?*

*

Words on memorial located at Post 120 in eastern Ladakh remembers the valiant action of the 20 killed in the 15 June clash at Galwan Valley.

Prologue

19 December 2019 Pakistan Occupied Balochistan-2300 hrs he convoy of multi-axle trucks and their heavily armed escorts raced on the empty road, their way cleared by a fast-moving scout car with flashing roof lights and a piercing siren. From a distance, it looked like a large predatory snake with a glowing body, slithering across an underworldly terrain. The moonless night and the bleak landscape of mountains and rocky flats created a surreal atmosphere of lights and shadows. This was Kech, Balochistan – a region in the restive border between Iran and Pakistan-controlled Balochistan. The two trucks were bookended by a couple of pickups with heavy caliber machine guns bolted to their beds. Alienlike figures clad in body armour, bulletproof helmets, dust masks and night vision goggles (NVGs) with ghostly green glow manned the guns. A Toyota jeep, the commander’s vehicle, moved up and down the convoy at regular intervals, changing positions like a sheep dog, herding its charges. The trucks had Chinese number plates and were manufactured by Dongfeng – its ‘Dual Sparrow’ logo clearly visible. The scout car was a Frontier Corp SUV with heavy duty lights mounted on an

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anti-roll bar behind the cab. The sirens and the livery of the force were displayed prominently on the doors. The Frontier Corps was the local paramilitary unit responsible for anti-insurgency operations along with border management. The soldiery was local, but the officers serving were from the Pakistan Army, including senior NonCommissioned Officers (NCOs). It had been founded by the British to maintain peace, on what was then, the North-West Frontier between the Raj and the Afghan buffer state. The Corps has now morphed into a fearsome, rentseeking force with a huge array of resources that it illegally controls. The borders with Iran and Afghanistan allow it to raise bribes on illegal trades of all sorts. In Balochistan, it is bigger than the elected government in its influence and power. The late hour ensured minimum interactions with civilian vehicles. Any vehicles they had encountered were military or long-haul truckers. The Pakistan Army imposed a curfew at night in this area to discourage unnecessary traffic, prying eyes and cellphone cameras. The convoy turned off the main road and drove to its destination – a military camp. The vehicles slowed down to enter the camp’s narrow gates. The gates slid shut as the last vehicle entered the premises. The men wore the uniforms and insignias which identified them as troops of the freshly minted 44th Light Infantry Division. This force was created to protect the predatory Chinese who had now joined the Pakistan Army and elites in pillaging the restive province. Watching silently from a wadi or an outcrop of rocks at the foot of the hills less than a kilometre away was a group of men. They too were armed and were using night vision devices.

Prologue  xi

“The trucks have arrived. They will wait here for the entire day tomorrow and travel at night. They don’t travel in the day like they had so easily,” Colonel Buguti whispered, pointing at the sky. There were five men in a dug-in position on the tip of a small hill. A tarpaulin, with cameo pattern printed on it, covered the top of the gap between the overhang and the hole dug in by the men. A wooden frame, about twelve inches high, separated the covering and the dug-in position. It allowed the five men in it to observe the situation through high powered night vision goggles. The other four men heard him intently. As the operations head of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Colonel Buguti was their host and one of the top commanders of the freedom fighters, trying to throw off the repressive yoke of a military regime. He was forty-six years old, a veteran of the Pakistan Army who had switched sides after being disillusioned by the treatment of his superiors to his fellow Baloch, seven years ago. The other four men in the wadi were his two gunmen and a couple of secret agents from friendly powers, one each from the UAE and India. “The trucks then cross over in middle of the night, or more accurately, early morning into Iran.” He handed his night vision binoculars to the man on immediate right. “These are large multi-axle trucks, ten tonners at least. The fact that the Pakistanis and their Chinese masters are willing to risk driving them in the dark through rebel territory makes this interesting enough.” Sanjay Khanna said thoughtfully as he passed the binoculars further down the line to his Emirati counterpart. The Indian RAW Agent was known here as Samsher. His real name was not known to anyone here, except the Colonel. Samsher knew Colonel Buguti from an earlier operation.

xii  Prologue

The Emirati intelligence agent, Mansoor Al Hameedi, looked through the NVG and scanned the trucks as they entered the compound. A platoon of troops had emerged from the gates and formed a parameter around the trucks which were entering the compound. The men in the wadi noted the activity till the trucks had disappeared into the compound. They noted that the compound was surrounded by a twelve-feet cyclone fence which was electrified, as per reports. “The compound came up in one week. The accommodations are modified trailers and containers. The toilets are chemical types. A sanitation truck empties them every morning and evening. Even that vehicle is escorted and checked. There is huge emphasis on parameter security. A company strength unit is deployed inside with support elements. The battalion headquarters is only half an hour down the road and they have a chopper at their disposal which can rush in reinforcements rather quickly.” Samsher calculated the number, about hundred troops for such a small operation. Al Hameedi, who was still glued to the NVG, poked Samsher, “They have parameter patrols every thirty minutes, by foot, and a vehicle does a round every hour.” He handed the NVG to Samsher which he looked through intently. They continued the surveillance. After thirty minutes, Samsher commented wryly, “Yes, it’s a mounted heavy machine gun on the truck. Also, there are static machine guns covering all possible fire arcs. And there are floodlights mounted on those fence posts. I can see them, but they are not switched on, possibly to avoid attention. I suspect there are motion sensors which will switch them on if tripped.”

Prologue  xiii

Buguti, who had been stationed to observe the camp for more than a week, said drily, “Yes, last week someone or something set it off by accident. I shot a video.” He passed a handheld device to Samsher and Al Hameedi. The video showed floodlights lighting up the area and troops taking their position. There was no confusion and no firing. After a few minutes, a stick of infantry troops emerged, followed by two All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and did a sweep of the area in textbook operating procedure. “These guys are good!” Al Hameedi gave an appreciative whistle under his breath. “So, hitting the camp or sneaking in to find out what’s in those trucks are not feasible options. We have to hit them on the way and open them up.” Al Hameedi nodded. A veteran of Yemeni and Syrian campaigns, Al Hameedi was an earnest young man. He was in his mid-thirties and had the easy grace and dignity of those were educated and had money. With his country battling Iran-backed militias in various countries, he had been sent to find what was in the trucks moving through at night as shared by the Baloch contacts. They could not get an answer from their Pakistani friends without raising suspicion. So, his country had sent him to investigate instead. “We will have to ambush them in open somewhere along the way and open the trucks,” Buguti said as he pulled up a map. “It’s not going to be easy. They travel through open territory and the heavy machine guns on those flatbeds will be devastating to any approaching force. And the open ground on both sides of the road up to the hills means that they will be able to see any approaching force or hear it. You can see

xiv  Prologue

that they are wearing NVGs as well. There are no bushes or boulders on the side of the road. “Besides, they send out a scout car five kilometres ahead of the convoy and trucks travel literally over hundred kilometres per hour. We have tracked them over the last two weeks.” Sanjay thought hard and then asked Buguti a few more questions. Dawn was breaking when they finally came up with a plan. They snuck behind the hill and headed for the BLA camp, a few kilometres back into the ravine on the other side of the hill. Once at the BLA base, Colonel Buguti mounted an old Hilux pickup and disappeared into the countryside. Sanjay and Al Hameedi were left to their own devices. Sanjay looked at the brand new CAR 816 rifle that the Emirati was cleaning. He admired it and asked how he had managed to get his hands on it. “Through our embassy in Kabul,” he answered. The UAE had good relations with the Afghans on both sides of the civil war. Sanjay wasn’t surprised. The FN P90 he himself carried was one of his favourite weapons. He had been embedded with Buguti’s group to observe and report a PakChinese joint ground exercise. Inputs from his observation from a small hillock over the exercise area would be added to military planning by senior staff officers. To his trained eye, battle formations, movements of troops in mock action, equipment, weapon systems and their deployment were all different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that would help paint a picture of the joint capabilities of PLA and the Pakistan Army back home. It was at the end of the exercise when Sanjay was planning to execute exfiltration

Prologue  xv

orders that had come through Kabul for assisting the UAE operation. The Emirati had come overland with some more BLA men, earlier in the week. It had taken another week for the observation post to be identified and prepared. In the meanwhile, Buguti and his men had been doing basic recce of the area and observing patrol patterns of the troops from the base. The observation post had to be outside the patrolling routes of the troops in the camp, but still near enough for practical observation. Sanjay and Buguti had finally agreed on the location and taken position a night before. The trucks arrived every Wednesday and left for Iranian border every Thursday. “Do some damage if you can to these ghouls while you are there, but your main job is to impress the Emirati agent of our support. We want to develop a relationship with their service.” This was a brief advice which he had received from his boss. v

It was in late afternoon when a battered pickup, came for them. They drove about fifty kilometers on the hard, dirty road. Sanjay observed that they were driving parallel to the main road that their quarry was supposed to take later at night. After an hour, they turned to the mountains and entered a ravine. Sanjay looked up and saw grim faced men with various ‘versions’ of Kalashnikovs staring down at them. “We are entering into the wolf’s lair,” he told Al Hameedi with a wide grin as the truck entered through a narrow pass into a large clearing. The first thing he noticed were two brand new pickups in Frontier Corps (FC). Both had blue

The battle at Galwan Valley has shaken the nation to its core, which is already battling the Wuhan virus. But the challenge isn’t over yet. The Indian forces are set to strike back at the Chinese People Liberation Army (PLA) by retaliating across the Kailash Range. Meanwhile, an Indian spy operating in Tibet discovers a secret weapon that the Chinese have deployed, which can turn the Indian counter-attack into a complete disaster. RAW agent Sanjay Khanna and a Special Frontier Force (SFF) commando team bring the spy back to India, only to realize that the secret weapon - Dragonfire - awaits them. Sanjay heads to the Dubai to exfiltrate a man who can reveal more about the weapon. Hot on his trail is Major Hanif Rana, his enemy from the ISI. Operation Dragonfire is a riveting thriller which captures the adventurous journey of RAW agent Sanjay Khanna and his operatives as they battle against all odds to protect the nation.

Siddhartha Thorat is a marketing professional with keen interest in current affairs and military history. As an Army brat and a marketing professional, he has travelled widely in India and abroad. He is a passionate reader and draws inspiration from Ken Follett and Jack Higgins. This is his third thriller. /operationdragonF

@operation_dragonfire

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