Art of War Papers

Closing the Security Gap

Building Irregular Security Forces

Michael J. Gunther, Major, US Army

 Command and General Staff College

 Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
The cover photo courtesy of the Library of Congress is that of General 

Dwight Eisenhower giving orders to American paratroopers in England.
Closing the Security Gap

Building Irregular Security Forces

by

Michael J. Gunther, Major, US Army

M.A., American Military University, Charles Town, West Virginia, 

2005

B.S., United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, 2002

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
ii

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gunther, Michael J.

Closing the security Gap : Building Irregular Security Forces / by Michael 

J. Gunther, Major, US Army.

Pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index

1. Counterinsurgency--Case studies. 2. Irregular warfare--Case studies. 

3. Irregular warfare--North-West Frontier Province (India)--History. 4. 

Counterinsurgency--Iraq. 5. Oman--History--Dhofar War, 1964-1976. I. 

Title. 

U241.G74 2012

355.02’18--dc23

2012050252

Combat Studies Institute Press publications cover 

a wide variety of military history topics. The 

views expressed in this CSI Press publication are 

those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of 

the Department of the Army or the Department 

of Defense. A full list of CSI Press publications 

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The seal of the Combat Studies Institute authenticates this document as 

an official publication of the CSI. It is prohibited to use CSI’s official 

seal on any republication without the express written permission of the 

Director of CSI.

Editor

C. Fischer

2013
iii

Abstract

The British and US experience with the use of local, irregular security 

forces suggest their importance in assisting the host nation government 

and counterinsurgent forces. Their successful establishment, training, 

and employment demonstrate the importance of several prerequisites 

including partnership with an advisory force, consent of the host nation’s 

government to exist, and that the security force is accountable to the local 

civil authority. Without these prerequisites, the local, irregular security 

force could risk illegitimacy in the eyes of the populace, the host nation 

government, and the counterinsurgent. However, partnership does not 

guarantee a local irregular force’s success. The host nation’s involvement 

in the decision to build irregular forces is important from the beginning of 

the campaign. Through the examination of archival research and primary 

source interviews associated with the British experience in North-West 

Frontier and the Dhofar region of Oman, one can start to understand the 

prerequisites needed to create a successful mentorship force. The paper 

examines the method of partnership, selection and traits of the advisors, 

and the host nation government’s role in building the Punjab Irregular 

Force and Frontier Corps in the North-West Frontier in India, the firqat in 

Dhofar, and the Sons of Iraq.
iv

Objectives of the Art of War Scholars Program

The Art of War Scholars Program is a laboratory for critical thinking. 

It offers a select group of students a range of accelerated, academically 

rigorous graduate level courses that promote analysis, stimulate the desire 

for life-long learning, and reinforce academic research skills. Art of War 

graduates will not be satisfied with facile arguments; they understand 

the complexities inherent in almost any endeavor and develop the tools 

and fortitude to confront such complexities, analyze challenges, and 

independently seek nuanced solutions in the face of those who would opt 

for cruder alternatives. Through the pursuit of these outcomes, the Art of 

War Scholars Program seeks to improve and deepen professional military 

education. 

The Art of War Program places contemporary operations (such as those 

in Iraq and Afghanistan) in a historical framework by examining earlier 

military campaigns. Case studies and readings have been selected to show 

the consistent level of complexity posed by military campaigns throughout 

the modern era. Coursework emphasizes the importance of understanding 

previous engagements in order to formulate policy and doctrinal response 

to current and future campaigns. 

One unintended consequence of military history education is the 

phenomenon of commanders and policy makers “cherry picking” 

history—that is, pointing to isolated examples from past campaigns 

to bolster a particular position in a debate, without a comprehensive 

understanding of the context in which such incidents occurred. This trend 

of oversimplification leaves many historians wary of introducing these 

topics into broader, more general discussion. The Art of War program seeks 

to avoid this pitfall by a thorough examination of context. As one former 

student stated: “The insights gained have left me with more questions than 

answers but have increased my ability to understand greater complexities 

of war rather than the rhetorical narrative that accompanies cursory study 

of any topic.”

Professor Michael Howard, writing “The Use and Abuse of Military 

History” in 1961, proposed a framework for educating military officers in 

the art of war that remains unmatched in its clarity, simplicity, and totality. 

The Art of War program endeavors to model his plan:

Three general rules of study must therefore be borne in mind by the 

officer who studies military history as a guide to his profession and who 

wishes to avoid pitfalls. First, he must study in width. He must observe the 

way in which warfare has developed over a long historical period. Only 

by seeing what does change can one deduce what does not; and as much 

as can be learnt from the great discontinuities of military history as from 

the apparent similarities of the techniques employed by the great captains 
v

through the ages....Next he must study in depth. He should take a single 

campaign and explore it thoroughly, not simply from official histories, 

but from memoirs, letters, diaries. . . until the tidy outlines dissolve and 

he catches a glimpse of the confusion and horror of real experience... 

and, lastly, he must study in context. Campaigns and battles are not like 

games of chess or football matches, conducted in total detachment from 

their environment according to strictly defined rules. Wars are not tactical 

exercises writ large. They are...conflicts of societies, and they can be 

fully understood only if one understands the nature of the society fighting 

them. The roots of victory and defeat often have to be sought far from the 

battlefield, in political, social, and economic factors which explain why 

armies are constituted as they are, and why their leaders conduct them in 

the way they do.... It must not be forgotten that the true use of history, 

military or civil... is not to make men clever for the next time; it is to make 

them wise forever.

Gordon B. Davis, Jr.

Brigadier General, US Army

Deputy Commanding General

 CAC LD&E

Daniel Marston

DPhil (Oxon) FRHistS

Ike Skelton Distinguished Chair 

 in the Art of War

US Army Command & General 

 Staff College
vi

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance, guidance, and support of 

many people that made this thesis possible. First and foremost, I am deeply 

indebted to my wife, Heather, who has supported my academic pursuits 

no matter how many dinners, weekends, and events that are ruined by 

the arrival of new books. Thanks are due to my teammates, Darrell, Eric, 

Marcus, and Stew, who provided assistance and friendship in the face of 

adversity. I am deeply indebted to the many British veterans of the Dhofar 

campaign that shared their stories with our particular group of Americans. 

A special thanks to Dr. Marston, Dr. Murray, and Dr. Stephenson and the 

countless other supporters of the Art of the War Scholars program that have 

provided mentorship, advice, and support during the year. Additionally, I 

would like to thank several people that made our research ion the UK 

possible, including the archivists at the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s 

College, Oxford, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s 

College, London, and the British Library.

This thesis is the culmination of a conversation that started in Baghdad 

during the surge. Special thanks to Lt. Col. John Meyer, III and Maj. John 

Nakata for starting the dialogue and giving me something to think about 

for the last four years. 

Finally, this thesis is dedicated to the memory of the five Soldiers of 

Mortar Platoon, 1-26 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division that died on 8 July 

2004 in Samarra, Iraq while partnering with the 202nd Iraqi National 

Guard Battalion.
vii

Table of Contents

Abstract....................................................................................................iii

Objectives ................................................................................................ iv

Acknowledgments.................................................................................... vi

Table of Contents.................................................................................... vii

Acronyms...............................................................................................viii

Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................. 1

Chapter 2 Theory .................................................................................... 13

Chapter 3 North-West Frontier ............................................................... 33

Chapter 4 Dhofar..................................................................................... 73

Chapter 5 Iraq And Beyond .................................................................. 105

Glossary .................................................................................................115

Bibliography ..........................................................................................119

Illustrations

Figure 1. Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Trinity with their Actors................. 15

Figure 2. The Paradoxical Trinity during an Insurgency......................... 19

Figure 3. Map of the Bengal, Bombay, and

 Madras Presidencies in 1893. ............................................................... 36

Figure 4. North-West Frontier................................................................. 41

Figure 5. Map of the Oman and the Arabian Peninsula.......................... 74

Figure 6. Map of Dhofar. ........................................................................ 77
viii

Acronyms

ALP Afghan Local Police

AQI Al-Qaeda in Iraq

BATT British Army Training Team

BL British Library

CAP Combined Action Platoon

CLC Concerned Local Citizen

CO Commanding Officer

COIN Counterinsurgency

Col. Colonel

CSAF Commander, Sultan’s Armed Forces

DLA Dhofar Liberation Army

DLF Dhofar Liberation Front

EIC East India Company

FATA Federally Administered Tribal Areas

FID Foreign Internal Defense

FLOSY Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen

FM Field Manual

FMI Field Manual Interim

GPMG General-Purpose Machine Gun

HMSO His/Her Majesty’s Stationary Office

IOR India Office Records

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives

Lt. Lieutenant 

Lt. Col. Lieutenant Colonel

M2T Monitor, Mentor, Train

Maj. Major

MEC Middle East Centre

MIKE Mobile Strike Force Command

MiTT Military Transition Team

MNF-I Multi-National Forces-Iraq

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCO Non-commissioned Officer
ix

NLF National Liberation Front

NWF North-West Frontier

NWFP North-West Frontier Province

OIOC Oriental and India Office Collections

PDRY People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen

PFF Punjab Frontier Force

PFLOAG Popular Front, Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf

PIF Punjab Irregular Force

PSYOP Psychological Operations

SAF Sultan’s Armed Forces

SAS Special Air Service

SEP Surrendered Enemy Personnel

SOAF Sultan of Oman’s Air Force

SoI Sons of Iraq

TOS Trucial Oman Scouts

UK United Kingdom

US United States

VCO Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

The necessity of having a small force, acquainted with localities, 

at the command of the Civil Authority in a new country, bordering 

on troubled districts, is too apparent to require comment.

- Colonel Sir Henry Lawrence

to the Government of India, 7 June 1846.

Colonel Lawrence’s1

 note to the Viceroy of India made the point that 

in 1846 the use of local irregular forces2

 to assist the government was 

self-apparent.3

 The British and US experience of building and partnering 

with local, irregular security forces suggest their importance in assisting 

the host nation government and counterinsurgent forces. Their successful 

establishment, training, and employment demonstrate the importance of 

several prerequisites including partnership with an advisory force, consent 

of the host nation’s government to exist, and that the security force is 

accountable to the local civil authority. Without these prerequisites, the 

local, irregular security force could risk illegitimacy in the eyes of the 

populace, the host nation government, and the counterinsurgent.

Over 150 years later, the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan 

have highlighted partnership operations with indigenous forces. However, 

the civil and military commands responsible for directing both campaigns 

failed to develop a policy for partnership with regular and irregular forces 

early in the wars. The US and the UK eventually developed transition 

teams to partner with host nation regular security forces in 2005 and 

2008 respectively.4

 The 2007 edition of US Field Manual (FM) 3-24:

Counterinsurgency devoted a chapter to the development of host nation 

security forces for the first time.5

 Authors of subsequent manuals, articles, 

and lectures listed best tactical practices, training challenges, and advisor 

traits, but failed to highlight the strategic and operational importance of 

partnership missions with local irregular forces. Thus, Colonel Lawrence’s 

lesson seemed lost in time. As a result, the US and UK failed to resource 

the advisory missions for success. This failure is surprising given the fact 

that the recruiting, training, and employing of indigenous forces were not 

entirely new concepts in 2003 despite their absence from the doctrine. 

During the last two hundred years the British and Americans have used 

indigenous irregular forces, with varying degrees of success, to control 

populations, provide internal security, and counterinsurgencies spanning 

the Punjab, South Africa, Philippines, Malaya, Dhofar, Vietnam, and Iraq.6
2

Counterinsurgents create local irregular security forces as a common 

method of population control.7 Often familiar or tribal ties, business, or 

proximity can tie a locally raised force to the populace. Irregular forces 

can assist the counterinsurgent with local population control by providing 

security for the population, intelligence collection, and law enforcement. 

Additionally, the local security force can assist the regular forces by 

providing information about the local people, culture, and terrain. In 

1846, Colonel Lawrence proposed the formation of an irregular guide 

force because the British troops operating in the Punjab during the First 

Sikh War lacked information on roads, tribal allegiances, and the ability 

to communicate with the local populace. He did not want to repeat the 

situation in a future conflict. He realized that an irregular force could 

assist the local power, or counterinsurgent, with cultural norms, identify 

insurgents and abnormal activity, and assess the needs of the populace.8

Partnership9 can increase training, discipline, leadership, and security 

force legitimacy by tying it to the government or interventionist power. 

However, partnership, in and of itself, does not guarantee a local irregular 

force’s success. The partnership model needs to include the selection of 

personnel that are uniquely suited for the unique task of working with 

irregular security forces. Without selection criteria, the security force 

could fail to gain legitimacy, making it a liability to the counterinsurgent 

and the host nation. Colonel Lawrence understood the importance of 

advisor selection in June 1846. He wrote the Governor-General requesting 

oversight of officer selection for the new irregular force because, “As 

much of the success of the scheme proposed in this letter will depend on 

the officers selected.”10

Consent of the host nation for the formation and employment of local 

irregular force is a second, equally important criterion to the partnership 

model in determining an irregular force’s success. The Westphalian 

system of states has three primary tenets, the sovereignty of states and 

their fundamental right to political self-determination, the legal equality 

between states without regard to size, population, or influence, and the 

principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another 

state.11 A counterinsurgent that builds an irregular force without permission 

of the host government violates these principles. The counterinsurgent 

must convince the host government that the force is necessary, or the 

force’s legitimacy is susceptible.12 However, irregular forces created 

with the cooperation of the host nation’s government can eventually be 

incorporated into the nation’s security apparatus as regular forces. This 

scenario occurred with the Punjab Irregular Force in the North-West 
3

Frontier from 1846 to 1945, and to a lesser extent with the firqat during 

the Dhofar Insurgency (1963-1975).

The host nation’s involvement in the decision to build irregular forces 

is important from the beginning of the campaign. As the sole controller 

of state-sponsored violence, the host nation’s government must decide 

how to restore order with national and local forces. In some cases, the 

use of national forces can exacerbate the problem by reinforcing the local 

populace’s narrative.13 Generally, the local populace identifies themselves 

as ethnically or culturally distinct from the majority of the national security 

force. The national government, with assistance from the interventionist 

power, must decide if a local force, with a similar identity, could address 

the unrest. The responsibility to build an irregular force could fall to the 

interventionist power.

Since World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom 

have typically served as interventionist powers and therefore assisted 

the host nation government with the creation of an irregular force. In 

current US Army and joint doctrine, security force assistance operations, 

specifically foreign internal defense, includes the training and partnership 

of indigenous security forces.14 Since the early 1960s, Special Forces 

conducted the military component of this mission. However in postSeptember 11 operations, the US military quickly needed to expand their 

capability to conduct this mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and 

other locations during the War on Terror. In 2009, Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates acknowledged the shortcoming when he wrote that “within 

the military, advising and mentoring indigenous security forces is moving 

from the periphery of institutional priorities, where it was considered the 

province of the Special Forces, to being a key mission for the armed forces 

as a whole.”15 However, in the UK, military capacity building and security 

sector reform doctrine addresses training of indigenous forces.16 However, 

the UK Ministry of Defence lacks a unit dedicated to this mission.17

Whether or not an interventionist power decides to create a dedicated 

unit for this mission, effective partnership with regular and irregular 

security forces will remain a critical skill for the US and UK militaries. 

Partnership with locally raised security forces includes three overlapping 

techniques: training, mentoring, and observing.18 All three techniques 

can exist simultaneously between the partnering unit and the indigenous 

force. Furthermore, the partnering unit could utilize one technique with 

the indigenous force’s leadership, while employing a different component 

with the lower level Soldiers.
4

First, the partnering force provides training to the security forces 

during their formation. The formation period is often the most important 

since it establishes the relationship between the two forces. The partnering 

unit often works to establish discipline initially during the training 

component and when possible in ways reinforcing to the indigenous 

leadership structure. Both unit and personal discipline are important in 

a counterinsurgency and war in general. It ensures the unit is responsive 

to its leadership and it operates within the rule of law of the host nation. 

Discipline and legitimacy are linked traits. Furthermore, since the force 

is raised locally, grievances between the force and populace might factor 

into operations without partnership oversight. The training component is 

usually conducted away from the populace.

Second, the partnering force provides mentorship during the initial 

employment of the security forces. The indigenous force is capable 

of conducting simple operations independently, but often lack skilled 

refinement that results from multiple exposures to security operations. The 

advisors can physically lead the forces through its initial operations, or the 

advisors can indirectly lead the security forces by partnering with leaders.19

The partnering force could also provide enablers not available to the local 

force including air support, indirect fire, and surveillance platforms.

Finally, the partnering unit provides observation of the indigenous force 

to ensure progress and legitimacy. Counterinsurgents seek an end state 

where is the local force is flexible, proficient, well led, and professional. 

It should operate among the populace and reinforce the government’s rule 

of law. The interventionist power must hold the local force accountable 

throughout all phases of partnership, but accountability becomes more 

important as the interventionist power prepares to transition out of the 

host nation. Furthermore, the unit must be self-sustaining.20 Both US and 

UK doctrine reinforce the fact that the process requires patience.

In addition to the method of partnership, another factor that 

differentiates the US and British experiences of raising indigenous 

security forces is the decision to reinforce or suppress tribal or ethnic 

differences when recruiting new Soldiers. Most advisors from the 19th 

and 20th centuries agreed that homogenous organizations preformed 

better than mixed units.21 However, during the Cold War, the British and 

American emphasis on ethnic representation varied by insurgencies. In 

some cases, the American and British advisors tried both approaches with 

varying levels of success during the same campaign. Three case studies 

provide examples of varying levels of partnership and tribal or ethnic 

representation.
5

The Punjab Irregular Force, 1859-1886, and the later Frontier Corps 

from the early 20th century until 1947 is an example of a local security 

force formed with extensive partnership between British and indigenous 

leaders and with regard to differing tribal compositions in the 1850s. The 

British recruited Pashtuns, Sikhs, Gurkhas, and number of smaller classes 

to form the Punjab Irregular Force, also known as the “Piffers” to police the 

North-West Frontier. Unlike the development of later indigenous forces, 

the Piffers conducted internal security, not counterinsurgency operations.22

Although organized as a paramilitary organization, the unit reported to 

the civil administrator, lieutenant governor of the Punjab, and not to the 

commander of British Indian Army. In British India, the army tended to 

assign British officers from the Indian Army to native regiments for the 

purposes of recruitment, training, discipline, and leadership.23 British 

Indian Army officers partnered with native officers and noncommissioned 

officers to lead the Piffers. The British officers lived with their Soldiers, 

learned the language and the culture, and tended to represent the upper 

portion of British Indian officers. Later, Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of 

India, organized several local militias into the Frontier Corps. Although 

both the Piffers and the Frontier Corps participated in combat operations, 

they primarily provided internal security through the civil administrators.

The British involvement during the Dhofar Insurgency (1963-1975) 

provides examples of both successful and unsuccessful counterinsurgent 

creation of indigenous forces. In Dhofar, the Sultan’s Armed Forces 

(SAF) fought against a communist-inspired and supported insurgency. 

The Special Air Service (SAS), under the moniker British Army Training 

Team (BATT), obtained permission from the Sultan to partner with local 

Dhofari tribes and build irregular units. After a period of trial and error, the 

BATT decided to reinforce the existing system of tribes and built triballybased firqats. The BATT advisors to the firqat also represented a handselected group of officers and NCOs chosen specifically for their ability to 

accomplish the partnership task.

Finally, the Sons of Iraq (SoI) program in Baghdad and Al-Anbar 

province during Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrates the creation 

of local indigenous force without regard for partnership. Sunni tribes 

in Al-Anbar province chose to side with the government instead of the 

insurgency in 2006 after three years of boycotting the government. Tribal 

leaders formed Sunni security forces to protect their neighborhoods and 

interests from Al-Qaeda extremists in order to gain relevance in national 

dialogue. American units in other parts of Iraq sought to mimic the success 

of local security forces in Al-Anbar province without the assistance of the 
6

Awakening movement.24 They created and financed SoI units at a rate that 

prevented partnership, standardization, and accountability. In the absence 

of guidance from the Iraqi government and Multi-National Forces-Iraq 

(MNF-I), SoI partnership with the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the 

US military varied by the organization and the local US commander’s 

personality. Without US partnership and consent of the Iraqi government, 

the SoI program initially lacked legitimacy as late as 2010.

American and British counterinsurgencies provide several case 

studies on the successful and unsuccessful creation of local irregular 

security forces. The paper examines the method of partnership, selection 

and traits of the advisors, and the host nation government’s role in building 

the Punjab Irregular Force and Frontier Corps in the North-West Frontier 

in India, the firqat in Dhofar, and the Sons of Iraq. The paper discusses 

successful and unsuccessful practices for future counterinsurgents 

engaged in partnership missions with local irregular security forces. As 

the US and the UK consider their future force structures and their role 

as interventionist powers, “building partner capability”, both regular and 

irregular, will remain relevant to current operations and future security 

assistance operations.
7

Notes

1. Colonel Henry Lawrence served nearly his entire professional life 

as British Army officer and political agent in India. As an artillery officer, he 

participated in the First Burmese War, the First Afghan War, both Sikh Wars, and 

the Indian Mutiny. He advocated for the local populace as a political officer. He 

later served as the British Resident to the Darbar between the two Sikh wars. In this 

position, he also served as the chief political agent for the North-West Frontier. He 

proposed the formation of the Guides following the First Sikh War after observing 

the slow pace of the Indian Army regiments. Henry Lawrence died during the 

Siege of Lucknow in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Lieutenant General James John 

McLeod Innes, Sir Henry Lawrence: The Pacificator (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 

1898), 11-16.

2. US Army doctrine defines irregular forces as “armed individuals or 

groups who are not members of the regular armed forces, police, or other internal 

security forces.” Despite the fact that this term is part of the doctrinal lexicon, the 

term is most often used to only describe the enemy insurgents. Irregular forces 

are also called auxiliaries, militias, and local security forces. Department of the 

Army, Field Manual 1-02 Operational Terms and Graphics s.v. “Irregular Forces”

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 21 September 2004), 1-105.

3. History of the Guides, 1846-1922 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1938), 

2-3.

4. Military Training Team (MiTT) training for the US was centralized at Fort 

Riley on 1 June 2006 to standardize the training teams received prior to deploying 

to Iraq. First Brigade, 1st Infantry Division received responsibility for training the 

teams. The unit received the first Afghanistan MiTTs in November 2006. Prior 

to that time, advisors received training in one of four locations. The Iraq Study 

Group found that the advisory mission was critically understaffed in 2006. The 

group cited a target number of 10,000-20,000 advisors for Iraq; however, the US 

military had only 3,000-4,000 in place. James A. Baker, III and Lee H. Hamilton, 

eds., The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward –A New Approach (New 

York: Vintage, 2006), 70-71. The UK did not form Training Teams until Operation 

Charge of the Knights in Basra, March 2008. Daniel Marston, “Adaptation in the 

Field: The British Army’s Difficult Campaign in Iraq,” Security Challenges 6, no. 

1 (Autumn 2010): 78-81.

5. FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency superseded FM 7-98 Operations in Low 

Intensity Conflict (1992) and FM 90-8 Counterguerrilla Operations (1986). 

Neither manual devoted space to the training of regular or irregular security 

forces since Special Forces traditionally conducted this mission. FM 90-8 did 

encourage commanders to partner with host nation forces whenever possible. 

The authors also devoted four paragraphs in the last appendix stating that US 

Army forces could perform advisory missions with paramilitary and irregular 

forces to train locally recruited forces for local defense missions. No other 

guidance is provided. Even the interim counterinsurgency manual, FMI 3-07.22, 
8

Counterinsurgency Operations, 1 October 2006, lacked guidance concerning 

advisory and partnership missions. Department of the Army, Field Manual 90-8 

Counterguerrilla Operations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 29 

August 1986), H-14–H-16.

6. This is only a partial list of irregular forces used by the US and the UK. 

Not all of these case studies are explained in detail in this paper. The Punjab 

and Dhofar are explained in detail in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of this paper. In 

South Africa, the British co-opted nearly 2,000 Boers for service in the South 

African Constabulary, as well as other irregular formations. See Byron Farwell, 

The Great Boer War (New York: Harper and Row, 1976). In the Philippines, the 

US Army built the Philippine Constabulary and the Philippine Scouts. See Brian 

Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 

2000) and Alfred McCoy, Policing America’s Empire (Madison, WI:University 

of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 82-93, 126-146 for more details on the Philippine 

irregular forces. The British and Malayans formed the Home Guard from Chinese 

immigrants during the Malayan Emergency. James Corum, Training Indigenous 

Forces in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Insurgencies (Carlisle: Strategic 

Studies Institute, March 2006), 1-24 and 34-54. In Vietnam, the US mentored the 

Montagnards in the Vietnamese Central Highlands. See Lieutenant Colonel Lewis 

Burruss, Mike Force (Lincoln: Pocketbooks, 1989) for a first-person account of 

training and operating with the Montagnard tribesmen. Finally, the US partnered 

with the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Sons of Iraq (Concerned Local Citizens), and 

3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment’s partnership with the Albu Mahal tribe in Al 

Qa’im. See Carter Malkasian, “Counterinsurgency in Iraq,” in Counterinsurgency 

in Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian (Oxford: Osprey 

Publishing, 2010), 287-310.

7. The US Army defines population control as “determining who lives in 

an area and what they do.” Population control is discussed further in Chapter 

2. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 2007), 180.

8. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 2-3; Innes, 27.

9. Partnership is not defined in US Army or joint doctrine. The closest 

doctrinal term is security force assistance, which is “the unified action to generate, 

employ, and sustain local, Host Nation, or regional security forces in support of 

a legitimate authority.” Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-07 Stability 

Operations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 6-77. However, 

this definition does not translate well to tactical units for implementation. General 

David Petraeus did not provide a definition in his COIN guidance to commanders 

during surge operations in Iraq. General Stanley McChrystal’s “ISAF Commander’s 

Counterinsurgency Guidance” provides one of the best tactical-level definitions 

of partnership. He wrote, “live, eat, and train together, plan and operate together, 

depend on one another, and hold each other accountable–at all echelons down 

to the Soldier level. Treat them as equal partners in success.” Headquarters, 
9

International Security Assistance Force “ISAF Commander’s Counterinsurgency 

Guidance” (Kabul, 25 August 2009), 7. General Petraeus kept the same words in 

commander’s guidance as the ISAF Commander.

10. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 3.

11. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power 

and Peace, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 284.

12. The US advisory mission to the Montagnards in Vietnam suffered from 

this problem. Military Assistance Command-Vietnam failed to vet the program 

through the South Vietnamese government. As a result, the Civilian Irregular 

Defense Group (CIDG) and later MIKE Force units received no funding or 

material from the Vietnamese government. In 1970, the US abandoned the 

program during the Vietnamization program. Burress, 190. It remains to be seen if 

the Government of Iraq will fully integrate the Sons of Iraq into the government’s 

forces.

13. An example of this problem is explained in Chapter 4. Although not 

a case study in this paper, another example of this paradox is the use of India’s 

military in Indian-administered Kashmir. Although the conflict is rooted within 

the larger problems of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Kashmiris 

are predominately Muslim. However, India is predominately Hindu. Additionally, 

the Kashmiris believe that the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special 

Powers Act passed in 1990 unfairly allows the military forces to discriminate 

against them. See Sumantra Rose’s Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 2005); Sumit Ganguly “Explaining the 

Kashmir Insurgency: Political Mobilization and Institutional Decay,” International 

Security 21, no. 2 (Autumn 1996): 76-107; Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, 

and Kashmir: Antimonies of Nationalism,” Asian Survey 31, no. 11 (November 

1991): 997-1019 for more information on the role of paramilitary forces in the 

Kashmir insurgency.

14. Foreign internal defense (FID) is “the participation by civilian and 

military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another 

government or other designated organization, to free and protect its society 

from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to their 

security.” FID is divided into categories, indirect and direct. Indirect FID focuses 

on systems in the target nation and includes military exchange programs, and 

joint and multinational exercises. Direct FID is usually conducted US Special 

Forces and includes the use of US forces normally focused on civil-military 

operations, psychological operations (PSYOP), communications and intelligence 

cooperation, mobility, and logistic support. Department of the Army, Field Manual 

3-07.1 Security Force Assistance (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1 May 2009), 1-4, paragraph 1-25; Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-22 

Foreign Internal Defense (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 12 July 

2010), ix-x.
10

15. Robert M. Gates “Helping Others Defend Themselves: The Future of US 

Security Assistance,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2010): 2.

16. Military Capacity Building describes the range of activities in support 

of developing an indigenous security force including partnering, monitoring, 

mentoring, and training. Security Sector Reform is a specific program of activities 

coordinated to create capable indigenous security forces (police and armed forces) 

generally tailored to a specific theatre. Ministry of Defence, British Army Field 

Manual Volume 1 Part 10 Countering Insurgency (London: Ministry of Defence, 

October 2009), 10-1, 10-B-3.

17. The issue of training a unit specifically for partnership missions remains 

a contentious issue in both countries. There are advantages and disadvantages to 

creating dedicated group of advisors. Potential advantages include specialization 

of the Soldiers for this type of mission, protected career progression, and education 

tailored for this type of mission. The primary disadvantage of specialization 

is the inability to use these Soldiers for other missions, a key criteria as both 

countries are getting ready to decrease the end strength of the military. See Center 

for Technology and National Security Policy, Transforming for Stabilization and 

Reconstruction Operations (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 12 

November 2003); Edward F. Bruner, Military Forces: What is the Appropriate 

Size for the United States? (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 10 

February 2005) for more information on the US debate.

18. The terms partnering, mentoring, and advising appear prominently in 

several documents related to past and present insurgencies, including the mission 

statements of both training commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, but remain for 

the most part undefined in American doctrine. The terms are discussed, but not 

defined, in Chapter 8, FM 3-24.2, Tactics in Counterinsurgency. Conversely, 

British doctrine uses the term M2T (monitor, mentor, and train) to describe a 

spectrum of military support to indigenous forces during the transition or building 

phase. Partnership is described as an end state when both forces are equal and 

integrated. Countering Insurgency, 10-A-1, paragraphs 10-A-3 and 10-A-4. 

In order to establish a common language for the purposes of this discussion, 

partnership simply refers to the relationship between the counterinsurgent and the 

local force during the formation of the unit.

19. This aspect is discussed within the context of each case study presented. 

The US’s preferred method currently is indirect. In the US, the national command 

authority must authorize the potential involvement of military personnel in combat 

operations with indigenous forces. If at all possible, the advisors should use every 

opportunity to reinforce the local force leadership. When problems present during 

operations, the advisor should avoid discrediting the indigenous force leaders in 

front of subordinates.

20. Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency, 208.

21. Commentators on this subject fail to reach agreement. Lieutenant 

General Sir Harry Lumsden, who commanded the Guides in the North-West 
11

Frontier Province, offered advice on the matter in “Frontier Thoughts and 

Frontier Requirements.” He recommended the creation of regiments based on 

race or nationality as method of building loyalty and esprit de corps. However, 

he encouraged recruiting from every caste to build these units. Segregation of the 

castes by company within the regiment was “convenient.” His recommendation 

disagreed with the common practice following the Mutiny in 1857. T. E. Lawrence 

also concluded that tribal and ethnic composition was important. He included it 

his advisory piece “Twenty-Seven Articles” and commented that he had never 

seen a successful operation that mixed Bedu and Syrians, but had witnessed many 

failures. For the Americans, the recruitment of indigenous forces almost always 

followed tribal or ethnic lines. In the American West, General George Crook 

recruited several organizations of Native American axillaries, often exploiting 

divisions with a tribe. General Order 293 established the fifty companies of 

Scouts by tribe or language group during the Philippine Insurrection. See Sir 

Harry Lumsden, Lumsden of the Guides (London: John Murray, 1899), Appendix 

A, 291-292; T. E. Lawrence, “Twenty-Seven Articles,” The Arab Bulletin (20 

August 1917): Article 15; Alfred McCoy, Policing America’s Empire (Madison: 

University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 83; Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: 

The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (Lincoln: University of 

Nebraska Press, 1973), 53-57.

22. The Piffers conducted a mission known formally as aid to the civil 

power that included punishing and rewarding tribes, escorting civil authorities, 

and guarding British interests from the raiders. The distinction between aid to the 

civil power and counterinsurgency is described in chapter 2.

23. This system differed from the more common, and later, practice of 

seconded British officers to other armies. Seconding an officer involves releasing 

the officer for set period of time from his assigned unit to another, usually native, 

unit. When the assignment is complete the officer returns to assigned unit.

24. The Anbar Awakening and the Sons of Iraq program are different aspects 

of the Sunni Awakening. The Anbar Awakening was a grassroots initiative started 

by Sunni tribal leaders, specifically Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. The Iraqi 

government and US military supported the initiative and provided some material 

support. General David Petraeus started the SoI program to spread the success of 

the Anbar Awakening to other Sunni areas. Najim Abed Al-Jabouri and Sterling 

Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI roles in the Sunni Awakening,” Prism 2, no. 1 

(December 2010): 3-4.

13

Chapter 2

Theory

A commander can more easily shape and direct the popular 

insurrection by supporting the insurgents with small units 

of the regular army. Without these regular troops to provide 

encouragement, the local inhabitants will usually lack the 

confidence and initiative to take arms.

- Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Although the topic of raising local irregular security forces gained 

attention during the Iraq War surge, as Colonel Lawrence alluded to in 

his letter to the Governor-General in the previous chapter, the use of 

these forces is not a new idea. In fact, he considered the use of local 

irregular forces to assist the civil government self-apparent in June 1846. 

The theory and practice of using the local population to supplement an 

imperial, governmental, or counterinsurgent power dates to at the least 

the early Roman Empire, if not earlier.1

 Carl von Clausewitz’s writings 

on the nature of war help provide the theoretical foundation to explain the 

importance of the indigenous population’s involvement in waging war. 

His theory postulated that the populace’s relationship with the government 

and the military is important when waging a war. Several contemporary 

theorists, including Mao Tse-tung, Frank Kitson, and David Galula, 

reinforced Clausewitz’s work as it applied to the post-World War II period 

to further explain the importance of population security.2

 These authors 

developed their theories when fighting revolutionary wars, or wars of 

national liberation, was especially prevalent.3

Before commencing any discussion on the relationships between the 

government, military, and the populace, it is important to define war. Carl 

von Clausewitz’s collection of books, On War, provided both classical 

and contemporary theorists with one definition of war. He stated war was 

an act of organized violence to compel the enemy to do your will.4

 His 

statement is decidedly vague and allows the counterinsurgent and the 

host nation government a wide variety of options short of armed conflict. 

These include but are not limited to negotiation, appeal to international 

organizations, and economic sanctions.

Once a host nation decides that to wage war, it must decide what type 

of war to wage. Clausewitz briefly divides war into two broad categories, 

total and limited war. He described the first category, total war, as a desire 

to overthrow the enemy, either by rendering him politically or militarily 
14

ineffective. Limited war sought to occupy an objective long enough to 

secure an advantageous position, either physically or diplomatically.5

In wars of national liberation, the local population and the government 

might be fighting each other with different objectives. The populace could 

fight using a total war mindset, while the counterinsurgent is fighting a 

limited war.6 Furthermore, the indigenous host nation’s government and 

the interventionist power could also be fighting different levels of war.7

A nation at war needs to balance the interactions between the 

government, the military, and the populace. War is a function of the 

relationship between the three elements, primordial violence, probability, 

and policy. Clausewitz referred to these relationships as the paradoxical 

trinity.8

 How the three elements interact with each other is just as 

important to understanding insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, as 

is the definition of war. Clausewitz stated that populace is the primary 

means of expression for the primordial violence, or passion, piece of the 

relationship. The military commander and his army are responsible for 

chance and probability. Finally, the government is the sole actor when 

concerned with policy.9

Although most politicians and military professionals understand the 

importance of a balanced civil-military relationship, the interaction of the 

populace with the military and government are not always considered when 

conducting a war. Recruiting and parades are examples of the populacemilitary interaction, whereas war bond drives, taxes, and the Selective 

Service Act are examples of populace-government interactions.

The government must decide how much to involve the populace in 

the conduct of the war. Clausewitz stated that the people’s passion for war 

must be present when the conflict started. However, the government might 

seek to manipulate the passion once the war is started. In one of President 

George W. Bush’s first speeches following the 11 September 2001 attacks 

on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon he tried to reduce the 

public’s passion for immediate reprisals.10 During the 1968 Presidential 

campaign, Richard Nixon had to address the growing dissatisfaction with 

the Vietnam War because of a vocal group of American citizens.11 Finally, 

the government might also decide to control the interaction between the 

populace and the military. For example, a state might use the military to 

institute martial law to quell the populace’s passion for a particular cause 

and to increase the military’s probability of victory through the use of 

population control measures.12
15

Figure 1. Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Trinity with their Actors.

Source: Created by author.

By examining the relationships between the three elements of the 

paradoxical trinity and their primary actors, it is easier to understand why 

Clausewitz believed that war was a continuation of policy by another 

means.13 This statement is important to any discussion of insurgency and 

counterinsurgency because the local population’s relationship with the 

military and the government. Although Clausewitz did not expand his 

thoughts beyond a few sentences on the matter, several contemporary 

theorists wrote about the importance of the population during an 

insurgency. Mao Tse-Tung, for example, believed that revolutionary 

warfare was necessary to address societal grievances, whether they are 

equal voting rights, land ownership, or the freedom of assembly. The 

populace could seek redress through warfare for these perceived wrongs.14

Over time, the people’s grievances can inflame their passion for change. 

Sir Robert Thompson captured this lesson in his counterinsurgency theory. 

He stated that every insurgency required a cause, generally based on a real 

or believed social gap between the people and the government.15

Often the government or counterinsurgent often has to address these 

perceived causes as part of their strategy. Clausewitz’s idea of ways, 

ends, and means is one method of examining the problem confronting 

the counterinsurgent. Clausewitz explained the ways, ends, and means 
16

at both the strategic and tactical levels of war, although it is primarily 

at the strategic level that it is important to discuss of the peoples’ role. 

Clausewitz explained that armies, through a series of victories, provide the 

strategic means, while the government provides the ends by determining 

the peace objectives at the end of the conflict.16 Clausewitz left the reader 

to infer that the people provide the ways for war conducted through their 

support of the war, both material and moral.

The Dhofar Insurgency is an example of the ways, ends, and means 

applied to a populace to solve a strategic problem. The Sultan’s Armed 

Forces (SAF) lacked intelligence on the insurgents operating in Dhofar, 

and therefore they lacked the ability to meaningfully attack the enemy. 

The Sultan defined the strategic ends as defeating the insurgency, while 

maintaining sovereignty over the Dhofar region. He co-opted the Dhofari 

tribes; a group previously discriminated against by the previous Sultan, 

as one of the ways to achieve his end state. He allowed the tribes to form 

their own security forces to gather intelligence, patrol, and fight against 

the insurgents. Eventually, the SAF and the Dhofari tribes defeated the 

insurgents through a series of military campaigns (the means). The Sultan 

also influenced the relationship between the populace and the government 

by instituting a series of social reforms in Dhofar to address the Dhofaris’ 

social grievances.17

The Dhofar example also demonstrates that another important aspect 

of counterinsurgency, the “whole of government” approach to the problem. 

British General Frank Kitson advised future counterinsurgents that a purely 

military solution does not exist for an insurgency. He postulated that the 

military campaign must work within an overall government plan that also 

included political and economic solutions. The plan needed to address the 

insurgents’ aims, strengths, and weaknesses.18 David Galula continued this 

theme to an extreme and stated that depriving the insurgency of the cause 

solves the problem of an insurgency.19 However, the government does not 

need to capitulate to the insurgents’ demands. Kitson understood that the 

government and counterinsurgent needed to balance force and incentives 

when dealing with the populace. Until the Malaya Emergency ended in 

1960, the Malayan government, advised by the British, never allowed the 

Chinese immigrants living in the country full rights, including universal 

citizenship and proportional representation in the national government, 

but they did address several of discriminatory practices that prevented 

them from making a fair living.20

The paradoxical trinity and the ways, ends, and means analysis also 

help explain the basis of population control theory. Counterinsurgency 
17

(COIN) practitioners tend to avoid the term population control when 

developing operations since control of the population often conflicts with 

their liberal democratic values.21 The US Army defines population control 

as “determining who lives in an area and what they do.”22 Population 

control measures include the use of curfews, movement restrictions, 

censuses, registration cards, and the forced resettlement of villagers.23

Furthermore, population control measures often attempt to balance 

two competing principles of counterinsurgency operations. First, the 

counterinsurgent forces must try to isolate the populace from the insurgent 

to prevent insurgent recruitment, indoctrination, and material support from 

the populace. A counterinsurgent can use physical, coercive, and incentivebased means to achieve physical and psychological isolation between the 

insurgent and the local populace. Simultaneously, the counterinsurgent 

forces, both as the host nation as well as the interventionist power, must 

convince the populace of the legitimacy of its position to defeat an 

insurgency and reinforce the primacy of government’s rule of law.

The government’s use of population control can easily disrupt the 

relationships between the people, government, and the army. Clausewitz 

likened this relationship to the balance between three magnets, passion, 

policy, and probability.24 When the equilibrium between the three magnets 

is disrupted, a state of internal unrest can exist. Likewise, if the people 

do not provide the ways for war, the government or the army might seek 

to control public sentiment by imposing taxes, martial law, conscription, 

and rationing. General insurrection by the people exists on Clausewitz’s 

spectrum of war when something disrupts the relationship between the 

populace and the government. Clausewitz acknowledged in “The People 

in Arms” that general insurrection is defeated slowly by removing the 

passion for uprising from the people.25 Population control measures seek 

to manipulate the people’s passion by isolating the insurgent. It is not 

necessary to co-opt the populace initially to guarantee success (initially 

the measure could be coercive in nature).

Not all contemporary theorists agree on the relative importance of 

the populace when waging war. In fact, British General Rupert Smith, a 

contemporary theorist, argued that the populace’s passion for war is the 

least important factor for sustaining a state of war. However, it must be 

present.26 Although Smith cites several examples of counterinsurgencies 

in attempt to substantiate his equation in terms of political will, he fails 

to discuss the importance of the popular opinion. Vietnam is an example 

where he claimed the US lost the will to fight politically, but he fails 

to mention the importance of the anti-war movement in the country at 
18

the time.27 In fact, his mathematical reduction of Clausewitz’s theory 

of war underestimates the importance of the people in insurgency and 

counterinsurgency warfare. While his error in overlooking Clausewitz’s 

chapter on people’s war is perhaps excusable, he completely ignored the 

writings of Mao Tse-Tung.

Mao Tse-Tung’s theories on the nature of revolutionary warfare stress 

the importance of the populace for sustaining war. His writings bridge 

the classical period to the contemporary period. His book, On Guerrilla 

Warfare, describes the tenets of peoples’ wars that influenced an entire 

generation of counterinsurgency theorists. Mao reiterated Clausewitz’s 

theories by describing why the populace is important to the insurgent in 

revolutionary warfare. Mao suggested that the insurgency must exploit 

perceived societal gaps between the government and the populace.28

In theory, the insurgent can also deal with the populace using the same 

physical, coercive, and incentive-based means as the counterinsurgent. 

The average villager only needs to believe that the insurgent can give him 

a better life than the government for the counterinsurgent to start losing the 

battle for the populace’s minds.

While Mao wrote from insurgent’s viewpoint, Galula emphasized the 

importance of winning the fight for the populace for the counterinsurgent. 

His theory further divided Clausewitz’s interactions between the populace, 

state, and military by framing the insurgency in terms of military, political, 

and social issues. Galula’s first principle for counterinsurgency operations 

stated that the aim of the war is to gain support of the population, not 

the application of violence to control territory.29 In fact, he believed that 

gaining and maintaining contact with the population is a major theme of 

the ideal counterinsurgency operation.30 Over time, this emphasis on the 

population has supported the so-called “population-centric” model of 

counterinsurgency.31

Since the insurgent and the counterinsurgent are competing for the 

support of the populace, the government and interventionist power must 

develop a plan to exploit their strengths. Often times, the government 

has relative advantages in resources including money, military strength, 

and infrastructure. Sir Robert Thompson developed five principles to 

defeating a communist insurgency based on his experience in Malaya. 

These principles emphasize the legitimacy and transparency of the 

government as necessary to isolate the populace and defeat the insurgency. 

The first principle is the government needed a clear political goal.32 Every 

contemporary theorist echoes this principle, and Thompson’s assessment 

reinforces Clausewitz’s assertion that the political objective of war is the
19

Figure 2. The Paradoxical Trinity during an Insurgency.

Source: Created by author.

most important. The second principle is the legitimacy of government’s 

strategy. Third, the government must have an overall plan. The fourth 

principle is the government must defeat the political subversion, not the 

insurgent force. Finally, the government must secure base areas first.33

The last two principles seek to physically and psychologically isolate the 

population from the insurgents. Additionally, the government must defeat 

subversion by removing the issues that the population perceives is at issue 

when possible. Although these principles do not specifically state that the 

population should be actively involved in the strategy, the counterinsurgent 

could conclude to use the population to secure its base areas as part of their 

ways, ends, and means analysis.

The Rationale for Indigenous Security Forces

The application of Clausewitz’s and Mao’s theories on war to 

Thompson’s fifth principle helps provide the rationale for creating local 

security forces. Mao stressed the population’s inclusion developing ways, 

ends, and means for fighting a war. Given the importance of the population 

during an insurgency, the counterinsurgent should also place emphasis on 

the population. The counterinsurgent can use the local populace to help 

secure base areas. Contemporary theorists including Kitson and Galula 
20

agree that the counterinsurgent and host nation government must gain a 

quick victory to demonstrate their resolve. Kitson argued that the main 

characteristic, which distinguished insurgency from other forms of war, is 

the struggle for men’s minds with violence used to support or perpetuate 

ideas.34 If the counterinsurgent can convince the populace to actively secure 

their interests, without fear of insurgent reprisal, then the counterinsurgent 

is starting to win the information battle.

However, the populace is rarely able to secure itself against terrorism at 

the beginning of an insurgency. Kitson used the case studies in Bunch of Five

to demonstrate this paradox and the problems it created when developing 

the counterinsurgent’s overall plan.35 The military initially provided local 

security in each case. Thompson stated that a counterinsurgent wanted to 

quickly create the conditions where individuals needed to pick between 

supporting the government and the insurgent. The counterinsurgent 

should allow the population to secure itself using local paramilitary forces 

because it could influence the population to support the government.36

Mao suggested that units from the home province could provide the local 

security, a point that several contemporary theorists echoed.37

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, David Kilcullen examined 

importance of local security forces in both theory and doctrine 

from an interventionist perspective. As part of his statement of best 

counterinsurgency practices, he added the tenet, “Effective, Legitimate 

Local Security Forces.” He viewed these forces in the same manner as 

Kitson, guards that allowed better-trained Soldiers to conduct offensive 

missions. He added some important criteria to his description of the local 

force; legitimate in the local eyes, operate under the rule of law, and can 

effectively protect local communities against insurgents. He also added a 

word of caution for the interventionist power: the formation and training 

of these troops takes more time and resources than is usually appreciated.38

If the counterinsurgent decides to form of irregular units, they can also 

assist the counterinsurgent with the gathering of information. Almost all 

of the other contemporary counterinsurgent theorists agree that the role of 

intelligence is paramount to conducting a successful counterinsurgency.39

The gathering of intelligence is another argument for the creation of 

indigenous security forces. Trinquier notes that a paradox exists for the 

counterinsurgent, in that intelligence gathering is paramount to conducting 

offensive operations, but the population is generally reluctant to share 

information with the counterinsurgent.40 The population could fear 

reprisals from insurgent forces, be subject to enemy propaganda, or view 

the security forces as part of the real or perceived societal issue.
21

It is important to note that the building of indigenous security forces 

is not limited to counterinsurgency campaigns. In fact, the majority of 

local security forces are trained for internal security or policing duties. 

British Major General Sir Charles Gwynn stated in Imperial Policing that 

the army provides an important role in the maintenance of law and order.41

Although Gwynn’s book presents case studies from Imperial Britain, its 

relevance to modern campaigns should not be dismissed as a relic of an 

earlier era. Gwynn believed then that the army’s policing functions were 

increasing in importance to its wartime duties. He divided policing duties 

into three categories. The first category included small wars, campaigns 

with a limited, defined military objective.42 This category included 

punitive campaigns. Gwynn chose to emphasize the second category, 

which consisted of campaigns where civil control of the population does 

not exist, or has broken down to the extent where the military is the only 

institution that can provide security. The United States Army conducted 

this type of campaign following the fall of Baghdad in March 2003 until 

the restoration of Iraqi national sovereignty on 28 June 2004. A unique 

feature of this type of campaign is the divided responsibility between the 

military and civil authorities. The third category is a campaign where the 

civil government maintains control, but lacks the personnel numbers to 

provide adequate security for the populace.43 Examples of this type of 

campaign are the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The British military published a series of manuals to help leaders 

understand how their responsibilities and powers changed in this type 

of campaign. In 1949, British doctrine defined this type of military 

operation as “in aid of the civil power to restore law and order.”44 Over 

time, the name given to these operations changed several times, but the 

subordinate tasks remained fairly constant. In the 1957 and 1963 versions 

of the manual, this term evolved into the range of tasks known as internal 

security.45 Derivatives of these manuals and internal security tasks 

eventually formed the core of British Army’s 1977 Counter Revolutionary 

Operations manual, which was published following the decolonization 

of the Empire east of the Suez Canal. It continued to address the role of 

British forces fighting primarily against communist insurgencies.46 The 

evolution of British doctrine is important to understanding how the raising 

of indigenous security forces in the Empire influenced later campaigns. 

The US Army also codified the levels of policing and their relation to war 

fighting in the counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24.47
22

Force Ratios

In the current international environment of constrained budgets, 

recession, and limited military interventions, theorists have reopened the 

discussion of whether a certain number or ratio of troops are needed to 

counter an insurgency. The idea of force ratios warrants examination in 

the discussion whether or not to raise indigenous local security forces. 

Force ratios are defined one of two ways. The force ratio can define 

the relative strength in numbers of insurgents to counterinsurgents, or 

counterinsurgents to the population.48

The force ratio number seems to lack scientific validity, even though 

the US has used this as a metric since the 1980s.49 Further studies in 

the 1990s perpetuated this force ratio.50 Leading up to the war in Iraq, 

senior defense officials argued about the number of troops needed to 

stabilize Iraq immediately following the invasion. This debate reached its 

climax when General Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Forces 

Committee that several hundred thousand troops were needed.51 In 2007, 

General David Petraeus included the ratio in the interim FMI 3-07-22.52

The Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, suggested a force density 

of 20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 people as a minimum and a ratio of 

25 to 1,000 as a maximum.53 The Institute for Defense Analyses found 

that force density of 40-50 counterinsurgents per 1,000 is required for 

high confidence of success.54 The researchers limited the scope of their 

analysis to Iraq, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo.55

The study recommended a revision of Counterinsurgency to reflect their 

results.56 However, other studies have demonstrated that ratios of 1.3:1 in 

the Philippines and 4:1 in El Salvador produced counterinsurgency wins.57

In Iraq, the best ratio that the government and coalition troops achieved 

was 18.4:1 at the beginning of 2007.58 At best, these studies demonstrate 

that using case studies does not conclusively prove the 10:1 ratio or even 

the 20:1 ratio. The studies reinforce Kitson’s statement that military force 

at a certain level alone cannot produce a counterinsurgent win. Instead, 

the studies on force ratios allude to the fact that the military component is 

only one aspect of a complex problem that requires Thompson’s “whole of 

government” approach to produce a victory.

Some of the contemporary theorists have suggested that the inclusion 

of irregular Soldiers to change the force ratio is valid, not necessarily for the 

numbers, but instead because they allow regular Soldiers to conduct more 

missions that require more skill sets. Kitson’s argument for the creation 

of auxiliaries focused on the manpower requirements of his “framework 

operations,” specifically the defensive operations. He suggested that 
23

auxiliary forces could assume less skilled tasks such as guarding and 

protection.59 In turn, the use of auxiliaries for guarding and protection 

tasks allowed the army and police to conduct offensive operations, 

intelligence gathering, and information operations. Kitson also noted that 

by co-opting a neutral population to conduct local security operations that 

it could have the unintended effect of forcing that person to join the side 

of the government.60 Trinquier developed a similar conclusion, but also 

stated that any member of the population supporting the counterinsurgent 

deprives the insurgent of material, information, and sanctuary.61

Thompson provided a less utilitarian explanation than Trinquier or 

Kitson; however, it is perhaps the best argument against a fixed force 

ratio. He argued in Defeating Communist Insurgency that force ratios 

are irrelevant when fighting a counterinsurgency due to the number of 

variables that a belligerent must consider. First, the counterinsurgent 

needs to take into account the insurgent’s organization. Second, the terrain 

is an important factor to consider. Third, the counterinsurgent needs to 

consider the relationships between the different security organizations and 

the relationship with the host government.62 Exact force ratios are not as 

important as the counterinsurgent’s relative rate of increase or decrease 

to the insurgent’s. In other words, an improving trend over time is more 

important than attaining a certain ratio of ten counterinsurgents to every 

one insurgent.63

The creation of the Philippine Constabulary in July 1901 is a 

historical example of Thompson’s idea on force ratios. In July 1901, the 

United States transitioned the Philippines from the military authority 

to civilian authority. The departure of all US Volunteer Soldiers from 

the Philippines coincided with that transition. The redeployment of the 

Volunteer regiments would have changed the force ratio in the Philippines 

significantly in favor of the insurgents. Since, the US Volunteer regiments 

comprised about 50-percent of the US Army’s fighting strength in the 

Philippines, or about 35,000 Soldiers.64 Major General Arthur MacArthur 

proposed creating a small native force to fill the gap left by the departing 

volunteers. The Taft government created the Philippine Constabulary 

in July 1901 and Philippine Scouts in September 1901.65 One year after 

their creation, the scouts and constabulary comprised 40-percent of the 

counterinsurgent force, or about 11,000 men. The number of insurgents 

also decreased proportionally during the same time period due to a number 

of reasons including on-going pacification campaigns by the US Army 

and the native irregulars and further disillusionment with the insurgency 

following Aguinaldo’s capture in March 1901. By July 1905 the number of 
24

native irregulars had increased to 21,000.66 However, Linn concludes that 

if the US followed the prevailing theory on force ratios between insurgents 

and counterinsurgents, than the US Army would have required a force of 

80,000-100,000 regulars and several tens of thousands auxiliaries. Instead, 

the peak strength of US involvement reached 70,000 Soldiers, and averaged 

about 42,000.67 The increasing or stable of trend of counterinsurgents to 

insurgents allowed for an eventual counterinsurgency success.

In conclusion, Clausewitz’s and Mao’s theories, combined with more 

contemporary theorists, demonstrate the importance of the population 

when developing a counterinsurgency campaign. The government and 

military must achieve balance with the population by addressing perceived 

societal gaps. One method of focusing on the populace’s passion for the 

host nation’s war is to allow, or even to provide assistance for the creation of 

local irregular security forces. By allowing their creation, the government 

and the military increase their relationships with the populace. Finally, the 

creation of local security forces increases the number of counterinsurgents 

relative to the number of insurgents, which allows the counterinsurgent 

force to use better-trained Soldiers for offensive operations. 
25

Notes

1. This study is primarily concerned with the raising of auxiliaries in the 

20th and 21st centuries. See Edward Luttwak, Grand Strategy of the Roman 

Empire for a discussion of how the Roman Empire used local auxiliaries to provide 

security and Vegetius’s De Re Militari for discussions of the uses and employment 

of auxiliaries. The United States also developed auxiliary units to fight in its wars. 

John Tierney Jr.’s earlier chapters in Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare 

in American History quickly describe the use of auxiliaries in the period of the 

Revolutionary War through the American Civil War. Robert Utley discussed the 

brief use of tribes during post-Civil War period in Frontier Regulars: The United 

States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891.

2. This study uses the terms classical and contemporary to describe 

theorists and their works. The classical period includes all writing on the subject 

of warfare and the use of auxiliaries through the end of the Second World War. The 

contemporary period includes the post-1945 writings until the present day. The 

distinction is perhaps artificial and corresponds only due to the appearance of the 

term revolutionary warfare in military lexicon to describe wars of decolonization 

that counterinsurgents thought were inspired by Mao the worldwide communist 

movement. Some contemporary theorists argue that a third period, the postMaoist period should be used to describe the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

See John Mackinlay’s Insurgent Archipelago for description of the post-Maoist 

counterinsurgency.

3. “Wars of national liberation” is a Marxist term for a conflict when an 

oppressed minority fights against an imperial power. They are also referred to as 

wars of independence. Western counterinsurgents referred to them revolutionary 

wars.

4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter 

Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75.

5. Clausewitz., 69. Limited war also includes military actions where the 

belligerents may not come into direct contact such as blockades, no-fly zones, 

drone strikes, and cyber warfare.

6. An example of this scenario occurred in Yugoslavia during World War 

II in German-occupied Europe. The German Wehrmacht and police confronted 

numerous partisan movements in occupied France, Soviet Union, and Eastern 

Europe. The Germans could not spare the manpower to fight an all-out offensive 

against the partisans. As a result, the German occupation forces often fought 

limited offensives designed to cripple, but not destroy, the partisan movements. 

The German government had to balance their tactics with the desired end state in 

each region. In the Ukraine, the Germans depopulated entire regions to prevent 

resistance movements, but in France they assumed a more benevolent approach 

to the population. However, in each case the partisans continued to fight the 

Germans using all tactics available to them. See Peter Lieb, “Few Carrots and a 
26

lot of Sticks,” in Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and 

Carter Malkasian (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010), 57-77.

7. The recent conflict in Libya is an example of this situation. NATO 

conducted a limited war in support of the National Transition Council, which most 

NATO countries recognized as the legitimate government during the campaign. 

While Libyan rebels were fighting to destroy the Muammar Gaddafi government, 

NATO only participated on the fringes providing a naval blockade, bombing 

limited targets, and enforcing a no-fly zone.

8. Clausewitz, 89.

9. Clausewitz.

10. President Bush did not tell the American public to “go shopping” in the 

wake of the attacks. However, the government did seek to restore public confidence 

in the economy following the attack. In order to accomplish this feat, the populace 

needed to return to a sense of normalcy despite the presence of the National Guard 

at airports, government buildings, and other potential targets. Bush reiterated in 

speeches on 11 September, 20 September, and 27 September that the military was 

capable of conducting the mission he directed following the attacks. In a speech 

to airline workers at O-Hare International Airport in Chicago in 27 September 

2001, Bush stated, “Tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business 

around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to 

Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to 

be enjoyed.” George W. Bush in “A Nation Challenged: The President; Bush to 

Increase Federal Role in Security at Airports,” The New York Times, 28 September 

2001.

11. Richard Nixon ran as the Republican candidate for president on a 

platform the promised to restore law and order and ending the draft. The law and 

order theme appealed to most Americans following protests at the Democratic 

National Convention in Chicago, the Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, 

Jr. assassinations, and the Tet Offensive. Nixon believed that ending the draft 

would undermine the protest movement because college-age males would stop 

protesting once the threat of being drafting ceased to exist. Stephen Ambrose, 

Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972, vol. 2. (New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1989), 264–266. Also see Lewis L. Gould, 1968: The Election that 

Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993).

12. The 11-15 August 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, California is an 

example of the government’s use of policy, in the form of a curfew and martial law, 

to diminish the populace’s passion. The riots started on 11 August after a white 

police officer attempted to arrest an African-American man for driving intoxicated. 

The situation gradually escalated after the man resisted arrest. Less than a day 

later, over 31,000 people were actively rioting in the Watts neighborhood. On 13 

August, the acting governor of California, Glenn M. Anderson, mobilized nearly 

13,400 National Guardsmen to assist the police after two days of rioting, arson, 

looting, and violence. In addition, Anderson ordered an immediate curfew and the 
27

authorized the use martial law in South Central Los Angeles. Since the curfew 

prohibiting the gathering of people in public places, the National Guard units 

could quickly spot and disperse crowds before they could cause further damage. 

The combination of the curfew, National Guardsmen, and a cordon around the 

affected area quickly brought the riots to an end 48 hours later. The National 

Guard ended operations on 23 August. Military Support of Law Enforcement 

during Civil Disturbances: A Report Concerning the California National Guard’s 

Part in Suppressing the Los Angeles Riot, August 1965 (Sacramento: California 

Office of State Printing, 1966), 9, 38, 58. Also see Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: 

The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 

1995), 155-163.

13. Clausewitz, 87. Politicians, military officials, and theorists often quote 

this phase is out of context.

14. Mao wrote Guerilla Warfare during the Chinese conflict with Japan in the 

Second World War. At the time, Mao’s forces had not been successful in spreading 

the communist ideology through much of the country. At the time of writing, his 

forces were in an alliance with the Nationalist forces to fight the Japanese. Mao 

Tse-Tung, Guerrilla Warfare, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II (Chicago: University of 

Illinois Press, 2000), 41.

15. Thompson’s book contrasts the British experience in Malaya with the 

early American experience in Vietnam. Since, the book was published in 1966 it 

failed to include the later American experience in Vietnam. Sir Robert Thompson, 

Defeating Communist Insurgency (St. Petersburg: Hailer Publishing, 1966), 22.

16. Thompson, 142-144. At the tactical level, Clausewitz only concerned 

himself with the tactical ends and means. Tactics provided the means for an end, 

namely victory.

17. The Dhofar campaign is explained in detail in Chapter 4.

18. Frank Kitson’s Bunch of Five attempted to compile lessons from five 

counterinsurgencies that he fought in following the Second World War. At the 

end of the book, he offered the reader a list of lessons for future conflicts, which 

included the idea of integrated campaigns. Other contemporary counterinsurgency 

theorists agree with this statement. Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five (London: Faber 

and Faber, 1977), 283-284.

19. Galula served as company commander during the French war in Algeria, 

which he wrote a book about titled Pacification in Algeria. His second book 

attempted to provide a theory of counterinsurgency based on his experiences. 

Theorist and military professionals in the United States heavily read the book 

because of Galula’s association with the RAND Corporation. However, his scope 

and depth are somewhat limited due to his rank and position during the conflict. 

David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport CT: 

Praeger Security International, 1964), 46.
28

20. The Chinese immigrants faced forced resettlement, food restrictions, and 

other population control measures during the Emergency. However, they were also 

allowed to form their own Home Guard, conduct local elections, and eventually 

obtain limited citizenship towards the end of the campaign. The rights the Chinese 

had during the Emergency depended on their ability to control the local populace 

and ensure compliance with the Malayan government. In 1955, about 50-percent 

of the Chinese immigrants living in Malaya were eligible for citizenship because 

of strict requirements. When the first national government convened in 1955, the 

Chinese had only 15 seats in the parliament. They also faced significant obstacles 

in other governmental sectors including the military and police. Karl Hack, “The 

Malayan Emergency as Counter-Insurgency Paradigm,” Journal of Strategic 

Studies 32, no. 3 (June 2009): 383-388, 395.

21. Liberal democracy, also referred to as classical liberalism, is a term that 

emerged during the Enlightenment in Europe. It applies to governments based 

on the protection of certain liberties including individual freedoms, equality, 

separation between the government and religion, open debate (including freedom 

of the press and assembly), and habit of rational decision making. This study is 

limited to the does not evaluate population control in authoritarian governments. 

John Locke’s Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–92) and Two Treatises of 

Government (1689) and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty influenced the tenets of 

liberal democracy. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W.W. Norton 

and Company, 2004), xii-xiii.

22. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 180.

23. Department of the Army, Field Manual 1-02 Operational Terms and 

Graphics s.v. “Populace and Resource Control” (Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, 21 September 2004).

24. Clausewitz, 89.

25. Clausewitz, 476.

26. Smith postulated that Clausewitz’s theory of war could be reduced to 

a simple mathematical problem: Capability = Means x Way2 x 3Will. Means 

corresponds to the populace according to Clausewitz; therefore, as it is the only 

variable not manipulated by some mathematical descriptor, it is assigned as 

the least important variable when assessing a state’s capability to conduct war. 

General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World

(New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 244-245.

27. Smith, 245.

28. Mao, 41.

29. Galula, 52.

30. Galula, 81-85.
29

31. Population-centric counterinsurgency lacks a clear, concise definition 

within the United States military doctrine. Its emphasis during the surge in Iraq and 

later in Afghanistan seems to have originated with the interim counterinsurgency 

manual. Even after the publication of Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 

in 2007 it still remained an undefined term. Kilcullen cites German Colonel 

Reinhard Gehlen to define population-centric counterinsurgency in terms of a 

struggle with the insurgent for the minds and support of the population. In the end, 

if the population supports the counterinsurgent, no insurgency should exist. This 

definition provides a simplistic solution to a complex problem. Commanders on 

the ground offered Soldiers platitudes stating that the populace was the decisive 

terrain. Even Galula, who is often championed as one of the primary influences 

of population-centric counterinsurgency, acknowledged that the problem of the 

enemy must be addressed first. David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2010), 6; Galula, 75.

32. Thompson, 50-51.

33. Thompson, 54-57.

34. Kitson, Bunch of Five, 282

35. Kitson, 283.

36. Thompson, 146.

37. Mao, 54, 72, 75.

38. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the 

Midst of a Big One (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 267.

39. Kitson included intelligence as one of five aspects for framework 

operations. He further stated that establishing an effective intelligence organization 

is a matter of the first importance. Kitson, Bunch of Five, 287. Thompson dedicated 

an entire chapter to the subject. He stated, “No government can hope to defeat a 

communist insurgent movement unless it gives top priority to building up such an 

[intelligence] organization.” Thompson, 84.

40. Trinquier served in the French Army from the Second World War until the 

after the coup against de Gaulle in 1961. His experiences with counterinsurgency 

included experience in both Indochina and Algeria. His book offers lessons learned 

based primarily on his experiences in Algeria, where he served as an executive 

officer and regimental commander. He referred to revolutionary warfare as 

modern. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency 

(Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 1964), 38.

41. Gwynn’s collection of ten case studies includes the period from Amritsar 

City, India in 1919 to Cyprus in 1931. He selected the case studies as representative 

of the period following the Victorian-era small wars. The book, published in 1936, 

was written for both military and civil authorities to facilitate understanding 

between the two entities when the army may be required to fulfill policing duties. 

Major General Sir Charles W. Gwynn, Imperial Policing (London: MacMillan 

and Co., Ltd., 1936), 1.
30

42. The term small war had a specific definition at the time Gwynn wrote 

Imperial Policing. A small war in the British lexicon referred to “all campaigns 

other than those where both the opposing sides consist of regular troops.” Small 

wars included military action against any body that did resemble a western army, 

including native populations and guerrillas. Small wars typically took place in 

the developing world. The standard reference was Colonel C. E. Callwell, Small 

Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 3rd ed. (London: HM Stationary Press, 

1906), 21. The US Marines published their small wars manual after Gywnn’s 

writing in 1940, and their definition included a more holistic approach. Small wars 

as defined by the Marines is “an operation undertaken under executive authority, 

wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or 

external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or 

unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined 

by the foreign policy of our Nation.” The subsequent explanation of this definition 

included a caveat that the other belligerent is not a first-rate power. United States 

Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual, 1940 (Washington, DC: Government Printing 

Office, 1940), 1-2.

43. Gwynn, 3-4.

44. The British defined two categories of duties in aid of the civil power. 

The first duty is to provide assistance for the restoration of law and order during 

disturbances. The second duty is referred to as military assistance, and it was 

concerned with events like providing basic services following a natural disaster. 

The primary difference between the two categories is the amount of power the 

military authority had once aid was requested. Another difference addressed 

the use of firearms and the rules of engagement, where the second category was 

much more restrictive in allowing the military authority to use force. This paper 

is concerned only with the first category of aid. The War Office, Imperial Policing 

and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power, 1949 (London: Fosh and Cross Ltd., 1949), 

4-5, 17-18, 30-31.

45. Internal security covered the range of military operations that addressed 

events including assemblies, riots, subversion, insurgency, and rebellion. The 

1957 and 1963 versions of this manual included a discussion on the influence 

of outside actors, specifically communist, and their ability to influence the local 

populace. The War Office, Keeping the Peace, Part 1 - Doctrine (Manchester: 

HM Stationary Office Press, 1963), 1-2.

46. Ministry of Defence, Land Operations Volume III – Counter Revolutionary 

Operations, Part 1 – General Principles (Manchester: HM Stationary Office 

Press, 1977), iii.

47. The manual states that policing occurs when three criteria are met 

that ensure the government protects the rights of the people. First, the enemy is 

defeated or not capable of challenging the government’s sovereignty. Second, the 

institutions concerning the rule of law are functioning. These include the police, 

courts, and prisons. Finally, the people must trust the government institutions to 

resolve disputes. FM 3-24, 246.
31

48. Angel Rabasa et al., Money in the Bank: Lessons Learned from Past 

Counterinsurgency (COIN) Operations (Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 

2007), xiv.

49. The 10:1 ratio appears in General Thomas Mataxis’s writings on the 

Reagan Administration’s strategy for the Afghan Insurgency. Thomas C. Mataxis, 

“The Afghan Insurgency and the Reagan Doctrine” in The History of Guerrilla 

Warfare (Ann Arbor: XanEdu, 1994): 7.

50. Some of these studies included historical analysis of the Malayan 

Emergency and Northern Ireland. James Quinlivan, “Force Requirements in 

Stability Operations,” Parameters 25 (Winter 1995-1996): 59-60.

51. Peter J. P. Krause, “Troop Levels in Stability Operations: What We Don’t 

Know,” Center for International Studies (2007): 1-3.

52. Headquarters, Department of the Army, FMI 3-07.22 Counterinsurgency 

Operations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004), 1-13.

53. FM 3-24, 1-13.

54. R. Royce Kneece Jr., Force Sizing for Stability Operations (Alexandria: 

Institute for Defense Analyses, 2010), iii.

55. Kneece, 16.

56. Kneece, 10.

57. Rabasa, xiv.

58. CENTCOM provided this ratio to Krause at the beginning of “the surge.” 

It includes all Iraqi ground force, including the police, not just the forces actually 

on duty at the time. At any given time, roughly 20-percent of the force is on leave. 

Krause, 2-3. 

59. It should be noted that although Kitson referred to guarding and 

protection as less skilled functions, he also referred to the operations as the main 

function of defensive operations. Kitson, 295.

60. Kitson, 296.

61. Trinquier, 41-42.

62. Thompson, 104.

63. Thompson implies that a competing theory at the time insisted that 

victory was not possible without a ten to one ratio. However, he contrasts the 

increasing ratio of security forces in Malaya over time to the decreasing ratio of 

security forces in Vietnam until 1965. Thompson claims that the South Vietnamese 

government had a force of ratio of 50:1 at the beginning of the war, but by 1965 

it had fallen to 10:1. Regardless of the ratio, the South Vietnamese should have 

had enough forces available to defeat the Viet Cong without the introduction of 

American troops. Thompson, 48-49.
32

64. Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (Lawrence: 

University of Kansas Press, 2000), 125, 209-210.

65. The July 1901 legislation authorized the Insular Constabulary to recruit 

162 Soldiers for each province to “make arrests upon reasonable suspicion 

without warrant for breaches of the peace.” Governor Taft also realized the 

need for native irregular Soldiers to replace the departing Volunteer regiments 

and authorized the Army to form fifty companies of 104 men, organized along 

tribal lines, for pacification efforts. Alfred McCoy, Policing America’s Empire

(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 83.

66. McCoy.

67. Linn, 325.
33

Chapter 3

North-West Frontier

The Guides are an interesting and remarkable Corps. They are 

formed so that in the same body of men shall be united all the 

requisites of regular forces troops with the best qualities of guides 

and spies, thus combining intelligence and sagacity with courage, 

endurance, and soldierly bearing, and a presence of mind which 

rarely fails in solitary danger and in trying situations.

- Brigadier A. Roberts to Board on the Administration

19 August 1852

The British experience with the use of local, irregular security 

forces suggests their importance in assisting the host nation government 

and counterinsurgent forces. Their successful establishment, training, 

and employment demonstrate the importance of several prerequisites 

including partnership with an advisory force, consent of the host nation’s 

government to exist, and that the security force is accountable to the local 

civil authority. Without these prerequisites, the local, irregular security 

force could risk illegitimacy in the eyes of the populace, the host nation 

government, and the counterinsurgent.

In the 1850s, the sun never set on the British Empire. In spite of that 

fact, British civil authorities had a problem without an apparent solution, 

the unique characteristics of administering the North-West Frontier 

(NWF) of British India. The small number of British civil administrators 

needed a body of men that could enforce the Raj’s1

 policy in this volatile 

region. The British sought to influence the frontier tribes that occupied 

the mountainous region between the fertile plains of the Punjab and 

the Kingdom of Afghanistan.2

 The Indian Army3 lacked the ability to 

operate efficiently in rugged terrain. As Brigadier Roberts suggested, 

the British needed a specialized unit with knowledge of the local terrain 

and tribal dynamics.4

 The military operated in the NWF as an aid to the 

civil power mission. However, a modern observer would see parallels to 

many of today’s counterinsurgency missions in the same region to include 

guarding the frontier against criminal elements, escorting civil authorities, 

and controlling the population. The British raised several local, irregular 

security forces to control the population, including the Queen Victoria’s 

Own Corps of Guides, the Punjab Irregular Force (PIF)5

, and the Frontier 

Scouts, to assist the civil authority in the North-West Frontier.
34

The irregular Soldiers stationed in the NWF executed a number of 

military operations including small wars,6 imperial policing,7 and aid to the 

civil power.8

 After the First World War the military switched from fighting 

small wars to control populations and guarding the frontiers to imperial 

policing.9

 The military assisted the civil administration by escorting 

government officials, meeting with tribal leaders, providing local security, 

and when necessary conducting punitive expeditions.10

British civil authorities recognized that they needed a local solution 

in the North-West Frontier because the army lacked British or Indian 

regiments with the institutional expertise needed in the region.11 For a 

variety of reasons the British Army at home and the Indian Army developed 

into two very different entities. The British Army trained for conventional, 

European warfare. Conversely, the Indian Army was primarily concerned 

with enforcement of imperial policy and guerrilla warfare against loosely 

organized tribal organizations and was referred to as the “sword of the 

Raj.”

The Indian Army’s historical ties to the pre-1860 East India Company 

Army were part of the reason for the differences that developed between 

the British Army and the Indian Army. The East India Company (EIC) 

originally established the army and garrisons to protect its commercial 

interests at the beginning of the 18th-century. Garrisons were spread 

out along the frontier. As a result of these differences, the Indian Army 

developed different unit organizations, tactics, and equipment than 

the British Army at home. Over time, the EIC consolidated its rule and 

influence in British India. The company divided British possessions 

into three presidencies, the Bengal, the Madras, and the Bombay, each 

independent of the others. Each presidency recruited and maintained its 

own native army. Traditionally, each army developed its own recruiting 

ground, with preferences for caste, class, and religion of their Soldiers.12

The East India Company and its army evolved over the next hundred 

years until the British government took control following the Indian 

Mutiny. The EIC consolidated and simplified the relationships between the 

three presidencies after Parliament passed the Regulating Act of 1773. The 

following year, the Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings, took control of 

the other two presidencies for foreign policy matters.13 Subsequent acts 

consolidated the EIC’s military affairs. The Commander-in-Chief of the 

Bengal Army was also the Commander-in-Chief, India. He had general 

control of the Madras and Bombay armies, but he left the conduct of daily 

business to the commanders of those armies. In 1858, the Crown took 

control of India from the EIC following the passage of the Government 
35

of India Act. The Governor-General of Bengal’s title changed to the 

Viceroy of India. He represented the Crown in India, but remained subject 

to British cabinet and parliamentary oversight. He also had a personal 

military advisor with the title, Military Secretary.14

In 1754, the British government started to supplement the East India 

Company Army with regiments from the British Army.15 When these 

regiments were assigned to India, they were referred to the Army in India. 

The government could assign British home regiments to India for long 

tours of duty, up to sixteen years. Each presidency’s army had British 

Army units assigned to it, although the relationship between the two 

armies was not always congenial. These regiments took orders from the 

military authority in India, not the War Office in London.16

Regiments in India often had different priorities and operational 

methods than British regiments serving at home or in other imperial 

possessions that resulted in a schism between the home army and the 

Indian army. These differences could and did taint officers’ careers. British 

officers, especially from the upper class, often viewed service in India or 

in the Indian Army as beneath them. Many of them elected to go on halfpay while their regiment served in India or tried to purchase commissions 

in other British regiments. This problem diminished after Queen Victoria 

issued a Royal Warrant banning the purchasing and selling of commissions, 

as well as the half-pay system, in 1871.17

However, service in the Indian Army offered a number of advantages 

for aspiring junior officers that lacked clear paths to wealth and fame. 

First, both civil administrators and military leaders encouraged individual 

initiative, flexibility, resourcefulness, and physical fitness even at the 

subaltern level.18 Next, the average junior officer in the Indian Army 

earned nearly 60-percent more than his British Army counterpart due 

to a combination of higher pay and a lower cost of living. Officers 

enjoyed a semi-aristocratic status that they could not otherwise afford in 

England. Finally, the rate of promotion in the Indian Army outpaced their 

counterparts at home, especially post-1860.19

Few of the British regiments served in the North-West Frontier. In 

fact, few Indian Army regiments served in the frontier. Instead, the British 

used a combination of locally administered militias and regiments to 

guard the border. In order to understand why Lawrence brothers sought to 

create the Punjab Irregular Force and the Frontier Scouts, it is necessary to 

understand how British policy regarding the North-West Frontier and its 

relationship to the Punjab.
36

Figure 3. Map of the Bengal, Bombay, and Madras Presidencies in 1893.

Source: J. G. Bartholomew, ed., Constable’s Hand Atlas of India (London: Archibald 

Constable and Sons, 1893), Plate 16. CGSC Copyright Registration #12-1354 C/E

The Indian Army and the Punjab

The history of British involvement in the NWF is linked to British 

involvement in the Punjab. The British fought two wars against the Sikhs 

in the Punjab. The First Sikh War, December 1845-March 1846, resulted 

in the Treaty of Lahore. The Sikhs ceded a significant portion of its land to 

the British. However, the British allowed the Maharaja, an infant, to retain 

the crown if the Sikhs accepted British oversight. Sir Henry Lawrence 

assumed the role of the British Resident, but he left the job less than two 

years to return to England to recuperate from illness. Finally, the Sikhs 

accepted limitations on the size and composition of the army. The Second 

Sikh War started on 18 April 1848 when a British political officer and his 

military escort were murdered in Multan. Parts of the Sikh army rebelled 

throughout the Punjab against their British advisors. The resulting military 

expedition defeated the Sikh army and Afghan reinforcements.20

The British annexed the Punjab on 29 March 1849 following the 

Second Sikh War and maintained control until independence in 1947.21
37

The Board of Administration, specifically Sir John Lawrence,22 viewed the 

Sikhs as a threat since some of the Sikh regiments had mutinied against the 

British during the Second Sikh War. Lawrence had the Punjabi regiments 

disarmed and then demobilized. The British initially thought that disarming 

the Sikhs in the Punjab would prevent another Sikh uprising in the future. 

However, this policy presented an enormous security problem for the 

new Board of Administration. First, it created 50,000-60,000 unemployed 

Sikhs, all former Soldiers.23 Second, it exposed the Punjab to raids by the 

frontier tribes, because the Bengal Army lacked the manpower or skills 

necessary to protect the Punjab.24

The first problem was significant because the Europeans trained the 

Sikh army prior to the two wars with the British. The Sikhs were ripe 

for military recruitment. The Bengal Army took control of some of the 

regiments that remained loyal during the wars. Lord Dalhousie also 

allowed the other presidency armies to recruit a small percentage of 

Sikhs into their regiments not to exceed more than 25-percent of the unit. 

This policy moved some of the unemployed Sikhs outside of the Punjab. 

Additionally, they had to be recruited from regiments that remained loyal 

to the British during the Second Sikh War that the Bengal Army had not 

accepted. However, several military commanders considered the Sikhs 

unreliable given the Sikhs’ strong sense of nationalism.25 The feeling 

would change after the Indian Mutiny, and by the late 1860s the Punjab 

was the largest recruiting ground for the Indian Army.26

The second problem, the small size of the Bengal Army, was a 

source of concern for the British political officers. They assessed two 

threats on the frontier, the Kingdom of Afghanistan and the frontier 

tribes. Afghanistan and the British had already fought one war, the First 

Afghan War, 1839-1842, and Afghanistan had provided the Sikhs with 

troops during the Second Sikh War. In some cases, Afghanistan’s influence 

on the frontier tribes contributed to the security problem.27 The British 

were primarily concerned with control of the Punjabi plains because its 

economic and agricultural value. They left control of the mostly barren 

frontier to the tribes.28 This policy left a tribal zone three hundred miles 

long by one hundred miles wide in between the Punjab and the Kingdom 

of Afghanistan that both administrations sought to influence.29 Several 

tribes lived in both the tribal area and the British area. Even after the 

demarcation of the Durand Line in 1894 following an agreement with the 

Kingdom of Afghanistan, the tribes did not recognize the line as a formal 

border. Furthermore, the British lacked the manpower to enforce it.30 In 

fact, the British did not restrict movement across the frontier and even 
38

allowed tribesmen to carry weapons until they crossed the Indus River.31

An estimated 100,000 men of fighting age lived on the frontier.32

The size of the frontier tribes, the tribal dynamics, and the lack of 

available manpower influenced how the British administered the NWF. 

Sir John Lawrence argued that an entire division of Soldiers could not 

secure the frontier.33 As a result, the British sought to limit their contact 

with the tribes after annexation of the Punjab. The British administered the 

North-West Frontier separately from the rest of British India based upon 

indirect rule. The Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab controlled frontier 

policy from Peshawar.34 He in turn worked with a deputy commissioner in 

each of the six districts. The amount of contact that the political agents had 

with the tribe varied on the guidance given to them by the Governor of the 

Punjab and the Board of Administration.35

The British used a variety of policies from the 1850s until independence 

in 1947 to maintain their influence with the frontier tribes and the Kingdom 

of Afghanistan.36 The civil administration referred to the these methods as 

the “close border policy,” “forward policy,” and the “modified forward 

policy” Each system relied on the British’s ability to co-opt or bribe the 

tribes for good behavior and withhold incentives when the tribes defied 

British wishes. One major difference between the closed border policy and 

two forward policies was the location of military.

Advocates of “closed border policy”, including Sir John Lawrence, 

wanted no interference with Afghanistan and as little contact with the 

frontier tribes as possible. This policy sought “non-aggression on tribal 

territory and non-interference in tribal affairs.”37 The tribes could cross into 

British land, but the district officers would not cross into the tribal lands. 

The British paid the tribes subsidies to remain peaceful, and they would 

levy fines against the tribes when they broke the agreement. The tribes 

quickly figured out the inherent flaw of this system, which required the 

British to adopt harsher methods. When a hostile tribe crossed the border 

and committed a crime, a punitive expedition reasserted British power as 

a method of deterrence. Unfortunately, this policy meant that most of the 

civilians only saw the British when they conducted a punitive raid.38

In 1876, the “forward policy” sought to extend the Raj’s control as 

close to the border of Afghanistan as possible, and if necessary beyond it 

for punitive operations against hostile tribes. The British government was 

concerned with possible future aggression by the Kingdom of Afghanistan 

and Imperial Russia. The British civil government could introduce law 

and administration into the tribal areas to pacify the frontier tribes. The 
39

forward policies sought to push the troops forward into the tribal areas as 

part of a comprehensive system of maintaining influence with the frontier 

tribes.39 The military also took over the defense of strategic places along 

the frontier, most notably the Khyber Pass, to ensure that they did not need 

to fight the tribes for them in event of another war with Afghanistan.40

Under both the closed border policy and the forward policy, the military 

conducted punitive expeditions to reassert British control over a certain tribe 

or area. The British conducted punitive expeditions in response to various 

offenses made by the tribes against British interests. The offenses included 

crimes such as murder of British administers, raids against frontier posts, 

theft of British material, and several lesser offenses. Field Marshal Lord 

Roberts41 described a typical punitive expedition in his memoir. A British 

column of no more than 1,500 Soldiers moved into the tribal land. Since 

the British rarely caught the tribesmen directly responsible for the crime, 

they usually identified a village, razed it, fined the remaining tribesmen, 

and retired to their frontier garrisons. Other tribes usually observed the 

expedition, and the British hoped that the display of resolve sufficiently 

dissuaded other tribes from committing offenses against British interests.42

Examples of punitive expeditions conducted during the enforcement of 

the forward policy include the Waziristan operation in 1894-1895, the 

Chitral relief campaign of 1895, and the Tirah expedition of 1897-1895.43

The British political officers modified the forward policy to take 

advantage of Baluchistan’s unique culture. Unlike the Pashtun tribes, the 

Baluchs have a hierarchical tribal structure, allowing the British to co-opt 

the tribes through the leaders (tumandars). The Sandeman System allowed 

the army to occupy certain key points, linking them together with roads to 

allow the army to reinforce other garrisons quickly, and adopting a handsoff approach to the tribes as long as they remained peaceful. Sandeman 

paid the tribes subsidies to remain peaceful, provide information, and to 

perform other civil tasks. The British effectively ruled Baluchistan only 

through use of the forward policy.44

The final method is referred to as the “modified forward policy.” This 

policy sought to extend the Sandeman system into Waziristan following 

the 1919-1920 war. The British concentrated troops at key locations, paid 

local tribesman, called khassadars, to report information and supplement 

the regular forces. However, the policy was not successful, since the 

Wazirs resisted all attempts at pacification.45

The nature of warfare in the NWF differed greatly from the rest of 

the Empire under every one of the border policies. The unique terrain, the 
40

tribal dynamics, and the lack of intelligence created conditions that differed 

from western civilized warfare. The frontier extended for 704-miles and 

lacked an internationally accepted and demarcated border. In the NWF, 

the civil administration dispersed individual units over large tracts of land. 

The open, rocky terrain did not favor large-scale military operations. It 

is a chain of mountains, largely devoid of vegetation, bisected by four 

passes. These four passes were the primary invasion routes into and out of 

British India. Deep river valleys further complicate travel in this region.46

The broken, mountainous terrain prevented the British from using massed, 

close-order formations that dominated the European battlefield. It also 

prevented the British from using their cavalry in its traditional exploitation 

role.

No drill book existed for the training that the irregular regiments 

needed to secure the frontier. These forces spent a majority of their time 

guarding the frontier from raiders. Regiments could rarely concentrate 

for training, which meant the British and native junior officers and their 

NCOs were responsible for ensuring their men were constantly ready for 

war. The training was a combination of experience gathered from previous 

conflicts and the projection of how officers believed war would change 

with the introduction of new weapons.47

The frontier tribes consisted of several different Pushtun and Pukhtun48

tribes, which together the British referred to as Pathans, and adhered to 

a system of unwritten laws known as the Pushtunwali. The Pushtunwali 

code governed individual and collective relations between the Pathans. 

Although the exact number of Pushtunwali principles varies from tribes 

to tribe, some of the principles were close to be universally accepted. 

Badal, a blood feud, is the first principle. Badal refers the idea of that 

a tribesman must exact vengeance for a wrong done to his family. If he 

dies before completing the act, then a relative must complete the duty. 

The principle of badal is similar to the Old Testament concept of an eye 

for an eye.49 The British believed that most of these conflicts originated 

from issues with women, gold, and land.50 The second principle, nanawati, 

refers to right of asylum. The Pathans accepted that any man could request 

asylum in the presence of the Koran and that he could not deny the request. 

The third principle is melmastia, or hospitality. The final principle is the 

duty to protect hamsayas, people who assist the tribesmen with the daily 

functioning of the tribes. Hamsayas do not have to be Pushtun. The British 

political officers often took advantage of this aspect of the code to travel 

in the tribal areas.51 With the exception of one tribal area, the tribes lacked 

a formal organization to enforce the code.52 In theory, failure to adhere to 

the code resulted in shame on the individual, his family, and his tribe.53
41

The tribes did not have formal military units. A tribal assembly, or 

jirga,54 decided to form a lashkar,55 elected leaders, and decided tribal 

levies, and determined the campaigns goals.56 The tribal commanders were 

generally a charismatic male or religious leader. However, command of a 

Figure 4. North-West Frontier.

Source: Author created.
42

lashkar was not similar to command of a British Indian unit. Tribesmen, 

or lashkarwali, provided their own campaigning equipment, arms, and 

mount. Each tribesman determined his own contribution to the campaign. 

He determined the amount of risk that he would take in battle, and he 

decided if wanted to return home when his food ran out.57 The lashkarwali

rarely massed into a formation that stood and fought against an advancing 

column.

The tribes had significant advantages over British regiments due to the 

nature of hill warfare. The British formations had a hard time identifying 

objectives that produced decisive results against a tribe. Even with the 

use of the native troops, punitive expeditions operated with minimal 

information. Tribes took sanctuary in Afghanistan or with neighboring 

tribes when punitive expeditions approached their villages.

Since the British expeditions traveled forward into enemy territory, 

the enemy had the advantage of knowledge of the terrain and the ability 

to observe British troops advancing with their trains. As a result, the 

tribesmen could pick the time and location to attack the invaders.58

Finally, the lashkars could move greater distances without the burden of 

a logistical column. Sir Richard Temple explained in 1855, “the enemy 

does not possess troops that stand to be attacked, not defensible posts to 

be taken, nor innocent subjects to be spared. He has only rough hills to 

be penetrated, robber fastnesses to be scaled, and dwellings containing 

people, all of them to a man concerned in hostilities.”59

Queen Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides

Temple’s comments summarized some of the unique conditions of the 

NWF that the civil authorities and the military had to contend with in 

order to enact British policy. The regular army was not suited for the task. 

Regular troops considered service in the austere conditions of the frontier 

unpopular at best, and as punishment at worst. During the First Afghan 

War, Sir Henry Lawrence noticed that British and Indian forces had 

significant difficulties negotiating the frontier terrain and working with the 

tribes.60 The regular regiments had too much baggage when campaigning, 

rendering them ineffective against the hit-and-run tactics of the frontier 

tribes.61 Additionally, Soldiers from the traditional recruiting grounds of 

the Presidency armies did not have knowledge of the frontier tribes, nor 

the skills required for mountain warfare.

Lawrence resolved to create a force of local guides and interpreters to 

address this problem in the future conflicts. Lawrence required the Guides 

to conduct three missions, act as guides in the field, gather intelligence 
43

within and outside the Punjab, and to train to conduct offensive operations.62

He obtained permission from Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of 

India, to raise a corps of guides, one company of infantry and one cavalry 

troop in December 1846.63 Colonel G. J. Younghusband recorded some 

additional information about Lawrence’s order to raise the Guides in his 

history. He stated that Lawrence needed a mobile unit of troops to help 

administer the Punjab following the First Sikh War. The British had very 

few troops stationed in the Punjab at the time, and most of those were 

located at Lahore. The new formation of troops needed to be highly mobile 

and skilled in gathering intelligence.

In addition to being granted permission to raise the Corps of Guides, 

the Governor-General gave Lawrence permission to select one British 

lieutenant to command the force.64 Lawrence specified that the officer’s 

duties included the ability to direct their operations, record the information 

gather, instruct the guides on their duties in support of the army. The 

officer also served a liaison between the unit and Lawrence.65 He selected 

Lieutenant Harry Lumsden.66 He possessed qualities that Lawrence 

thought were necessary for the irregular formation, including a natural 

ability for war, communicated well with the natives, and he had a calm 

demeanor even in an emergency. He was the veteran of a number of other 

campaigns.67

Service for a British officer in the irregular units offered challenging 

work. The officers were chronically understaffed compared to their fellow 

officers in the regular army. The allotment of officers in an irregular unit 

was usually one-sixth the allotment of a regular native unit.68 The units 

guarding the frontier were constantly on alert for raiders. The pace of 

operations could be punishing. Officers had to balance guarding the frontier, 

escorting civil servants and other British subjects, and constantly training 

their Soldiers for combat in support of a punitive expedition. The British 

conducted 52 punitive operations and several smaller raids into the tribal 

areas between 1849-1914.69 In addition to their military duties, several 

officers also doubled as civil servants on the frontier, paying subsidies and 

levying fines as part of the British policy to maintain influence with the 

tribes.70

First, Lumsden needed to determine the type of the men he wanted for 

the local security force. Unlike most units in 1846, Lumsden did not base 

the recruitment of the first two guide companies on the “class” system 

prevalent in the Presidency armies. Up to that point, the British considered 

a person’s class to be an extremely important tool for recruiting, as it was 

a predictor of his suitability for military life.71 The British defined class 
44

a combination of the race, religion, and caste of a tribesman.72 Not all 

classes were allowed to carry arms. The British recruited the following 

tribes from within India: Rajput, Hindustani and Punjabi Brahman, Punjabi 

Mussalman, Hindustani Mussalman, Jats, Gujars, Pathans, and Moguls. 

The British also recruited Soldiers from outside of India, predominately 

the trans-frontier Pathans and the Gurkhas.73 Tribes were then subdivided 

by religion, and then by country. Adding to the complexity of the class 

system, the Muhammadans were a mixed tribe, primarily Rajput, which 

had converted to Islam.74 The Sikhs are a religious sect with members 

in every tribe, although most came from the Jats.75 Finally, the British 

referred to some tribes by the geographical region where they lived, such 

as the Dogras.76 As a result of this complex system, the British identified 

and tracked the inclusion of 29 classes in the Indian Army in 1904.77

In contrast to the traditional recruiting practices, Lumsden took a 

personal interest in obtaining the Soldiers he wanted for the Guides. There 

was no shortage of men that interviewed for a job in the corps.78 Several 

contemporary historians and social scientists have tried to explain why the 

British were able to recruit thousands of natives for service in the Indian 

Army, but most agree that natives simply sought a better life in the army.79

Lumsden interviewed each man with an interest to his background prior 

to enrolling him into the regiment. He recruited strictly from the higher 

castes.80 As a result, the companies were so mixed that the language spoken 

in camp was an assortment of different local dialects.81 Lumsden offered 

them a job with regular pay, above and beyond the normal native stipend, 

and the stability that life as a raider lacked.82 Additionally, it seems that 

Lumsden sought out a fringe criminal element that was used to living in 

the mountains. Lumsden recruited the remainder of his force from local 

chiefs’ families.83

Recruiting from the local population benefitted the British military 

and the civil authorities with the administration of the Punjab. In addition 

to gaining knowledge of the frontier, it had the potential to reduce 

violence. Service in the Guides tied prominent tribes to the unit’s officers 

and sometimes the district officers, since elders were required to vouch for 

the character of their recruits. The story of Dilawur Khan’s also illustrates 

another aspect of this benefit. He was an example of a tribesman originally 

destined for priesthood, but found kidnapping bankers in the frontier more 

lucrative. Despite his background, Lumsden recruited him service in the 

Guides, where he excelled as native leader. Dilawur’s story illustrated 

another important aspect of controlling the frontier with locally raised 

forces: Every raider employed by the British prevented that tribesman 

from committing crimes and undermining British rule.84
45

The Guides participated in several military operations prior to and 

during the Second Sikh War. During their first action in July 1847, Lumsden 

led a group of twenty guides and a troop of Sikh cavalry into the village 

of Mugh Darah to capture a noted raider who had kidnapped a number 

of Hindu businessmen. When Lumsden led his men into the village at 

first light, he discovered that the Sikh cavalry had refused to follow him 

into a narrow defile. However, every one of the guides had made the trip, 

surrounded the village, and disarmed the surprised criminals.85 Lumsden’s 

force had disarmed and captured a force with less than a third of the troops 

that were deemed necessary for the mission. The Guides performed these 

civil support missions until the outbreak of the Second Sikh War, receiving 

the commendations from both commanders and civil servants.86 During 

the Second Sikh War the Guides remained loyal to the British and fought 

at the Battles of Chillianwallah and Rawalpindi, conducted the initial 

boat crossing of Indus River to allow the capture of Peshawar, and chased 

Afghans attempting to reinforce the rebels back to the Khyber Pass.87

Although Lts. Lumsden and Hodson were mentioned in the dispatches, 

Lumsden felt that the Guides did not receive the praise that they deserved 

for their service.88

The Punjab Irregular Force

Following on the success of the Corps of Guides during the Second 

Sikh War, Sir Henry Lawrence sought permission from Lord Dalhousie to 

raise an irregular force to replace the unreliable police levies that guarded 

the frontier.89 On 18 May 1849, Lord Dalhousie ordered Lawrence to 

raise an irregular force, the Punjab Irregular Force (PIF), consisting of ten 

regiments, five infantry and five cavalry.90 The PIF also incorporated four 

Sikh battalions previously formed to guard the frontier, the Scinde Camel 

Corps, and the Corps of Guides.91

Lawrence’s request to form an irregular force to guard the frontier 

was not a new idea. In 1846, the Sind Force, consisting of the Scinde 

Irregular Horse, formed with the purpose of guarding the Sind frontier 

from frontier Baluchi tribes that also raided across the border. Initially, 

the PIF resembled the Sind Force in structure, numbers, and equipment.92

However, the similarities stopped with the organization and equipment of 

the units.

Since its inception, the PIF generated controversy over who controlled 

the unit. Lawrence wanted a force answerable to the local administration, 

but Lord Napier, Command-in-Chief, India, wanted control of the unit. 

In October 1850, Lord Dalhousie decided that to break with the model of 
46

the Sind Force. Instead of reporting the Bengal Army command, the PIF 

answered to the local authority, the Board of Administration, in order to 

“render it expedient to secure the on the distant frontier.”93 The Governor 

of the Punjab reported on the PIF to the Foreign Office.94 Sir Charles 

Napier, the Commander-in-Chief, India complained to Lord Dalhousie 

that he although controlled all of the regular Soldiers in the army; he could 

not move a single sentry in the PIF.95

Lord Dalhousie limited the PIF’s deployment to the Punjab and the 

NWF.96 In effect, he acknowledged the unique nature of warfare in the 

Punjab and the frontier by making the PIF a local force, answerable to the 

district officials, that could quickly respond to raids, civil emergencies, 

etc., without the bureaucracy of a regular military command.97 It took 

advantage of the fact that the Indian officers and NCOs had intimate 

knowledge of the local terrain, customs, and language. The limitation 

also enhanced the PIF’s ability to conduct civil tasks including paying 

subsidies to peaceful tribes, safeguarding livestock and property, escorting 

British officials and citizens, and collecting tolls and taxes.

In addition to its civil tasks, the PIF also assumed responsibility for 

guarding the border between Kohat and Mithunkote.98 The PIF’s initial 

employment along the frontier demonstrated the difficulty of the task that 

they were assigned. The 12,800 Soldiers of the PIF took responsibility for a 

defensive system that included 15 forts and about 50 outposts that guarded 

key locations along the NWF border. The PIF never had the manpower to 

properly secure the border and prevent all of the raiders’ penetrations. If 

raiders attacked an outpost there was little chance of reinforcement. The 

Bengal Army in Peshawar supported the PIF with nearly 10,820 regular 

British and Indian troops, but its primary job was to repulse any foreign 

invasion by Afghanistan or Russia.99 The regular regiments could provide 

troops to reinforce the PIF in the event of a large tribal penetration of the 

frontier border.100

The PIF never had enough Soldiers to conduct both missions 

simultaneously without assuming some risk. In late 1851, raiders attacked 

a detachment of thirty Guides sent to guard a survey party in the Peshawar 

Valley. Although the Guides repelled the attack, they lost a number of 

Soldiers in the attack.101 When the tribes organized their efforts, they 

could overrun the PIF’s small outposts and defensive positions. The 5th 

Punjab Infantry, a 900-Soldier PIF unit, provided an example of how 

overextended the PIF was on the frontier. In March 1852, the unit guarded 

a 200-mile section of the frontier by manning a series of 16 outposts and 

number of smaller positions.102 Even when the unit was at full strength, 
47

the 5th Punjab Infantry had no more than 4.5 Soldiers to guard each mile 

against tribal incursions. At best, the Soldiers in the PIF hoped to inflict 

as much damage as they received by quickly reinforcing isolated outposts 

and conducting punitive raids.

In November 1846, Sir Henry Lawrence received permission to raise 

the Frontier Brigade to conduct the civil and military missions on the 

frontier. Originally, the Frontier Brigade consisted of four regiments of local 

Sikh infantry.103 Each regiment received four British officers appointed 

from the other regular British Indian armies.104 The officers were selected 

based on their service reputation, not seniority or patronage. They were 

primarily veterans from other imperial conflicts including the First Afghan 

War.105 Generally, officers selected for the PIF also appreciated the break 

from the minutiae of garrison life that work on the frontier offered.106 The 

Indian officers were recruited from the sons of tribal chiefs.107 Together the 

British and Indian officers formed a symbiotic relationship. The British 

officers had knowledge of the tactics and employment of the technology 

developed during previous imperial wars, while the Indian officers had 

knowledge of the local tribal structure and terrain. Finally, Lord Dalhousie 

granted the Board of Administration permission to recruit a small amount 

of Punjabi, including the recently demobilized Sikhs, to serve as Soldiers. 

Given the sheer amount of unemployed Soldiers in the Punjab that wanted 

to return to an honorable profession, the Sikhs picked for the PIF tended to 

be the best of the former Sikh Army.108

Officers were expected to learn how to counter the raiders’ tactics 

on the job using a unique set of small-unit tactics that emphasized 

offensive action and security. Due to the broken terrain, officers drilled 

marksmanship, physical fitness, discipline, and skirmishing tactics to 

counter the enemy’s tactics.109 Drill provided the basis for discipline and 

effective training in the irregular regiments. In 1855, General Sir Samuel 

Browne, a future commander of the PIF, recommended that new officers 

should immediately learn drill, so that they could in turn teach the NCOs 

and Soldiers.110 Drill provided the basis for mountain warfare tactics. 

Thus, the drill practiced by the regiments was not parade field drill. To 

illustrate this point, three of the basic drills that every irregular regiment 

practiced were the taking a piquet, defending a piquet, and moving out of 

a piquet. The last drill was described as one of the hardest to execute under 

fire.111 Captain, J. L. Vaughan, Commander of the 5th Punjab Infantry, 

one of the original PIF units, used to conduct the drills force-on-force 

to reinforce rivalry between units. Both British and native officers could 

have the unit execute the drill again if they made mistakes.112 As a result of 
48

this training regimen, the regiment quickly gained expertise in mountain 

warfare tactics.

The British and native officers developed a symbiotic relationship 

when it came to training the irregular troops. Commanders, especially 

new ones, often sought advice from the native officers.113 The relationship 

between the British officers and the native Soldiers reflected an almost 

paternalistic style, however, the British officers still had to earn their 

respect. The British appreciated the native sense of humor, knowledge, 

and in return the native Soldiers maintained an unquestionable loyalty to 

their officers.114 Discipline was rarely a problem with the native troops 

even through the Articles of War for Native Troops did not apply to the 

PIF.115 Vaughan praised the native officers’ ability to control the Soldiers. 

He commented that native officers commanded their charges equally 

well in garrison and the field.116 Furthermore, the trust and competence 

built during training allowed officers to give native officers and NCOs 

command of some of the smaller frontier outposts.117

The officers, both British and native, were expected to display 

initiative and to make recommendations concerning changes to the 

PIF’s tactics and equipment. The commanders quickly determined that 

the standard issued uniform and kit was not suitable for irregular work. 

The enemy wore clothes that allowed them to move quickly and to blend 

in with the terrain.118 The regular regiments retained the scarlet tunic of 

the British Army; however, the scarlet uniform proved impractical for 

scouting and piquet duty on the frontier. Lumsden adopted khaki uniforms 

for the Guides in 1846, and the PIF followed suit in 1851.119 Following the 

1863-1864 Umbeylah campaign and Black Mountain campaign in 1868, 

the commanding general, Sir Neville Chamberlain, recommended further 

adjustments to the PIF’s equipment and baggage. He wanted them reduced 

to make the PIF more mobile enabling it to keep pace with the enemy.120

Two other organizational initiatives ensured that the irregular units 

learned from each other’s experience. The PIF was usually on alert for 

raiders when it was not actively campaigning in the frontier. As a result, 

the force was typically spread out along a series of forts and outposts that 

made concentrating the regiments for training difficult. Additionally, since 

the PIF was not part of the regular army, it did not have an obligation 

to produce reports to communicate lessons learned while conducting 

operations. Additionally, the command was not responsible for developing 

a doctrine for hill warfare.121 Brigadier Chamberlain introduced the first 

initiative, the annual encampment of the force for practicing tactics starting 

in 1862.122 Vaughan felt these exercises produced good results in battle.123
49

The second initiative was the publication of a PIF journal that passed 

lessons onto the next generation of officers. In 1865, the Force published 

a manual of standing orders for the regiments. Furthermore, the command 

developed a series of circulars to standardize training on the frontier.124

These initiatives designed to share knowledge and practice frontier 

tactics allowed the PIF to remain successful during punitive operations. 

They allowed the PIF to remain proficient with the current practices despite 

the fact that PIF spent most of their time guarding the border, especially 

when compared to the regular army. Captain W. James, the Commissioner 

of Peshawar, observed that the while the PIF was driving the enemy up 

one hill, the regular army was retreating under the same pressure on the 

neighboring hill.125 The PIF was so successful during the period up to and 

including the Mutiny, that the rest of the native regiments in the British 

Indian Army were remodeled to resemble its organization.126 Chamberlain 

felt that the PIF had gotten so proficient at punitive operations that he 

wanted units to emphasize the civilian duties of the “watch and ward” 

mission.127

Although the PIF spent most of its time guarding the frontier until 

the 1890s, it also conducted operations with the regular army regiments. 

The Guides and the PIF often served as both scouts and piquets for the 

main body of a punitive expedition. In this role, they gathered intelligence, 

protected the regular army, and guarded any retreats. When the main 

body halted for long periods of time, the irregular forces often manned 

sangars.128 The PIF conducted 51 expeditions with and without regular 

army regiments between 1849-1908. During the 1852 Waziris, 1853 

Shiranis, 1857 Bozdars, and 1880 Black Mountain campaigns, the PIF 

provided all of the troops involved in the punitive expedition.129 No 

commander criticized the PIF for their ability to work with regular troops. 

In fact, in most expeditions it seemed that the PIF conducted their job and 

some additional duties.130

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 had a lasting legacy on the PIF proportional 

to its extraordinary feats during the conflict. The unit displayed their 

resilience and their ability to perform civil and military missions. The 

Indian Mutiny occurred for a variety of reasons, but it resulted in many of 

the native regiments in the Bengal Army murdering their officers due to 

ethnic or religious loyalties.131 In the Punjab, Sir James Lawrence sought 

to prevent the spread of the mutiny to any of the Bengal regiments. He 

quietly disbanded four questionable Bengal regiments in the shadow 

of four loaded artillery pieces before they had the chance to rebel.132

However, not all of the regiments were suspect. The various battalions and 
50

regiments of the PIF remained loyal to a man. All of the native officers and 

NCOs of the 1st Sikh Infantry signed a petition asking to be sent against 

the mutineers.133 The PIF received orders to secure key locations within 

the Punjab, disarm native regiments, and secure the frontier from possible 

Afghan interference. Other regiments, including the 1st Punjab Infantry, 

the 4th Sikhs, and the Guides, marched to Delhi as part a relief column.

The march to Delhi is one of the Guides’ most impressive feats in 

support of the regular army. The Guides were notified of the Mutiny and 

their mission on 13 May 1857. The regiment marched from Mardan to 

Delhi, a distance of 580 miles, in only 26 days despite the summer heat.134

The Guides entered the battle only thirty minutes after arriving in Delhi. 

During the siege of Delhi, the regiment repulsed 26 attacks against the right 

flank of the British Army.135 Field Marshal Roberts singled out the Guides 

and 1st Punjab Infantry, PIF, in his memoir dealing with the battle.136

Following the Indian Mutiny, the British government struggled with 

how to secure India, especially the frontier, if some of the native troops 

could not trusted.137 In July 1858, Major General Jonathan Peel, Secretary of 

State for War, chaired a government committee to consider the question.138

The committee agreed that Great Britain lacked the manpower and 

finances to secure India using the British Army. During the Mutiny, only 

23,000 British Soldiers were available to participate in the campaign.139

The fact that local, irregular Soldiers cost less than regular Soldiers of 

the British army to train, equip, and maintain was one solution. A British 

regiment cost more than double an Indian regiment to maintain.140 The 

Commission also considered using mercenary troops from other countries 

with similar climates. However, Sir John Lawrence opposed the idea on 

basis that every mercenary used in India ensured a native warrior was 

unemployed. He suggested that these displaced Soldiers would be a source 

of trouble in any future government.141

The Peel Commission reaffirmed Lumsden’s recruitment strategy.142

In their report, the commission recommended that the future army recruit 

from a wide variety of classes to prevent a monopoly on military service 

by one class. Additionally, individual units should mix recruitment in 

terms of caste and religion.143 The commission used the “divide and rule” 

policy to make the three Presidency Armies separate and distinct with 

the idea that they could generate rivalry between the various units. In 

the PIF, British exploited the religious differences between the Sikhs and 

Muslims. This policy created “class companies” where each company was 

comprised entirely of one class.144 No one class could exceed more than 

half of the regiment’s authorized strength.145
51

The PIF earned a reputation as one of the best units in the Indian 

Army because of it service during the Mutiny and the subsequent punitive 

expeditions. However, the military chain of command finally won the 

battle to control the PIF in 1886. The PIF ceased to be an irregular security 

force, and it transitioned into a regular unit. It amalgamated with the 

Bengal Army, although the army did not fully achieve full integration of 

the PIF until implementation of Kitchener’s reforms in 1903.146 The most 

important impact of this transformation in the Punjab was the fact that the 

Punjab Frontier Force ceased to report to the civil authority. Instead, it 

now took orders from the commander of the Indian Army.147 In the end, the 

PIF would still spend most of its time on the frontier, and it remained an 

“elite” unit in the Indian Army, due its ability to fight in the hostile terrain. 

All of the regiments added the initials “FF” to their titles – Frontier Force 

as a source of pride and inspiration.148

The Frontier Scouts

With the loss of the PIF to the regular army, the government needed 

a new unit that could fulfill the PIF’s original obligations to provide local 

security along the border of the province. Simultaneous to Kitchener’s 

reforms of the Indian Army, Lord Curzon, the new Viceroy of India, 

implemented a series of reforms related to the frontier that created the NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP) in 1900. It separated the administration of 

the frontier from the government of the Punjab. The NWFP now had the 

same provincial institutions as the rest of British India.149 The Indian Penal 

Code now applied in the NWFP and there were functional judicial systems 

to implement it.150 In addition to the army, the Frontier Constabulary and 

some local militias provided policing and border control in the province.151

Lord Curzon’s solution to the security problem was to put all of the existing 

frontier militias under one command, the Frontier Corps.

The Frontier Corps started as a series of local militias in the late 

1870s and 1880s. The militias included the Khyber Rifles, the North and 

South Waziristan Militias, and the Tochi Scouts. The early militias barely 

resembled a military formation. The men did not drill. They did not shave 

or wear uniforms. In fact, the Khyber Rifles originally wore only a small 

red patch on the back of their pagri to identify them as a militiaman.152 The 

Frontier Scouts escorted the political officers into the tribal lands under the 

forward policy.

The frontier militias served a in a variety of roles, primarily in their 

locality but also in times of war. Most of the units served in specialized 

roles that assisted the political agent’s local agenda. The British formed 
52

the Khyber Rifles after the Second Afghan War because Chamberlain’s 

invasion column was stalled at the pass by the tribes.153 The formation 

of a militia answerable to the British, and paid for by the British, could 

alleviate this problem of free passage through the pass should there be 

another war with Afghanistan. In another instance, the British raised the 

Chitral Scouts in 1900 specifically to scout for Russian invaders near 

the Baroghil and Dorah passes.154 These units could police the frontier, 

especially Waziristan.155 The militias provided intelligence and an early 

warning for the regular regiments. They also provided the first line of 

defense for their villages. Although the Frontier Scouts were not obligated 

to serve outside of their locality such as the Guides and the PIF, certain 

units occasionally volunteered to service on punitive expeditions. As an 

example, the Khyber Rifles participated in the Black Mountain expedition 

in 1888 and again in 1891.156

Lord Curzon insisted on seconded British officers from the army to 

serve as the officer corps in the Frontier Corps to provide training and 

leadership.157 Prior to the seconding of British military officers, most of 

the militias had a political officer assigned to them. However, the political 

officer did not always have the extensive military background necessary 

to handle the daily tasks of commanding and training a militia. The 

assignment of military officers helped professionalize the militias, but the 

militia also reflected the quality of trainer.

During World War I, the quality of British officer assigned to the 

militia decreased as the war progressed due to the demands of the regular 

army. British officers did not seek appointments in the Frontier Corps, 

but instead sought employment with the British and Indian Army in 

Europe, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.158 Only after a number of skirmishes 

in Gomal resulted in heavy casualties, did the military try to rectify the 

problem. The military created a number of schools to train officers and 

NCOs assigned to the Frontier Corps on mountain warfare.159

After the First World War, the British authorities suffered a series 

of defeats in campaigns, namely the Third Afghan War and the 1919 

Waziristan campaign that relied heavily on the Frontier Corps. The militias 

lacked the number of Soldiers and officers necessary to truly pacify the 

frontier. This problem existed with the PIF, but since the militias did not 

have to serve outside their home area, reinforcements could be days away. 

At the start of the Waziristan campaign, Cummings’ detachment had to put 

their Wazir Soldiers in jail, destroyed their arms and outpost, and retreated 

during the Battle of Palosina and Ahnai in December 1919 because they 

lacked the number of Soldiers to guard the outpost during the uprising.160
53

Officers did not only have to fear the threat of violence from raiders. 

Sometimes, their own men could kill them in the middle of the night. The 

Third Afghan War resulted in native Soldiers murdering their officers out 

of tribal or religious loyalties. The Khyber Rifles were disbanded on 17 

May 1919 during the Third Afghan War because the British commanders 

felt they might rebel.161 However, the majority of the Frontier Scouts 

remained loyal during tribal uprising. One documented case in the South 

Waziristan Militia is the murder of Captain J.B. Bowring by Sepoy Kabul 

Khan. Bowring had slept with feet towards Mecca and offended Kabul. 

The British officers knew that they needed to thread a fine line between 

military justice and the risk of inciting a rebellion inside the small outpost. 

One of the native officers suggested that Kabul’s brother, who happened 

to be at the same outpost, kill Kabul so that badal was not invoked. Kabul 

surrendered himself for execution.162

The Frontier Corps used similar recruiting methods as the PIF with 

some important differences. The “divide and rule” method prevailed in 

the early Frontier Corps. Unlike the Punjab Irregular Force, the Frontier 

Corps officers recruited with the intention of building mixed companies, a 

measure that the commanders thought would prevent future rebellions.163

Both the North and South Waziristan Militias recruited with quotas giving 

equal representation to tribes on the British side of the frontier and tribes 

on the far side. In other words, the Afridis and the Wazirs balanced each 

other in the militia to prevent another mutiny.164 The militias also created 

class companies. In the South Waziristan Militia, the units included 

different classes of Pathans, specifically Khattaks, Afridis, Bangash, 

and Yasafzais. Major Walter Cummings, a British officer assigned to the 

South Waziristan Militia, wrote that they also recruited about fifty Wazirs 

to please the political officers.165 The exclusion of the Wazirs reflected 

the fact that the British did not trust them after recent fighting and felt 

they made poor Soldiers.166 The South Waziristan Militia had a hard time 

pacifying its area, partially due to the impact of virtually excluding the 

Wazirs from military service.

The Frontier Corps underwent a series of reforms to improve the 

quality of officer assigned to the organization in the 1920s and 1930s to 

bring it up to the same standard as the PIF. British authorities made service 

in the corps a major promotional lever for the officers. Service on the 

frontier also offered officers seeking to make a name from themselves. 

Officers were seconded from the army to the Frontier Corps for an initial 

period of three years. Selection required a first-rate evaluation from his 

regiment, some knowledge of Pushtu. Commanders sought to make 
54

selection even more rigorous by administering tests for promotion and 

retention as a captain.167 New officers received a significant increase in pay 

and mileage allowances when they joined the Scouts. Since commanders 

prohibited new officers from being married, a young officer could save a 

significant amount of money by serving on the frontier. Even with all the 

requirement and schooling, one civil servant even remarked that service 

on the frontier still appealed despite the constant state of fighting because 

“there were no long hours at the office desk.”168

British reforms extended beyond improving the selection criteria for 

the Frontier Corps. Even after the new officer reported to his unit, the 

officer still had to pass the vetting process to ensure he could function on 

the frontier, with little guidance and few fellow officers. Once the unit 

accepted him, he needed to demonstrate mastery of the local language 

with a few months by passing the Higher Standard Pushtu exam.169 Finally, 

newly-assigned officers might have to attend specialized schools that 

taught the latest frontier tactics.170

The Frontier Corps successfully reformed in between the two world 

wars. By 1924, British officers actively sought a posting to the Corps, 

and sometimes they returned for two or three tours.171 The Frontier Corps 

highlighted the importance of assigning quality trainers to the formation. 

Massed formations of tribesmen did not mutiny again in the scouts during 

the interwar period. It is important to note that even after the mutinies in 

the 1919 campaigns, the British never contemplated ending the practice 

of using local security units in the North-West Frontier. The units existed, 

after a series of reforms, until the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

Conclusion

The British administration of the NWF and their use of local forces 

to secure the population has relevance for the modern counterinsurgent. 

Although the British did not classify any of these missions as a 

counterinsurgency, they resembled the modern campaigns in Iraq and 

Afghanistan where aid to the civil power or security of the population also 

described the mission set.

The British administration based irregular regiments locally and made 

them answerable to the local administrator. Lord Dalhousie, the Lawrence 

brothers, and countless other leaders recognized the value of the having a 

force with knowledge of the local terrain. The units could quickly respond 

to local emergencies. Additionally, officers trained the units to conduct both 

civil and military operations. Both the Guides and the PIF remained loyal 

to the local government through several conflicts, punitive expeditions, 
55

and the Indian Mutiny of 1857. During the Mutiny, the reliability of the 

PIF allowed Sir James Lawrence to quickly secure important government 

installations in the Punjab. Even when the PIF reverted to the Bengal 

Army in 1888, another force, the Frontier Corps quickly assumed its role.

The civil and military leaders chose the officers for the irregular 

regiments because they had the skills deemed necessary for working with 

indigenous forces. Lawrence chose Lumsden to lead the Guides based on his 

reputation. The PIF’s commander chose the first regimental commandants 

based on reputation. However, Vaughan suggested that within the first 

couple of years, a system of removing bad officers from the ranks as a 

form of self-policing had already developed.172 Commanders emphasized 

patience, initiative, physical fitness, and independence when choosing 

their subordinates. An irregular officer needed these traits because he did 

have the same number of trained British officers to rely on. Interestingly, 

knowledge of the local language was not one of the skills necessary for 

selection as a PIF officer. It was advantageous if the officer did have 

knowledge of the language used by his troops. However, if Lumsden was 

a model officer for working with indigenous troops, then he faced a nearly 

impossible task of learning Pashto, Pukhto, Uzbek, Dari, Persian and a 

half-dozen other local dialects.173 Vaughan developed a rudimentary use 

of the language, but did not formally learn of Pashto until almost twenty 

years after his command just prior to his return to the area a reporter for the 

Times.

174 Instead officers used the VCOs to communicate with their troops.

The British officers brought a steadying effect to the irregular units, 

which allowed the government to trust the regiments in situations where 

their loyalty could be questioned. The militias lacked British officers until 

Lord Curzon’s reforms in 1900. During the Second Sikh War and the 

Indian Mutiny, units with questionable loyalty were disbanded before they 

could rebel. However, from 1846-1947 the PIF never had a unit mutiny. 

The presence of officers is not enough to stabilize all units. The Khyber 

Rifles were disbanded during the Third Afghan War after the number of 

desertions reached an alarming rate.

After the Afghan conflict, the Viceroy noted that the quality of the 

officers assigned to the militias diminished, and he took steps to address the 

problem. He noted that several junior officers had no frontier experience to 

compensate for the lower quality recruit in the militias.175 As a result, the 

British established a school in Kakul to teach frontier warfare to officers 

with no experience. The school used experienced officers to teach the 

drills, training schemes for native troops, and lessons learned in recent 

operations.176 Books such as Passing It On and Letters of a Once Punjab 
56

Frontier Force Officer started to fill doctrinal gap until the military started 

to produce manuals on mountain warfare.177 The military also required 

frontier officers to meet the same promotion and retention requirements as 

the British Army.

The British system of selection of for service in the PIF and the 

Frontier Corps not only applied to the officers, but it extended to down to 

the individual Soldier. The British reinforced the existing class, caste, and 

tribal system. Although the idea seems contrary to the idea of building a 

nation-state with a shared identity, it is still practiced in some militaries. 

The British still recruit the Gurkhas from Nepal for service in the British 

Army. Many of today’s Gurkhas are second-, third-, and fourth-generation 

Soldiers. The “divide and rule” and martial race theories are probably 

impossible to implement today when building a new force. The global 

community would recognize both theories as undermining of the state’s 

security apparatus, and probably racist. Lumsden for example initially 

recruited the Guides on both a merit basis and tied recruitment to the 

existing tribal system. The British recognized the importance of honor in 

the tribal system and used it to their advantage when building security 

forces. Cummings wrote that VCOs required families and tribes to vouch 

for new recruits. His experience in the South Waziristan Militia took the 

reinforcement of tribal system one step further because the commandant 

could dismiss any Soldier for discipline infraction without referring the 

issue to the higher commander.178

The British officers lived and worked with their irregular Soldiers, 

sharing both hardship and risk. Men on the frontier constantly faced death. 

Raiders could overrun an outpost in the night, killing everyone inside. The 

irregular Soldiers and their officers built trust by sharing the hardship and 

the threat together. The frontier lacked the comforts of garrison life in one 

of the bigger garrison cities like Peshawar. Men were not allowed to bring 

their wives to the frontier garrisons.179 In the Frontier Scouts, new officers 

were not allowed to marry during their first tour of duty. One commander 

even forbade his subordinate officers from taking summers away from the 

regiment to demonstrate that his officers would share the hardship.180

The British assumed risk by stationing so few British Soldiers with the 

local forces; however, the risk was offset by the benefits local, irregular 

forces gave to the British administrators. Until trust was built with the 

Soldiers, the British officers often slept in the same rooms. However, 

even this practice did not last long.181 Even following events such as the 

Indian Mutiny, the Third Afghan War, or even the murder of Captain 

Bowring, the British never abandoned the practice of using native troops. 
57

Even after disarming the Sikhs, Pathans, and Punjabi Mussalmans after 

the Second Sikh War, the British had to rely on them during the Indian 

Mutiny due to the small number of British troops available for the relief 

of Delhi. However, the native troops provided a local face for the British. 

They provided invaluable intelligence on the terrain and helped diffuse 

situations that could have been worse. 

However, it is doubtful that politically a modern western power could 

forcibly place its officers in command of a local security force with the 

ability to militarily command and control those Soldiers, with all of the 

subsequent responsibilities including the administration of punishment, 

without it reeking of a modern day “white man’s burden.” A modern 

interventionist power would have to be invited by the indigenous nation’s 

government. A path to transition the security force, such as Indianization, 

to local control needs to be articulated by the counterinsurgent from the 

beginning.182 Another approach to this problem is to build local forces that 

have both western and local Soldiers initially, and gradually transition it, 

over time, to the control a local leader.183 The British did this is a number 

of places, including British Indian and Oman, through the seconding 

program with the regular army regiments. Finally, another model is the 

building of local forces through indirect leadership, the daily mentoring 

and partnership of western and local forces. This method was how the 

British trained the firqat in Dhofar.
58

Notes

1. The Raj refers to the period of British administration on the subcontinent. 

It started with the transfer of rule from the East India Company to the Crown in 

1858 after the Indian Mutiny until the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. It 

referred to area under direct administration and the princely states that signed 

treaties with the British government. Richard Holmes, Sahibs: The British Soldier 

in India (London: Harper Press, 2006), 80-81.

2. Colonel J. P. Villiers-Stuart, Letters of a Once Punjab Frontier Force 

Officer (London: Sifton Praed and Co., Ltd., 1925), 1.

3. The British Army refers to the regiments based in Great Britain. Until 

1860, the East India Company also maintained an army in India referred to as 

the East India Company Army. The British Indian Army, or for clarity, the Indian 

Army refers to the locally recruited regiments in British India, post-1860, with 

British officers prior to partition in 1947. The distinction is important because 

Indian Army regiments often deployed from India to fight in a number of imperial 

conflicts, including Egypt, Abyssinia, East Africa, and the Sultanate of Muscat 

and Oman. T. R. Moreman, The Army in India and the Development of Frontier 

Warfare (Houndmills: Palgrave, 1998), xx. Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison State: The 

Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1949-1947 (London: Sage 

Publications, 2005), 32.

4. History of the Guides, 1846-1922 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1938), 

25.

5. The Punjab Irregular Force’s name changed to the Punjab Frontier Force 

(PFF) by authority of Military Department letter No. 279, dated 19 September 

1865. It is also common to see the unit referred to as the Punjab Irregular Frontier 

Force (PIFF). Members of the unit were referred to as “Piffers.” For clarity, the 

unit is referred to only as the PIF in this study. Colonel H. C. Wylly, History of the 

5th Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Eastborne: Antony Rowe Ltd, 1929), 29.

6. Small wars include military action against any body that did not resemble 

a western army, including native populations and guerrillas. The term included 

punitive expeditions. Colonel C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and 

Practice, 3rd ed. (London: HM Stationary Press, 1906), 21.

7. Campaigns where civil control of the population does not exist, or 

has broken down to the extent where the military is the only institution that 

can provide security. Major General Sir Charles W. Gwynn, Imperial Policing

(London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd., 1936), 3-4.

8. Campaign where the civil government maintains control, but lacks the 

personnel numbers to provide adequate security for the populace. The military’s 

duty is to provide assistance for the restoration of law and order during the 

disturbance. The War Office, Imperial Policing and Duties in Aid of the Civil 

Power, 1949 (London: Fosh and Cross Ltd., 1949), 4-5.
59

9. Moreman, xvii.

10. Field Marshall Roberts, Forty-One Years in India: From Subaltern to 

Commander in Chief, vol. I (London: Richard Bentley and Sons, 1897), 32-34.

11. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 2-3.

12. Tan, 32-33.

13. Holmes, 52.

14. T. A. Heathcote, The Indian Army (London: David and Charles, 1974), 

14-19, 24-25; Lieutenant General Sir George MacMunn, The Armies of India

(London: Adam and Charles Black, 1911), 1-37.

15. MacMunn, The Armies of India, 5.

16. Moreman, xx.

17. Field Marshal Lord Michael Carver, The Seven Ages of the British Army

(New York: Beaufort Books. Inc, 1984), 156.

18. Colonel G. J. Younghusband, The Story of the Guides (London: 

MacMillan and Co., 1908), 4-5.

19. Brevet Major General Emory Upton, The Armies of Asia and Europe

(New York: D Appleton and Co., 1878), 58, 74; Heathcote, 73, 116.

20. For more information on the wars see General Sir Charles Gough and 

Arthur Innes, The Sikhs and the Sikh Wars (London: A.D. Innes and Co., 1897); 

James Henry Lawrence-Archer, Commentaries of the Punjab Campaign 1848-49

(London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1878).

21. Headquarters, Camp Ferozepore, “Proclamation” (29 March 1849) in 

James Henry Lawrence-Archer, Commentaries of the Punjab Campaign 1848-49

(London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1878), 253-256.

22. James Lawrence was the brother of Colonel Henry Lawrence. Both 

were instrumental members of the military and civil service in the Punjab and 

the NWF. James Lawrence participated in the First Sikh War as commissar for 

the British Army in the Punjab. After the war, he served as the Commissioner of 

the Jullundur district under his brother’s authority. After the Second Sikh War he 

joined the Board of Administration for the Punjab. He coordinated the military 

response in the Punjab at the start of the Indian Mutiny. During the Indian Mutiny 

he negotiated an agreement with Dost Mohammed Khan, Emir of Afghanistan, to 

prevent assistance for the insurgents on the frontier. He is credited with moderating 

the destruction of Delhi during the Mutiny. He served as the Viceroy from 1863-

1869. For more information on both brothers see Reginald Bosworth Smith, Life 

of Lord Lawrence, 2 vols. (London: Smith Elder and Co., 1883).

23. Tan, 35-36.

24. Heathcote, 27.
60

25. “Instructions for the guidance of all officers raising Cavalry and Infantry 

Regiments of Irregulars in the Punjab” (17 April 1849) in Colonel H. C. Wylly, 

History of the 5th Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Eastborne: Antony Rowe 

Ltd, 1929), 2-4.

26. Tan, 36.

27. Villiers-Stuart, 1.

28. Charles Chenevix Trench, The Frontier Scouts (London: Jonathan Cape 

Ltd, 1985), 2; Tan, 37.

29. Trench, xiii.

30. The placement and enforcement of the Durand Line continues to be a 

problem even today. Afghanistan no longer recognized the Durand Line following 

the partition of India and Pakistan because it insisted that Pakistan represented a 

new state. As such, the border between Afghanistan and new state of Pakistan was 

subject to review. For more information see Bijan Omrani, “The Durand Line: 

History and Problems of the Afghan-Pakistan Border,” Asian Affairs 40, no. 2 

(2009): 177-195; Thomas Johnson and M.Chris Mason, “No Sign until the Burst 

of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier,” International Security

32, no. 4 (Spring 2008): 41-77.

31. Major Walter James Cummings, Memoir of Major Walter James 

Cummings (1897-1989) (unpublished) Oriental and India Office Collections 

(OIOC), British Library (BL), MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

32. General Sir Peter S. Lumsden and George R. Elsmie, Lumsden of the 

Guides: A Sketch of the Life of Lieut.-Gen. Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden, K.C.S.I., 

C.B., with Selections from his Correspondence and Occasional Papers (London: 

John Murray, 1900), 65.

33. Heathcote, 28.

34. Heathcote, 27-29.

35. Moreman, 4-5; Philip Mason in Trench, xiii.

36. This paper does not discuss in depth the various political, economic, and 

other aspects of the British frontier policies. Instead, the following discussion 

addresses only the military portion of the British policy.

37. Lal Baha, NWFP Administration under British Rule 1901-1919

(Islamabad: National Commission on Historical and Cultural Research, 1978), 

4-5; Christian Tripodi, Edge of Empire: The British Political Officer and Tribal 

Administration on the North-West Frontier, 1877-1947 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 

16, 52

38. Trench 2.

39. Tripodi, Edge of Empire, 70-71.

40. Tripodi, 72-73.
61

41. Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts had the opportunity to observe 

both the closed border policy and the forward policy. He served most of his career 

in British India. Roberts commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Bengal 

Artillery while it was still a part of the East India Company Army. He fought 

in the siege of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny. He 

received the Victoria Cross for action at Khudaganj on 2 January 1858. Colonel 

Roberts commanded the Kurram field force in March 1878. He also fought in the 

Second Afghan War and served in Afghanistan through the Battle of Kandahar on 

1 September 1880.In November 1881 he took over the position of Commanderin-Chief, Madras Army. He ended his career in India as the Commander-in-Chief, 

India from 1885-1893. His autobiographical Forty-One Years in India: From 

Subaltern to Commander in Chief describes his service in India in detail.

42. Roberts, 32-34.

43. Holmes, 86-87. For more information on the punitive expeditions see 

Captain H. L. Nevill’s Campaigns on the North-West Frontier (London: John 

Murray, 1912) for detailed descriptions of the campaigns.

44. Trench 2-3; Villers-Stuart, 7-9.

45. For more information on the Sandeman system see Christian Tripodi, 

“‘Good for one but not the other’; The Sandeman System of Pacification as 

Applied to Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier, 1877-1947,” The Journal of 

Military History 73, no. 3 (July 2009): 767-802.

46. Moreman, 1-4.

47. Moreman, 23-24.

48. The difference between the words Pukhtun and Pushtun refers to a 

language and tribal division within the Pathan language. The northeastern tribes 

speak Pukhto, and the tribes in the southwest speak Pushto. The east- west 

division is delineated by the Indus just south of Attock through Kohat, up the 

Miranzi Valley to Thal, and then south of the Kurram River to Hariob and the 

Shutar-garden pass. One tribe only is split in half between the two, the Khataks. 

Since most academic discussion defaults to the use of Pushtun, this paper uses 

it as the default spelling when it is not possible to differentiate between the two 

languages. Sir Olaf Caroe, The Pathans (1958; repr., Karachi: Oxford University 

Press, 1988), xviii-xix; H. G. Raverty, A Dictionary of the Pukhto-Pushto or 

Language of the Afghans (Ottawa: Laurier Books Ltd., 2001), 330.

49. MacMunn, The Armies of India, 148-149.

50. Holmes, 194-195.

51. Trench, 3-4.

52. In Paktia province of Afghanistan the jirga has the authority to form an 

arbakai of approximately 2-5 percent of the tribes fighting strength to enforce its 

decisions. The principle of badel does not apply if a member of the arbakai kills 

someone in the execution of his duties. Sherzaman Taizi, Jirga System in Tribal 

Life (Williamsburg: Tribal Analysis Center, 2007), 7.
62

53. Trench, 3.

54. A jirga is “an assembly, a party meets for consultation, a sort of democratic 

council amongst the Yusufzi’s.” The tradition is not limited to Yusufzis. The jirga

is the primary decision making body for both intra- and inter-tribal disputes in 

the Pushtun society. The most common inter-tribal jirgas are formed when feuds 

erupt the whole fighting strengths of tribes. Under the Frontier Crime Regulations, 

the British ceded the right to try crimes in the frontier area to the jirgas. The jirga

used Sharia law as the basis of its decisions. If a party violates the decision of a 

jirga, a lashkar can be raised to punish the guilty party. Taizi, 6-7; Trench, 7.

55. An irregular force or war party raised by a tribe or tribes to punish the 

party that violates the decision of a jirga, or commits a violation contrary to the 

Pukhtonwali code. Trench.

56. Holmes, 194.

57. Moreman, 12.

58. Colonel George John Younghusband, Indian Frontier Warfare (London: 

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1898), 12-13.

59. Temple, 59-60.

60. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 2-3.

61. Heathcote, 27.

62. Younghusband, The Story of the Guides, 4.

63. Brigadier W. E. H. Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment (Aldershot: 

Gale and Polden, 1962), 2-3.

64. Lumsden, 66.

65. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 3.

66. Lieutenant Harry Lumsden was actually the Lawrence’s fifth choice for 

the position, behind Lieutenant Prendergast, 8th Cavalry, Lieutenant Pattullo, 

1st Fusiliers, and two engineer officers, Lieutenants Beecher and McLagan. The 

Commander-in-Chief, India approved the release of Pendergast and McLagan 

to command the cavalry company and the infantry company respectively. He 

deferred on the appointment of the Commandant, but specified no artillery or 

engineer officers could be spared. Lawrence appointed Lumsden on 1 December 

1846. History of the Guides, 3,5.

67. Lumsden and Lawrence were acquainted from a previous assignment. 

Lumsden accompanied Lawrence’s command to Kashmir to assist Maharajah 

Gulab Singh take possession of the region after its sale from the British. Lumsden 

also served as a subaltern with 59th Bengal Native Infantry and as a lieutenant 

in the First Afghan War with the 33rd Native Infantry. Younghusband, The Story 

of the Guides, 3; History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 5. For more information on 

Lumsden’s early career see General Sir Peter S. Lumsden and George R. Elsmie, 

Lumsden of the Guides: A Sketch of the Life of Lieut.-Gen. Sir Harry Burnett 
63

Lumsden, K.C.S.I., C.B., with Selections from his Correspondence and Occasional 

Papers (London: John Murray, 1900).

68. Each irregular regiment had four British officers. The balance of the 

twenty officers authorized to regiment were native. Tan, 37.

69. Moreman, xxi.

70. Lumsden, 43.

71. The system by which the British determined class, caste, and martial 

races is a very complex topic. Although MacMunn’s writing is one of the earliest 

attempts to succinctly define them. Also see Heather Streets, Martial Races: 

The Military, Race, and Masculinity in the British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison 

State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849-1947

(New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), Susan Bayly, “Caste and Race in the 

Colonial Ethnography of India,” in The Concept of Race in South Asia, 165-218, 

ed. Peter Robb, 165-218. (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1998); 

Stephen Cohen, “The Untouchable Soldier: Caste, Politics, and the Indian Army,” 

Journal of Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (May 1969): 454; Douglas Peers, “The Martial 

Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Era,” in A Military History of India 

and South Asia, ed. Daniel P. Marston and Chandar Sundraham (Westport, CT: 

Praeger, 2007); David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army 1860-

1940 (Basingstoke: Routledge Publishers, 1994) and compare their definitions 

and discussion of “classes,” “castes,” martial races and central role of the Punjab 

in terms of recruitment with Lieutenant General Sir George MacMunn, Martial 

Races of India (London: Low and Marston, 1933).

72. The classes in India do not have social meaning, such as high-class or 

low-class. Stephen Cohen, “The Untouchable Soldier: Caste, Politics, and the 

Indian Army,” The Journal of Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (May 1969): 454.

73. MacNunn, 130-131.

74. MacNunn, 140.

75. The Sikhs require that each member of the sect to take the pahul, a 

form of baptism. A Sikh is not born into the religion like a Christian or Jew. Men 

aspiring to Sikhism could not join the Indian Army until after they took the pahul. 

MacNunn, 134.

76. Dogras resided in Kangra hills, primarily Rajput, but believed in an 

orthodox version of Hinduism. David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian 

Army, 1860-1940 (London: MacMillan Press Ltd, 1998), 53.

77. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the British Army discontinued the 

“divide and rule” practice and started to recruit Soldier based on the martial race 

theory. The theory postulated that certain races were better suited to discipline, 

hardship, and soldiering. In some cases the British and the natives agreed. For 

instance, Rajputs considered themselves a warrior class that gained honor from 
64

killing their enemies. The British divided the different classes in British India into 

martial and non-martial races. The British sought to exploit inter-tribal rivalry 

so that different ethnic groups would strive to serve the Raj. The majority of the 

Soldiers recruited during under the martial race theory were from the yeoman 

classes. Field Marshal Lord Roberts and Lieutenant General Sir George MacMunn 

were some of the most active writers in the British India about the martial race 

theory and its application to the Indian Army. Roberts believed that the lowland 

tribes were unsuited for military service. The Punjab, on the other hand, produced 

the best Soldiers. See MacMunn’s chapter on the military races of India in The 

Armies of India for his original opinion. Field Marshal Lord Frederick Sleigh 

Roberts, Forty-One Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander in Chief, Vol. 

II (London: Richard Bentley and Sons, 1897), 441-442; Jeffrey Greenhut, “Sahib 

and Sepoy: An Inquiry into the Relationship between the British Officers and 

Native Soldiers of the British Indian Army,” Military Affairs 48: no. 1 (January 

1984): 15-16; Omissi, 20, 25.

78. In fact, Lumsden usually had an excess of men waiting for a vacancy in 

the Guides. He often had thirty or more replacements around the regiment, paid 

for by the tribes, waiting for a vacancy. When a spot opened, Lumsden had the 

replacements shoot for the position. This system gave Lumsden a ready pool of 

trained replacements that did not cost the government any money to maintain. It 

also demonstrated the popularity of service in the unit. Younghusband, The Story 

of the Guides, 51-52.

79. David Omissi’s study of recruiting in Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian 

Army, 1860-1940 suggested that combination of intangible factors like esprit de 

corps and a sense of loyalty compelled Soldiers to serve. Philip Mason agreed 

with this approach in A Matter of Honour. S.P. Rosen believed that Soldiers 

sought to rise above their caste in a discriminatory society. However, he also 

suggested that this recruiting strategy helped cause the Indian Mutiny. Finally, 

Kausik Roy wrote that a combination of the regimental structure reinforced by 

esprit de race allowed the regiments to form distinct identities, which attracted 

new recruits. Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and its 

Armies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 261-262; Kausik Roy, “The 

Construction of Regiments in the Indian Army: 1859-1913,” War in History 8, no. 

2 (2001): 128-129, 148.

80. Younghusband, The Story of the Guides, 53.

81. The initial force included at least Afridis, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Hazaras, 

Waziris, Pathans, Kafirs, and Yusafzai Soldiers. Lumsden, 66-67.

82. Younghusband, The Story of the Guides, 4.

83. Lumsden, 67-69; Younghusband, The Story of the Guides, 54-59.

84. This theme of recruiting former enemies as way of simultaneously adding 

knowledge to the government’s forces and denying the same knowledge to the 

enemy is prevalent in the Dhofar insurgency. Lumsden, 67-73; Younghusband, 

The Story of the Guides, 54-64.
65

85. History of the Guides, 1846-1922, 8.

86. No less a man than Lord Dalhousie praised the Corps of Guides. In 

September 1847, he wrote to the Guides after the capture of the fort at Govindgarh 

to thank them for turning the course of the campaign in favor of the government. 

The guides captured the fort without a shot by disguising themselves as members 

of the enemy transporting the prisoners. Once inside the fort, they overcame the 

guards, opened the gates, and allowed the remainder of the guides into the fort. 

Only a local force could have pulled off the deception successfully. History of the 

Guides, 12-13.

87. History of the Guides, 17.

88. Lumsden, 58.

89. Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment, 2-3.

90. “No. 754. General Order by the Right Honourable the Governor-General 

of India” in Colonel H. C. Wylly, History of the 5th Battalion 13th Frontier Force 

Rifles (Eastborne: Antony Rowe Ltd, 1929), 4.

91. The Scinde Camel Corps was designated the 6 Punjab Infantry (Scinde 

Rifles). The Corps of Guides consisted of one infantry battalion, one cavalry 

regiment, and a mountain artillery unit. Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment, 4; 

Holmes, 192.

92. The primary difference between the Sind Force and the PIF was its 

relationship with the army. The Sind Force was part of the Bombay Army, and it 

took its directions from the Commander-in-Chief, Bombay. Heathcote, 27.

93. “Col S. Black, Secretary to Government Punjab Military Department, to 

the President Army Organization Commission” (6 September 1879), Political and 

Secret Memoranda, India Office Records (IOR), BL, L/PandS/18/A134; Condon, 

The Frontier Force Regiment, 4.

94. General Sir J. Luther Vaughan, My Service in the Indian Army – and 

After (London: Archibald Constable and Co. Ltd., 1904), 44-45; Holmes, 192-

193.

95. Holmes, 197.

96. General Order No. 577, dated 15 February 1851, limited the deployment 

of PIF to general service in the Punjab and the trans-Indus provinces. It allowed 

for the deployment out of that region only if “exigencies of the service required 

it.” Wylly, 6.

97. Colonel J. G. Medley, “Defence of the North West Frontier,” Journal of 

the United Services Institution of India 9, no. 45 (1880): 288.

98. Moreman, 7.

99. Sir Richard Temple, Report Showing the Relations of the British 

Government with the Tribes, Independent and Dependent, on the North-West 

Frontier of the Punjab from the Annexation in 1849 to the close of 1855 (Calcutta: 

District Memorandum, 1855), 54, 62. in IOR, BL, V/23/3; Heathcote, 27.
66

100. General Sir Charles Patton Keyes, “Military Letter from the Government 

of India, No. 108-933,” Papers of General Sir Charles Patton Keyes (1823-96) in 

the Keyes Collection, OIOC, BL, MSS Eur D1084/8.

101. Younghusband, The Story of the Guides, 40-43.

102. Wylly, 7.

103. The PIF traced its lineage back to the Frontier Brigade formed in 

November 1846 with the formation of the first four infantry regiments. The 

Corps of Guides joined the brigade prior to the Second Sikh War. In 1849, Lord 

Dalhousie authorized additional units, including artillery, and renamed it the 

Trans-Frontier Brigade. In 1851, the unit added the Scinde Camel Corps and five 

regiments of Punjab infantry and took the name, Punjab Irregular Force. Condon, 

The Frontier Force Regiment, 3-4.

104. Each of the presidency armies developed its own recruiting ground, with 

preferences for caste, class, and religion of their Soldiers. Tan, 32-33.

105. Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment, 4; Moreman, 13.

106. Lady MacGregor, ed., The Life and Opinions of Maj Gen Sir Charles 

Metcalfe MacGregor, vol. 1 (London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1888), 90.

107. Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437; Moreman, 6.

108. “Instructions for the guidance of all officers raising Cavalry and Infantry 

Regiments of Irregulars in the Punjab” (17 April 1849) in Colonel H. C. Wylly, 

History of the 5th Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Eastborne: Antony Rowe 

Ltd, 1929), 2-4.

109. Moreman, 14.

110. General Sir Samuel James Browne, “Memorandum for Raising Irregular 

Cavalry, 1855,” in the Browne Collection, OIOC, BL, MSS Eur F486/1/1.

111. Moreman, 17.

112. Vaughan, 46-47.

113. Wylly, 11; Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

114. An example of the extent that this personal loyalty went: Lumsden’s 

guides noticed that he was especially sullen after a visit from Sir John Lawrence 

in 1851. The guides interpreted Lawrence’s behavior during the visit as an insult 

to Lumsden. One remarked, “He starts for Peshawar tomorrow morning there is 

no reason why he should reach it.” Lumsden, 108; Philip Woodruff, The Men Who 

Ruled India: Volume II, The Guardians (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963), 292.

115. The Articles for War did not apply initially because the PIF did not 

belong to the military. When the Bengal Army absorbed the PIF in 1886, this 

fact was no longer true, although discipline was never an issue. Vaughan, 47; 

Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

116. Wylly, 11.
67

117. “Maj R. C. Lawrence, Secretary to Government, Punjab, Military 

Department, to Major General R.J. Birch. Secretary to the Government of India 

Military Department, with the Governor General” (25 October 1859) in IOR, BL, 

P/191/144.

118. Moreman, 12.

119. The regiments received the order in February 1953 officially changing 

the service color for the PIF. The 1st Punjab Infantry also had a green uniform for 

service at the PIF’s Headquarters in Peshawar. Younghusband, The Story of the 

Guides, 5; Vaughan, 9, 47; Wylly, 6-7.

120. “Brig.-Gen. A.T. Wilde, Offg. Military secretary to the Government 

Madras, to the Adj.-Gen.” (5 May 1869) in IOR, BL, P/615.

121. Unfortunately this fact had serious ramifications for the regular 

regiments during a number of punitive expeditions. However, the army never 

corrected the problem of developing a single doctrine for frontier warfare. In the 

1909 edition of the Field Service Regulations, the first version printed after the 

1897-1898 Frontier Uprising, only had six paragraphs devoted to frontier fighting. 

Lester W. Grau and Robert H. Baer in General Sir Andrew Skeen, Passing It 

On: Fighting the Pushtun of Afghanistan’s Frontier (Fort Leavenworth: Foreign 

Military Studies Office, 2010), xvii; Moreman, 35, 46.

122. Brigade Standing Orders issued by the Brigadier General Commanding 

the Punjab Frontier Force (6 July 1867) in IOR, P/436/42.

123. Vaughan, 33.

124. Moreman, 27.

125. “Maj R. C. Lawrence, Secretary to Government, Punjab, Military 

Department, to Major General R.J. Birch. Secretary to the Government of India 

Military Department, with the Governor General” (25 October 1859) in IOR, BL, 

P/191/144.

126. Moreman, 21.

127. Moreman, 6. “Watch and ward” is the informal term the Indian Army 

gave to the frontier duty. It referred to the fact regiments watched the border 

continuously guarding the population.

128. One example of this was the operations in Bruner in 1897. General Sir 

Frederick Campbell participated in the campaign as the Commander of the Guides 

Infantry. He described the use of the Guides infantry throughout the campaign. 

“Letter to General Campbell from Brig.-Gen. S.F. Crocker” (21 August 1915), 

Gen Sir Frederick Campbell Collection, LHCMA.

129. Moreman, 45.

130. Several memoirs detail the PIF’s role during these punitive expeditions. 

In addition to the regimental histories, see Forrest’s The Life of Field Marshall Sir 

Neville Chamberlain for details of the Umbeyla campaign, Churchill’s The Story 
68

of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War for the PIF’s role in the 

conflict, and Younghusband’s The Story of the Guides for details on the Chitral 

and Malakand expeditions.

131. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 is a watershed moment in the history of 

British India. As such, several books are needed to explain the origin of the 

conflict, the military actions of various units, and the results of the conflict. The 

Mutiny resulted in the Crown assuming control of British India from the East 

India Company. It also had profound effects on the future recruitment of Soldier 

from the Punjab. For more information about the Indian Mutiny see William 

Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of Delhi, 1957 (New York: Bloomsbury, 

2006); Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India (New 

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 233-300. Some of the British officials wrote 

extensively about their involvement during the Mutiny. See Field Marshall 

Roberts, Forty-One Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander in Chief, vol. 

I (London: Richard Bentley and Sons, 1897); G. W. Forrest, The Life of Field 

Marshall Sir Neville Chamberlain, (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 

1909); Reginald Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, 2 vols (London, Smith 

Elder and Co., 1883). Additionally, History of the Guides, 1846-1922 of Guides 

and The Frontier Force Regiment histories provide good accounts of the march to 

Delhi and the Siege of Delhi.

132. Dalrymple, 197.

133. Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment, 4.

134. The Guides actually completed the movement in 22 days of marching, 

with four days of rest and a one-day punitive mission at Kaliran. The regiment’s 

strength actually increased along the march because they added new recruits. 

Condon, The Frontier Force Regiment, 17, 20.

135. Condon, 20-22.

136. Roberts, 253.

137. The future recruitment of Soldiers from the Punjab is a direct result of 

their loyalty to the British during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. During the mutiny, 

14 additional regiments were raised in the Punjab. Recruitment in the Punjab 

opened to the entire army, which in turn led a disproportionate number of Punjabis 

under arms in the Indian Army after the Mutiny. Before the mutiny there were 

only 30,000 Punjabis in the entire army. In June 1858, 75,000 of the 80,000 native 

Soldiers in the Bengal Army were from the Punjab. 23,000 of them were Sikhs. 

Rajit Mazumder, The Indian Army and the Making of the Punjab (New Delhi: 

Sapra Brothers, 2011), 11-12.

138. The commission is informally known as the Peel Commission. It differs 

from the Palestine Royal Commission that considered the changes to the Palestine 

Mandate in 1936-1937, which was nicknamed the Peel Commission. The 

commission was comprised of senior civil and military officials with experience 

in British India. The commission sought to answer twelve questions related to the 

future organization of the British Indian Army.
69

139. Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, its 

Officers and Men (London: Papermac, 1986), 225.

140. A British infantry regiment cost 573,343 rupees yearly to maintain. 

A native infantry regiment cost 277,612 rupees. J. P. Grant “Minute by J. P. 

Grant, President, Council of India in Council, 4 June 1858,” in Report of the 

Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Organization of the Indian Army; 

together with Minutes and Appendix (London: HMSO, 1859), 411.

141. “Precis of Answers Received in India, August 1858,” in Report of the 

Commissioners, Appendix 71, 534.

142. Several officials believed after the fact that the reason the Bengal Army 

overwhelmingly mutinied in 1857 was due to the fact that high-class Hindus were 

allowed to monopolize military service. As a result the regiments had a shared 

identity that allowed them to unite against the British officers when presented 

with a perceived grievance. At the time of the mutiny, Rajputs comprised 34.9 

percent of the Bengal Native Infantry regiment and Brahmins comprised 31 

percent. Dalrymple, 135.

143. The commission did not recommend the structure of the future army 

in terms of proportionality of classes in each unit, which classes to include or 

exclude in the rebuilding of the army. “Testimonies of Sir George Clerk, Governor 

of Bombay, and Major General Hearsey,” in Report of the Commissioners, 14.

144. Prior to the Mutiny, each regimental commandant could organize his 

companies as he saw fit. In the case of the 5th Punjab Infantry, Captain J.L. 

Vaughan (later General Sir Vaughan) took over a regiment with every class in 

each of the eight companies. He immediately reorganized the regiment into class 

companies along the following lines, two companies of Sikhs, two companies of 

Punjab Mahammedans, two companies of Pathans, one company of Dogras, and 

one mixed company. Vaughan, 44-45.

145. Tan, 56.

146. Kitchener’s reforms of the Indian Army removed the regional nature 

of the old presidency armies. Now units were eligible for service in anywhere 

in India. Kitchener’s reforms of the British Indian Army reflected a growing 

awareness of Russia’s influence in Afghanistan as part of the “Great Game.” 

Holmes, 196. See Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in 

Central Asia (London: John Murray, 1990) for more information on the “Great 

Game” for control of central Asia between Imperial British and Tsarist Russia.

147. Lumsden opposed this move in writing, arguing that the military would 

have to create another force to take over the PIF’s role. In addition to the PIF 

answering to the Commander-in-Chief, the Commandant ceased the practice of 

interchanging infantry and cavalry officers in the Guides. Condon, The Frontier 

Force Regiment, 51-52.

148. Condon, 4.
70

149. Lord Curzon argued for the establishment of the NWFP following the 

Frontier Uprising of 1897-1898, stating that the government of the Punjab was 

inadequate in times of extraordinary circumstances. When that occurred the 

Government of India needed to be able to exert its power without interference 

from Lahore. Arthur Swinson, North-West Frontier (London: Hutchinson and 

Co., Ltd., 1967), 259.

150. The Indian Penal Code was the basic criminal law in British India. The 

Raj implemented it in 1862. Unlike British Common Law it was written. It did not 

apply in the NWF until after Frontier reforms elevated the NWF’s status to a full 

province. Following the Partition, The Indian Penal Code served as the basis for 

the Pakistani Penal Code. Trench, 2. For more information on the development of 

the Indian Penal Code see David Skuy “Macaulay and the Indian Penal Code of 

1862: The Myth of the Inherent Superiority and Modernity of the English Legal 

System Compared to India’s Legal System in the Nineteenth Century,” Modern 

Asian Studies 32, no. 3 (1998): 513-557.

151. The Frontier Constabulary was an armed police force that worked in the 

border areas. Swinson, 257; Philip Mason in Trench, xiii.

152. Trench, 8.

153. G. W. Forrest, The Life of Field Marshall Sir Neville Chamberlain

(London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1909), 474-475.

154. Forrest, 13.

155. Waziristan continues to be a problem for the government of Pakistan to 

this day. In a 1945 Frontier Committee report, the members noted that the presence 

of regular troops during the war continued to aggravate the tribes. “Report of the 

Frontier Committee, 1945,” in IOR, BL, L/Mil/17/3/46.

156. Captain H. L. Nevill, Campaigns on the North-West Frontier (London: 

John Murray, 1912), 101, 119.

157. The North and South Waziristan Militias received six British officers 

each. Trench, 15.

158. Moreman, 99.

159. Moreman, 101.

160. After the resulting punitive expedition in January 1920, Major Cummings 

troops occupied the same outpost that they destroyed at the beginning of the war. 

Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

161. The Soldiers of the Khyber Rifles were offered the choice of discharge 

or transfer to another unit. No native officers opted for discharge, although nearly 

80 percent of the Soldiers opted for discharge. They were not reformed until 

partition in 1947. Trench, 31, 263.

162. Trench, 17-18.

163. Trench, 53.
71

164. Trench, 15.

165. Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

166. In class breakdowns of the Bengal Army in 1858 and the Indian Army in 

1904, the Wazirs are not even listed separately. Omissi, 7, 20.

167. Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

168. Woodruff, 292.

169. Trench, 51-52.

170. The Frontier Corps brought back the mountain warfare schools that had 

closed following the First World War. Additionally, the Army started to require 

Frontier Corps officers to meet the same requirements as their comrades in the 

British Army for promotion and retention. Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437.

171. Trench, 52.

172. Vaughan, 32.

173. Lumsden, 66.

174. Vaughan, 42.

175. “Chelmsford to Montagu” (8 October 1919) Montagu Collection, OIOC, 

BL, Mss Eur D523/9. 

176. Moreman, 122.

177. Moreman, 171.

178. Cummings, MSS Eur Photo Eur 437. 

179. Vaughan, 34. 

180. Officers in the regular regiments often moved to higher elevations in the 

summer to avoid the heat. Few other ranks got the same privilege. The summer 

period included several of the social obligations, allowed British officers to 

interact with officers in other regiments, and participate in inter-regimental sports 

competitions.

181. Vaughan, 38.

182. Indianization refers to the process by which more staff and command 

positions were offered to native officers. The sacrifices that Indian Soldiers made 

in World War I accelerated the process. For the first time Indians were allowed 

to attend Sandhurst to earn a King’s or Queen’s Indian Officer Commission. The 

commission was higher than a VCO. See Daniel P. Marston, Phoenix from the 

Ashes: The Indian Army in the Burma Campaign (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 

15-17.

183. The US Marines tried this on a limited basis in Vietnam with the 

Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program. The basic organization of a CAP 

included one 15-man squad of Marines, a medic, with a 15-20-man unit of the 

Popular Forces, a local security force. The Marines provided indirect fires, air 
72

support, and training for the PF. The PF provided local intelligence, knowledge 

of the terrain, and a Vietnamese face for pacification efforts. A Marine squad 

leader served as the CAP commander, while a PF Platoon Leader served as the 

unit executive officer. Eventually, CAPs combined to form Combined Action 

Companies and Combined Action Groups to provide security over larger areas. 

Michael E. Peterson, The Combined Action Platoons: The US Marines’ Other War 

in Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1989), 136.
73

Chapter 4

Dhofar

As our former enemies they knew the ground and the tactics of 

their former friends intimately, and they were good at things that 

we were poor at, namely reconnaissance, gathering intelligence, 

and communicating with the nomadic population. They were of 

that population after all. For all their limitations, I do not believe 

we could have won the war without the firqat. 

- Ian Gardiner, In the Service of the Sultan

The British experience with irregular security forces did not end 

with the partition of India in 1947. Arguably one of the best examples 

of an interventionist power building irregular forces to provide security 

occurred in the Dhofar province of Oman. The Second Dhofar Insurgency 

(1963-1975) provides a different model of partnership for the creation, 

mentorship, and employment of local irregular forces to fight in 

counterinsurgency operations than the North-West Frontier. Soldiers from 

22 Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment, operating under the moniker, 

British Army Training Team (BATT), partnered with both singular and 

multi-tribal organizations during the conflict. BATT advisors referred to the 

local security forces as firqats.

1

 However, unlike the North-West Frontier, 

the SAS troopers did not serve as the officers for the firqat units. Instead, 

the SAS advised native leaders without actually leading the security force. 

Many of 22 SAS Soldiers that operated in Dhofar agree that the firqat 

did not win the war per se, but the firqat contributed decisively to the 

campaign success.2

 Ian Gardiner, a British Royal Marine seconded to the 

Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), further explained that the firqat primarily 

provided local security in Dhofar, thereby allowing the SAF to conduct 

offensive operations.3

 Furthermore, as with the PIF in the North-West 

Frontier, the government eventually absorbed the firqat into regular forces.4

The British advisors also had another significant advantage during the 

insurgency, nearly 160 years of military cooperation between the British 

military and the Sultanate. The British recognized the strategic importance 

of maintaining good relations with the Sultanate at the end of the 18th 

century. In 1798, the British signed a treaty of friendship with the Sultan 

of Muscat.5

 The Sultanate represented a point of vulnerability between 

Great Britain and British India during the Napoleonic Wars. The initial 

treaty prevented French raids on British shipping from bases in Muscat. In 

1800, the Royal Navy sent a squadron of ships to the region to assist with 
74

the defense of the Sultanate and other vital interests.6 British support for 

the Sultan continued even after the French threat diminished at the end of 

the Napoleonic Wars.

Figure 5. Map of the Oman and the Arabian Peninsula.

Source: Bryan Ray, Dangerous Frontiers: Campaigning in Somaliland and Oman

(Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military, 2008), 46. CGSC Copyright Registration #12-1353 

C/E

The Sultanate included the coast along the Straits of Hormuz, a 

strategically important waterway in the region. The strait is sufficiently 

small enough that every ship entering or leaving the Persian Gulf must 

pass through the Sultanate’s territorial waters. Additionally, the Sultanate 
75

needed another naval base for the British to protect commercial shipping 

from India. Since the Sultanate included these strategically important 

waters, the British continued to provide military assistance to the Sultan to 

counter Wahabi (Saudi) piracy in the Gulf.7

In 1891, the Sultanate received special status within the British 

Empire, one that remained short of a protectorate, but with significant 

military benefits. The most significant advantage was the seconding of 

officers from the Indian Army to the Sultan’s militia. Additionally, the 

Indian Army would provide regiments to reinforce the Sultan’s militia 

in the event of an emergency.8

 By 1913, the Indian Army provided and 

training for the small force. The British government assisted the Sultanate 

during the during the 1913 secession crisis with additional troops from 

British India, money, and military material.9 Although fighting culminated 

with the Battle of Bayt al-Falaj in January 1915, the succession crisis 

officially ended with the Agreement of al-Sib on 26 September 1920. The 

agreement was significant for two reasons. First, the treaty divided control 

of Muscat and Oman between the secular Sultan and the religious leader, 

Imam Salim bin Rashid al-Kharusi. The Imam led the tribes in the Interior 

(Oman), while the Sultan retained control of the coastal cities (Muscat). 

Second, it resulted in the creation of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF).10

The British expanded their military assistance program during the 

1930s. First, the British sent a squadron of planes from the Royal Air Force 

to Oman. The Sultan requested these planes be stationed in Dhofar to assist 

with policing the troublesome province.11 By the middle of the twentieth 

century, the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) resembled other British Indian 

regiments complete with uniforms, standardized authorizations of weapons 

and equipment, and British officers seconded from the Indian Army.

Over time, the threat to the Sultan’s security gradually shifted from 

Wahabi piracy to territorial disputes with Saudi Arabia. On 12 August 

1952, Saudi Arabia seized control of the Burami Oasis. The British initially 

urged the Sultan to initially limit their response to the Saudi aggression. 

However after two years of negotiation, with the British government 

representing the interests of Muscat and Abu Dhabi, and another year in 

the International Court, the British lent the Trucial Oman Scouts to the 

Sultan to forcibly eject the Saudis.12

In the 1950s, the Imam of the Interior attempted a coup against the 

Sultan that also required British intervention. After two years of fighting, 

the First Oman Insurgency stalemated with neither the SAF nor the Imam’s 

forces able to defeat the other. The Sultan asked for British intervention 
76

to break the stalemate resulted in the deployment of the 22 SAS Regiment 

for the first time to the region. Several SAS officers that commanded the 

regiment, squadrons and troops during the Dhofar insurgency gained 

experience during this crisis.13

By the start of the Second Oman (Dhofar) Insurgency, the British 

were firmly embedded within the Sultan’s regular Armed Forces. A cadre 

of British officers, including Johnny Watts and Tony Jeapes, had gained 

invaluable experience in the Sultanate. British military assistance to the 

Sultan included 150 active duty officers seconded to the SAF (including the 

SAF commanding officer), 300 contract officers, and up to two squadrons 

of 22 SAS operating as the British Army Training Team.14

Overview of Dhofar Province

Dhofar is the name for the southwest province of the Sultanate of 

Oman, which borders the eastern edge of the former People’s Democratic 

Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The province is approximately 100,000 

square kilometers.15 Geographically, the province consists of three 

distinct areas. First, a narrow fertile plain approximately 25 miles long 

and no more than eleven kilometers wide skirts the southern coastline.16

The provincial capital, Salalah, and the other principal cities are on the 

southern plain. Immediately to the north of the fertile plain is a continuous 

limestone ridge called the jebel. The jebel rises 1,678 meters from the 

Indian Ocean.17 The jebel is split in to three regions from west to east, 

Jebel Dhofar, Jebel Qamar, and Jebel Qara. Numerous north-south wadis 

intersect the jebel. From June until September, the jebel is the only portion 

of the Arabian Peninsula exposed to the southeast monsoon known as the 

Khareef. During this period, the jebel is green with vegetation and water 

runs through most of the wadis. North of the jebel is the Empty Quarter 

Desert, also called the negd, which is four hundred miles wide. The desert 

isolates Dhofar from the rest of Oman. During the insurgency, Dhofar 

had an estimated population of between 30,000 and 65,000. Of those, 

approximately two-thirds lived on the fertile plain, and one-third lived in 

the jebel.

18 A single road, the Midway Road, connects Dhofar with the 

rest of Oman. The geography is significant to military operations, because 

a commander could find his unit fighting in three different geographical 

zones, desert, mountains, and dense vegetation, on the same day despite 

the fact that different types of uniforms and equipment were needed in 

each region.19
77

Figure 6. Map of Dhofar.

Source: Bryan Ray, Dangerous Frontiers: Campaigning in Somaliland and 

Oman (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military, 2008), 58. CGSC Copyright Registration #12-

1353 C/E

Dhofar’s isolation from the rest of Oman is important for two reasons. 

First, the Dhofaris are ethnically different from the northern Omanis. 

Most Omanis physically and culturally resemble Arabs and speak Arabic 

as their primary language. However, the Dhofari people are ethnically 

related to Ethiopians and Somalis rather than Arabs. The Dhofaris share 

cultural characteristics with the Somalis, including the pride in their cattle, 

the design of their round stone and straw houses, and stance.20 Omanis 

traditionally speak Arabic; however, Dhofaris speak a local, glottal dialect 

referred to as Jebali or Harasis, both of which are closer to Aramaic than 

Arabic linguistically.21 Finally, Dhofar’s society is tribal-centric. Several 

observers, both civil and military, noted that a Dhofari’s allegiance is 

to his herd, followed by his family, and tribe. Islam is fourth on his list. 

The Dhofari did not owe allegiance to a distant master, the Sultan, or an 

artificial state that did not understand his society.22 The isolation prevented 

assimilation of the Dhofari culture with the larger Omani culture.

Second, Dhofar’s isolation ensured its relative independence with the 

Sultanate. Historically, Dhofar operated as a separate entity since Sultan 

Al Bu Said first annexed it in 1829. The province did not come under 

the Sultan’s control until an expedition occupied Salalah in 1879.23 The 

province has the traditional governance structure of the other provinces, 
78

with a wali appointed by the Sultan as the governor of the province. 

However, unlike other provinces, Dhofar’s wali reported directly to Said, 

making him equal to the Interior Minister. The Dhofar also issued its own 

coinage prior to 1970.24 Furthermore, the Sultan differentiated Dhofar 

from the rest of the provinces, because he believed that the province was 

his personal property.25 Said took both his first and second wives from the 

powerful Bait Mashani tribe in Dhofar.26 In 1958, he established permanent 

residence in his Dhofar palace.

Social Conditions in Dhofar

In order to ensure that Oman remained firmly under his control, Sultan 

Said bin Taimur imposed strict restrictions on modernization to control the 

population. He inherited the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman following his 

father’s abdication in 1932.27 The Sultan associated modernization with 

radical behavior.28 He restricted travel outside the country and movement 

within the country. Two hospitals, one operated by American missionaries 

located in Matrah and another operated by the British consulate located in 

Muscat, provided the only modern health care in Oman.29 The Sultan enacted 

laws to prohibit any outward signs of modernization such as spectacles, 

radios, flashlights, gas stoves, and automobiles. In 1952, only two official 

automobiles existed in the country, one for the Sultan’s use and one for the 

British consul. The only paved road in the country connected the Sultan’s 

palace in Muscat to the airport.30 Education also remained primitive even 

for Middle East standards of the time. Females attended school until age 

12 and males until age 22. Education was a community responsibility with 

a focus on memorization of the Koran. Said restricted higher education 

to only three state-run schools.31 Despite these restrictions, Said secured 

British recognition of Oman’s independence in 1951.32 He continued to 

refuse to modernize the country even after the successful exploration and 

extraction of oil brought the country additional revenue in 1964.

The Dhofaris especially suffered under the Sultan. He likened 

Dhofaris to a bunch of cattle thieves.33 He used to tell his British advisors 

that if they encountered a snake and a Dhofari at the same time, step on 

the Dhofari because he presented a greater threat.34 The Sultan instituted 

a series of social changes to control the population. Dhofaris had to live 

day-to-day without the possibility of gaining wealth. Dhofar used to be a 

region rich in crops. Prior the First World War, the Salalah Plain served 

as the breadbasket of Mesopotamia (Iraq). During the war, the region 

produced enough grain to feed all of the British Middle Eastern forces. 

When Said took control of the country, he started to cap water wells and 

destroy the old system of aqueducts that channeled water from the jebel
79

onto the plain limiting the Dhofaris’ ability to grow crops and increasing 

their dependence on livestock.35

In addition to his population control measures, Said prohibited the 

Dhofaris from joining the security forces. The Sultan believed that by not 

arming and training the Dhofaris, he could prevent a future rebellion. As a 

result, several Dhofaris left the country to join the British-officered Trucial 

Oman Scouts in the future United Arab Emirates.36 These foreign-trained 

Dhofari served as the military backbone of the Dhofar Liberation Front 

(DLF).37

The ethnic differences between the Dhofaris and the Omanis made 

policing tough in Dhofar. The Dhofaris viewed the Omani and Baluchi38

security forces as interlopers.39 As a result, the Dhofaris and the security 

forces never built a level of trust needed to fight a counterinsurgency. For 

a short period of time, Sultan Said relied on a local, irregular unit “The 

Dhofar Force” to police the violence in the province.40 This unit rarely 

numbered more than 60 men at any given time, and never controlled the 

rising levels of violence because of their small numbers. However during 

a military parade in Salalah in 1966, two members of the Dhofar Force 

attempted to shot the Sultan at close range. The assassination attempt 

confirmed his fears about the Dhofaris, and he reorganized the unit using 

only former slaves.41

First Oman Insurgency

After twenty years of ruling the Sultanate with draconian laws, 

Sultan Said was extremely paranoid about rebellion. He used his powers 

of imprisonment to dissuade dissent.42 Although he firmly controlled the 

coastal cities, he remained suspicious of the tribes. He technically still 

shared power with the Imam of the Interior as per the 1920 Agreement of 

al-Sib. In 1954, Imam Muhammad bin Abdullah died resulting in another 

succession crisis similar to the one that occurred in 1913. Ghalid bin Ali 

assumed the position as the Imam of the Interior, but he lacked popular 

tribal support. Aided by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Ghalid attempted to 

establish an independent imamate to consolidate his power with the interior 

tribes.43 His actions quickly resulted in the First Oman Insurgency.44 The 

Sultan’s forces quickly defeated Ghalid’s followers and placed Ghalid in 

house arrest. Said abolished the power sharing arrangement and personally 

received the allegiance of several of the interior tribal sheikhs.45

The Sultan originally believed that the rebellion had passed without a 

serious threat to his rule. However Ghalid’s brother, Talib bin Ali, escaped 

to Saudi Arabia and established a training camp for rebel fighters. Two 
80

years later in May 1957, Talib’s Liberation Army of about 100 fighters 

returned to Oman with the intent of establishing a separate imamate. 

Talib’s forces recruited some of the most powerful tribes in the interior. 

The Sultan attempted to defeat the insurgency with his military. However, 

the SAF lost the initial battles at Balad Sait and Nizwa on 13-15 July, 

1957.46

Sultan Said believed that the Liberation Army posed a serious threat 

to his rule following the SAF’s defeat in the initial battles. He turned 

to the British government for assistance. Later in July 1957, a hastily 

assembled British and SAF force defeated Talib’s troops in Nizwa.47

The Liberation Army survivors retreated to the Jebel Akhdar where they 

remained throughout 1958. During the pause in 1958, the Jebel Akhdar 

obtained an almost mystic reputation. Omanis started to believe that 

the mountain was impenetrable. The British sent the SAS to Oman in 

December 1958 to assist the SAF with an assault of the Jebel Akhdar. In 

January 1959, the SAS, SAF, and elements of the Life Guards assaulted 

the jebel and dislodged the remainder of Talib’s army. Both Johnny Watts 

and Tony Jeapes commanded SAS troops during the operation. Again, the 

survivors fled to Saudi Arabia.48 The fact that the SAS and SAF climbed 

the mountain in one night broke the spirit of the rebellion. Some of the 

survivors combined with other Dhofaris to form the DLF.

The Dhofar Insurgency

The Dhofar Insurgency materialized in response to Sultan Said’s 

harsh treatment of the Dhofaris. The Dhofaris grew disenchanted with 

the Sultan’s harsh methods of control, unwillingness to modernize, and 

his constant paranoia toward the tribes. Disillusioned Dhofaris sought to 

establish an independent Dhofari state. 

Initially, the insurgent movement started slowly because they lacked 

political and military organization. The first attack occurred in April 1963 

when insurgents attacked a number of John W. Mecom Oil Company 

vehicles traveling on the Midway Road.49 However, the SAF did not pursue 

the rebels while the insurgency struggled to organize.50 Within two years, 

the unorganized independence movement grew into a full insurgency. By 

1965, the insurgents organized into a political body, the DLF, and military 

formation, the Dhofar Liberation Army (DLA). The rebels sought and 

received support from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and Iraq.51 At the 

same time, the SAF started to keep a company-sized element in Dhofar. 

For the next two years the DLA and the SAF fought a series of tit-for-tat 

operations. Typically, the DLA conducted small-scale harassment attacks 
81

against the SAF and the Dhofar Force, and the SAF responded to these 

attacks with company-sized search-and-destroy missions. Additionally, the 

Sultan stepped up punitive measures including the capping of water wells, 

further destroying the Dhofaris’ way of life. Surprisingly, the search-anddestroy missions were effective at killing and capturing insurgents. In fact, 

the SAF had nearly militarily defeated the DLA by December 1967, but 

the Sultan failed to realize that the SAF’s missions added to the Dhofaris’ 

sense of discrimination, and they started to push the populace toward 

supporting the insurgency.52

The SAF’s momentum against the DLA reversed suddenly at the end 

of 1967. The officers noticed that the insurgents increasingly had access 

to modern weapons, vehicles, and equipment. Additionally, the enemy 

started to maneuver like a military unit.53 The sudden change coincided 

with the completion of British withdrawal from Aden and South Arabia, 

later the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen to the west of Oman 

on 29 November 1967.54 The British had fought a bitter and ultimately 

unsuccessful counterinsurgency against the National Liberation Front 

(NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen 

(FLOSY). Despite the British offer of future independence in 1968, the 

NLF and FLOSY continued to fight the British troops stationed in the 

country. The British counterinsurgency effort lacked accurate intelligence 

on their opponents. Frustrated by a lack of progress and the mutiny of 

Arab Soldiers during the Six Day War, the British government announced 

a timeline for the withdrawal of all British forces. In 1969, FLOSY 

defeated the NLF in a brief civil war and the established a Marxist state, 

the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY).55

The British withdrawal from Aden in 1967 changed the course of the 

Dhofar insurgency. Whereas the SAF had previously received support 

from British Forces in Aden, Dhofar now bordered a state openly hostile 

to the Sultanate.56 The PDRY communists declared their intent to spread 

communism throughout the Persian Gulf region, and they offered DLF 

insurgents sanctuary just across the border.

The Dhofari insurgents took advantage of the sanctuary to reorganize 

their forces and clarify their objectives. In 1968, the communistaligned Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf 

(PFLOAG) replaced the DLF and assumed control of the insurgency. 

PFLOAG received support from China, and Chinese-trained political 

officers gradually infiltrated Dhofar to indoctrinate the jebeli tribes.57 The 

communist indoctrination process was also brutal at times. The communists 

sent children across the border to Hauf for reeducation, suppressed Islam 
82

and the tribalism, and mandated support for the hard-core communist 

fighters.58

PFLOAG’s military organization and operations also benefited from 

Chinese assistance. The insurgents divided Dhofar into three regions with 

a military unit assigned to operate in each region.59 The adoo60 or enemy, 

conducted operations with the intent of severing SAF control of the Midway 

Road, further isolating Dhofar and limiting the SAF’s ability to conduct 

operations on the jebel. The SAF gradually evacuated the garrisons in the 

coastal towns of Mirbat, Sudh, and Rakyat and surrendered control of 

the coastal highway to the insurgents. By 1970, the government of Oman 

barely controlled the provincial capital, Salalah.61

In January 1970, the SAF conducted an internal assessment of 

the counterinsurgency operation in an attempt to understand why the 

counterinsurgency strategy was failing. The assessment relied heavily 

on counterinsurgency lessons learned in Kenya, Malaya, and Aden. They 

cited many shortcomings with the Sultan’s strategy mostly related to the 

fact that the Sultan failed to create a holistic program that addressed the 

underlying social issues. The SAF’s objective remained purely military, 

specifically to kill the enemy.62 The Dhofaris, when given the chance to 

choose between the Sultan’s harsh methods and the communist’s harsh 

methods, chose the communists.

In June 1970, another communist-backed group, the National 

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf led 

a coup attempt in northern Oman. The SAF quickly defeated it, but the 

attempt demonstrated the Sultan’s unpopularity in the entire country, not 

just Dhofar. Said could no longer claim that the problem centered on the 

uncivilized Dhofaris.

In the end, Said’s paranoia was founded, although the tribes were 

not the group that finally challenged his power. A bloodless palace coup 

deposed the Sultan on 23 July 1970. His son Qaboos bin Said assumed 

control of the country. Qaboos had studied at Sandhurst and served with 

the British Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders regiment in Germany. 

During his education, he toured Great Britain to learn about local 

governance. Both his studies and his military experience exposed him to 

western ideas.63 When Qaboos returned to Oman, he recognized that the 

Omanis, and especially, the Dhoraris had legitimate grievances. His father 

recognized that Qaboos presented a threat, and he placed Qaboos under 

house arrest, limited his involvement in the government, and censored his 

mail. Qaboos was only allowed to study the Koran and Omani history.64
83

The coup served as the second turning point in the war. Qaboos’s 

installment as the Sultan gave the British civil advisors and military 

officers in the Sultanate the opportunity to change the course of the 

counterinsurgency campaign. Within days, Qaboos announced and 

instituted a series of social reforms in Oman with the objective of 

addressing legitimate social grievances. In Dhofar these reforms included 

improved education, employment, amnesty, and access to water for the 

cattle. Additionally, Qaboos recognized Dhofar as the southern province 

of Oman, equal to all other provinces in the Sultanate.65 The new Sultan 

also proclaimed a general amnesty for any adoo that gave up resistance. 

The non-committed remnants of the DLF, including Salim Mubarak, the 

leader of the first firqat, took advantage of the amnesty offer and moved off 

the jebel. Qaboos promised a military campaign to remove the communist 

elements in Dhofar.66

BATT Plan for Dhofar

Within days of the coup, a group of Soldiers from 22 SAS Regiment 

arrived in Dhofar to assist the new Sultan with his counterinsurgency 

plan. The SAS arrived ready to implement a pre-approved five-point 

counterinsurgency plan. In March 1970, before the coup, Lieutenant 

Colonel Johnny Watts, the 22 SAS CO and a veteran of the earlier 

insurgency, came to Dhofar and conducted his own assessment of the 

counterinsurgency. Upon conclusion, he advised Brigadier John Graham, 

Commander Sultan’s Armed Forces (CSAF), of his plan. Watts stressed 

that any SAS involvement was a short-term, stopgap measure to allow 

the Sultan time to implement social reforms. The Sultan and Omanis had 

to provide the long-term solution to address the insurgency. Watts briefed 

Graham a five-front plan called Operation Storm to fight the insurgency:

1. A medical campaign to provide basic medical and dental 

care to the Dhofaris, including those living on the Jebel.

2. A veterinary campaign to increase agricultural yields and 

provide fresh water for the Dhofaris’ livestock.

3. An organized intelligence operation.

4. An information campaign designed to counteract Communist 

propaganda and to persuade the rebels to change sides.

5. The recruitment and training of Dhofari Soldiers to fight for 

the Sultan.67

Graham adopted all five points and published on 20 November 1970 

as part of Plans 7 codifying the military’s role in Dhofar. Plans 7’s mission 
84

statement for all of the military forces in Dhofar simply read, “to end 

the rebellion in Dhofar.” In the summary of tasks to government forces 

and agencies, the task of selecting and training irregular jebeli forces is 

mentioned in writing for the first time. Later in the order, the CSAF tasked 

the BATT specifically with raising and training of local auxiliary troops 

and advising the CSAF on the mounting of irregular operations using 

those units.68 Watts returned to Great Britain to brief the SAS on their new 

mission.

After Watts returned to Hereford, he issued his guidance to D 

Squadron, commanded by Major Tony Jeapes, another veteran of the 

earlier insurgency. First, Jeapes’s primary objective was to give Qaboos 

time to enact social programs to address the Dhofaris grievances by 

preventing the spread of the insurgency. Second, the squadron could not 

take casualties. Finally, Jeapes had no obligation to report his progress 

back to the United Kingdom because of an agreement between Queen’s 

government and the Sultan. This final point effectively gave Jeapes a free 

hand to prosecute the campaign without the British government interfering. 

However, this agreement was a two-edged sword. Jeapes could expect 

little to no assistance from the United Kingdom in terms of additional men 

or material.69

Although Jeapes would not receive assistance from Hereford, he did 

bring additional manpower. The first group of SAS Soldiers that arrived 

in September 1970 lacked the manpower to conduct the irregular forces 

mission while simultaneously starting work on the other four tenets of 

Watts’s plan. When Jeapes’s D squadron arrived in January 1971, the 

focus shifted to creating the firqat.

The first group had identified a possible leader for the firqat, Salim 

Mubarak. Mubarak’s group presented themselves to the BATT’s advance 

party two days prior to the arrival of Jeapes’s troop. According to one of 

the BATT Soldiers present, no one was knew what to do with the group 

of former insurgents. The fact that former insurgents wanted to suddenly 

fight for the Sultan was an unintended effect of the amnesty offer. A 

BATT Arabic linguist and a SAF intelligence officer talked with Mubarak 

throughout the first night to establish his intentions and sincerity. He 

told the BATT that he previously fought the SAF as the DLF’s second in 

command of Eastern Area. He took advantage of the Qaboos’s amnesty 

offer and now wanted to raise his personal standing as the commander 

of new local security force. Mubarak came from a minor tribe, and his 

motivation for forming the firqat also included the personal aspect of 

raising his position and that of his tribe.70
85

After the BATT established Mubarak’s sincerity, the group met with 

Jeapes and pitched a plan for the formation of multi-tribal irregular force 

called the Firqat Salahdin. Mubarak envisioned that the Firqat Salahdin 

would consist of a thousand Soldiers fighting the communists from one 

side of the jebel to the other.71 The two men decided to form the Firqat 

Salahdin from Mubarak’s group of former insurgents that had surrendered 

following Qaboos’s amnesty offer.72

After meeting with Mubarak, Jeapes needed to pitch the idea of using 

former insurgents to form the firqat to Graham. Jeapes stressed that the 

firqat must be armed with the same weapons as the SAF and trained in 

the use of mortars and machine guns by the BATT. He also reiterated that 

for the firqat to be a legitimate fighting force, Graham must command 

them. Graham questioned Jeapes on the risk of forming a force that could 

defect at any moment, given that most of the men had previously fought 

against the SAF earlier in the insurgency. In the end, the CSAF consented 

to the formation of the firqats, and requested additional SAS Soldiers from 

the United Kingdom to supplement the mission.73 The task of raising the 

firqats had finally developed into its own operation, Operation Emu.

74

Recruitment

Before the firqat could take over the local security mission, the BATT 

needed to recruit and train the locals. Mubarak’s group of SEPs formed 

the core of the Firqat Salahdin. The use of SEPs for the firqats is an 

ingenious method of depriving the enemy of resources, while addressing 

one of primary grievances of the Dhofaris in the process. Killing an adoo

simply deprived the enemy of one Soldier. However, by recruiting a SEP 

into the firqat, the counterinsurgent has changed the balance of power by 

two. He added one additional Soldier to his formation, while depriving 

the enemy of a Soldier. Additionally, the use of SEPs for local security 

undermined one of the DLF’s original propaganda messages, “Dhofar for 

the Dhofaris.”75 Firqats made Dhofaris stakeholders in their own security, 

an option that they were not offered by Sultan Said. Finally, a living SEP 

fighting in the firqat had psychological value. He talked to his relatives, 

including sometimes the ones fighting with the adoo, and relayed the 

Sultan’s messages.76

The SEPs in the Firqat Salahdin were unique, because they belonged 

to several different tribes, some of them rivals. Mubarak argued that tribal 

dynamics were not important in forming the firqat. He believed that since 

the communists formed their units without regard for tribal structure, 

that the government could also form units from several tribes. However, 
86

this belief ignored two different important facts about the Dhofari tribal 

system. First, every man, regardless of position, wealth, and class, is 

equal. The firqat elected two leaders, one to command military operations 

and a tribal leader to decide political issues.77 If a man disagrees with 

the leader’s decision, he is not obligated to follow the orders. This tribal 

caveat complicated the training and employment of the firqats. Later 

attempts to impose a rank structure, chain of command, and uniforms 

failed.78 Jeapes believed that Mubarak wanted a multi-tribal structure to 

the Firqat Salahdin to counteract this problem.79 The second thing that 

Mubarak’s believe ignored is the fact that if the BATT used the same 

coercive methods that PFLOAG used to integrate the communist units, 

then it would undermine the other four tenets of Watts’s plan.

However, the tribal system also benefitted the BATT when it came to 

recruiting tribesman for the firqats. The tribes viewed each other as rivals. 

Once one tribe formed a firqat and reaped the benefits of working with the 

Sultan, then the neighboring tribes wanted to create a firqat. Shortly after 

Mubarak approached Jeapes about the formation of the Firqat Salahdin, 

the Bait Kathir approached Jeapes about forming their own tribal firqat. 

The Bait Kathir was one of the largest tribes on the jebel. Additionally, the 

tribe’s fighters formed the core of the insurgency before the communists 

started to support the PFLOAG.80 The tribal model prevailed throughout 

the remainder of the war.81

Training

The fact that the tribes quickly changed to the Sultan’s side and each 

one wanted to form their own tribal firqat presented the new series of 

problems for the BATT. Even after the arrival of additional SAS Soldiers 

from Great Britain, the BATT could not train the firqat quickly enough. 

No curriculum existed for training the Dhofari tribesmen. The BATT 

advisors saw quickly that each tribe had its own personality, and they 

quickly discovered that no two firqats could be trained exactly the same. 

For instance, the Firqat Salahdin completed trained quickly because it 

had fought together against the SAF on the jebel. Jeapes gave the BATT 

advisors a desired end state and allowed them to assess the firqatmen’s 

individual skills. The BATT advisors initially trained the firqatmen in 

weapon handling, basic tactics, first aid, and the use of explosives.82 The 

BATT quickly discovered that the firqat could shoot accurately over long 

distances, and the firqatmen actually maneuvered better the BATT Soldiers 

on the jebel. The average Dhofari that joined the firqat had some military 

experience with the adoo, but more importantly, he had walked the land 

with his cattle since he was boy.83 Interesting, the firqats also asked the 
87

BATT to incorporate drill periods into the training because the leaders felt 

it increased individual discipline.84

The amount of time the BATT spent training a firqat depended on 

the pace of operations. If the firqat was needed for a mission in a certain 

tribal area the training might consist of only a week of training. Ideally, the 

training consisted one week of administrative work followed by a month 

of training, although even this timeline was subject to pace of operations.85

The training consisted of weapons training (to include maintenance) and 

qualification to 800 meters, tactics, fire and movement, use of terrain, 

ambush drills, patrolling, first aid, and drill. Secondary subjects included 

the use of radios, mortar fire control, and a demonstration of close air 

support.86 By all accounts, the firqatmen had a good understanding of fire 

and maneuver from their previous adoo experiences or in some cases with 

jebeli tribes, raiding rival tribes. The primary area of instruction was on 

use of the FN rifle versus the AK-47.87

The tribal structure of the firqats actually made training more efficient 

for the BATT over time. As SEPs indicated their desire to join the firqat, 

they were welcomed into their tribal unit. The veteran members of the 

firqat quickly trained the new Soldier in weapon handling, maneuver, and 

their responsibilities in the firqat. In effect, this method treated the new 

Soldier as a replacement, rather than a new Soldier, and the BATT did 

not have to establish a permanent training facility solely for purpose of 

training new firqatmen. This fact that most SEPs already had some form of 

military training in another regional unit such as the Trucial Oman Scouts 

or from PFLOAG allowed for this method of training new Soldiers to 

succeed. It probably could not have worked if the firqatman did not have 

the necessary background skills.88 Additionally, the tribal nature of the 

firqat allowed for the firqat leaders to vouch for SEPs, take responsibility 

for their actions, and immediately welcome them to the unit.89 A SEP 

usually knew multiple members of the firqat upon his arrival.

Partnership

Partnership between the BATT and the firqat on operational missions 

proved equally important to the success of initial operations, both to 

establish trust between the units and for the firqat to build confidence 

in their skills. Once the BATT finished initial training of each firqat, a 

four-Soldier team from the troop that trained the firqat remained with the 

organization during operations.90 The BATT element lived within the firqat

defensive lines when they conducted missions. Additionally, the BATT 

provided the General-Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) and mortar support, 

and provided the air ground liaison with SOAF during firqat operations.91
88

The BATT advisors seemed to partner well with the firqat. The BATT 

was used to working with irregular Soldiers through unconventional 

means. However, both BATT and SAF veterans agree that a special type 

of personality was needed to work successfully with the firqat in the 

long-term. The veterans interviewed agreed that the Soldiers that were 

successful in working with the firqats shared a number of characteristics 

including patience, good attitude, reliability, a sense of humor, and 

physical fitness.92 Additionally, the trainer needed to genuinely care about 

his firqat and advocate for them with the SAF and the BATT commander. 

However, the trainer needed to be careful not to try to “go native” since 

the firqat would consider that action disingenuous.93 Finally, one BATT 

commander suggested that exposure to other cultures prior to arriving in 

Oman assisted trainers, because those trainers seemed more receptive to 

different cultural norms.94

Trust between the firqat and the embedded BATT Soldiers never 

seemed to be an issue during operations after the period of adjustment. The 

BATT initially kept a guard during the night, not so much against the adoo, 

but against the firqatmen. The firqat were almost entirely turned adoo, and 

there was no guarantee that with the right motivation, the firqatmen could 

rebel, kill the small BATT element, and take their weapons over to the 

adoo. For the same reason, each BATT advisors also initially carried a 

sidearm for personal protection. Despite this ease by which this scenario 

could occur, there are no reports of a firqatman killing or wounding a 

member of the BATT, SAF, or even the Iranian Soldiers.95 Over time, this 

relationship of mutual suspicion disappeared.

Initial Operations

The BATT also quickly learned during the initial operations that 

the firqat had considerable strengths as an irregular security force. The 

firqatmen know the terrain a better that the SAF or the BATT. They spoke 

the local dialect, and they understood the jebeli tribal dynamics. Most 

importantly, the firqats gathered intelligence by talking to the populace 

better than any other fighting unit.

Jeapes considered the Firqat Salahdin a good fighting unit, and he 

assigned them the hardest missions even after other tribal firqats completed 

their training. Jeapes also realized that the Firqat Salahdin needed an easy 

first victory to prove the concept of local indigenous forces in Dhofar. 

Mubarak’s personal pride and pride in the Firqat Salahdin might have 

prompted him to choose a mission that exceeded the capabilities of the 

unit. Jeapes needed an easy victory to reinforce his talking points with the 
89

CSAF that the firqat were an important piece to defeating the insurgency. 

Ideally, the firqat could provide the manpower and local expertise that 

the SAF and the BATT lacked. Jeapes decided to conduct this operation 

against the fifty-adoo fighters in the coastal town of Sudh. Finally, Sudh 

represented the easternmost influence of the insurgency and that made 

reinforcement during the attack unlikely.96

At 0100 hours on 24 February 1971, the Firqat Salahdin landed on 

the beach outside of Sudh. At 0630, the firqatman and BATT advisors 

quickly secured the town and the key infrastructure, a government fort 

in the town’s central square. Mubarak quickly raised the Sultan’s flag 

over the fort and yelled out a pro-government message. Over the course 

of the day, the firqat secured the town, engaged the male population, and 

located the adoo. Within two days, the operation resulted in the defection 

of the adoo leader, Mohammed Qartoob, and sixteen of his subordinates. 

An additional 36 adoo surrendered later the same day. Many of these 

SEPs, including Qartoob, eventually joined the firqat. The entire operation 

resulted in no casualties and no shots fired. Jeapes and several other BATT 

advisors accompanied the mission, but they allowed Mubarak and the 

other firqatmen to execute the mission. Mentorship in this case consisted 

primarily of providing resources and ensuring that the mission planned did 

not exceed the capabilities of the Firqat Salahdin.97

Problems with the Firqat

The firqat were not a perfect organization even with their BATT 

partners. Advisors recommended the allocation of plenty of time to 

negotiate the timing and scope of the operation with the firqat. Another 

consideration unique to raising tribal forces is the tribal dynamics of 

the culture. The firqat routinely refused to operate outside of the tribe’s 

territory. This problem was especially frustrating to the BATT during 

operations that crossed tribal boundaries. In some cases, the firqat leader 

could stop, point a spot on the ground, and state that his men could go no 

further, because he had reached the edge of his tribe’s land. Additionally, 

the firqat would also stop assisting an operation in the middle of a firefight. 

The BATT usually speculated that one of the firqatman had spotted a 

relative or another member of his tribe in the adoo unit they were fighting.98

The firqat’s problems are not without merit. Aside from possibly fighting 

against one’s brother, cousin, etc., the jebeli tribes still believed in and 

occasionally enforced blood feuds.99

Again, the Firqat Salahdin had problems associated with it due to 

its unique tribal structure. Ultimately, the multi-tribal structure proved 
90

unsuccessful. Mubarak died unexpectedly from a heart attack, leaving 

the firqat without a strong leader. The man chosen to succeed Mubarak, 

Mohammed Said, belonged to minor tribe, the Bait Gatun. However, 

another leader in the firqat, Qartoob (the former adoo commander in 

Sudh), belonged to the more powerful Bait Umr tribe. Jeapes learned that 

Qartoob and his twenty Soldiers would not serve under Said’s leadership. 

Jeapes appealed to their pride and required the men to quit the firqat during 

a morning parade. Most of the 65 men quit to join other tribally based 

firqats.100 Thus, the Firqat Salahdin ceased to be a unit on 23 April 1971, 

less than three months after their formation.101 Jeapes assessed that this 

method did not work as well as basing the firqat on tribal lines based on 

his observations of other firqat currently in training. He did not attempt 

to form another tribally heterogeneous formation during the rest of his 

command.

Operating with SAF

The problems with the firqat extended beyond the relations with their 

BATT advisors. The SAF and the firqat operated together on the jebel

for most missions; however, the two organizations merely tolerated each 

other’s presence. The SAF resented the loose discipline in the firqat. The 

firqat never organized into standardized formations with a distinct chain of 

command, which caused the BATT to serve as an intermediary between the 

SAF and the firqat. Gardiner referred to them as volatile, argumentative, 

unpredictable, and grasping.102

The firqat’s indiscipline also caused consistent supply issues. If a 

firqatman were issued four bottles of water in preparation for an operation, 

he would drink it prior the start of the mission. If the firqatman was not 

thirsty, he would use the to wash during a mission. When the BATT 

advisor questioned the firqat commander, the advisor received a response 

along the lines of “if Allah wants us to drink, he will provide water.”103

The same logic applied to food. The firqat lived in the moment, and unless 

they were instructed not to eat their rations immediately, the food was 

consumed upon issuing.104 If helicopters did not resupply the mission, 

the firqat would lose interest in the mission, or the BATT and SAF unit 

had to share their rations.105 The firqatmen had intimate knowledge of 

the terrain from having spent most of their childhood herding cattle. The 

firqatmen knew the locations of water seepages and when they seasonally 

flowed. The firqat could cache extra ammunition ahead of missions.106 As 

a consequence of these actions, the firqat could move extremely fast while 

scouting for SAF mission, often leaving the SAF unit unsupported.
91

Several BATT advisors also reiterated that the problems were not 

merely one-way. In fact, some of the BATT advisors that served multiple 

rotations with the firqat never developed trust of the SAF units. One Firqat 

Force officer acknowledged that after the first few missions with SAF 

nearly resulted in friendly-fire situations, he stopped informing the SAF 

about future missions. The officer quickly figured out that if the SAF knew 

that if the firqat had an interest in a particular area, then the SAF would try 

to conduct a mission at the location first.107 British advisors in the SAF’s 

Firqat Force also continued to have this view of the SAF after the BATT 

mission ended in 1973.108

The SAF eventually developed recommendation to use to the firqats 

as guide or reconnaissance force for their operations. The SAF understood 

that a firqatman could distinguish a Dhofari quicker than an Omani, 

Baluchi, or British Soldier. SAF commanders even consulted some 

firqatmen on enemy tactics and courses of action.109 Following the first 

mission between the SAF and the Firqat Al Nasr, the SAF commander 

Lieutenant Colonel Fergus Mackain-Bremmer made a point to seek Jeapes 

out and compliment him on the performance of the firqat.

110

By the end of the first year, the firqats’ missions had quickly changed 

over the course of the first year from independent operations to operations 

in support of the SAF. The Firqat Salahdin’s operations in Sudh and 

the Eagle’s Nest soon became the exception to the rule. By 1974, the 

firqats were an established fact in Dhofar, the SAF’s Firqat Force had 

assumed the partnership mission from the BATT, and the Commander, 

Dhofar had military control over the firqats.

111 Eventually the SAF and 

the firqats developed a systematic method to clear and hold the jebel.

112

These operations incorporated all five of the Operation Storm’s fronts, 

used civil considerations in support of military operations, and employed 

food control operations in the form of water control. Most importantly, the 

operations reinforced the local tribal hierarchies. If the insurgency gained 

influence over a water well, the government forces capped it and the tribe 

moved to a new location.

Firqats after the Insurgency

In January 1972, the CSAF knew that he needed to have a discussion 

with the Sultan and the SAF about the long-term existence and 

employment of the firqat. Graham knew that Sultan supported the firqat

model. He recommended the firqat eventually take over the pacification 

and home guard duties for the jebel. The BATT mission could not last 

forever, so another means of legitimizing the force was necessary. 
92

Graham’s recommendation recognized the legitimacy of the force and 

their contribution to fighting against the insurgency. The CSAF also 

acknowledged the importance of the BATT advisors to the firqat training 

and employment operations.113 After the BATT left Oman, the SAF created 

the Firqat Force, an organization that resembled the BATT in structure and 

experience.

The firqat with their Firqat Force advisors continued to provide 

assistance to the SAF until the end of the insurgency. The firqat’s success 

during the insurgency ensured their survival after the conflict as a local 

security force. Although Qaboos declared the insurgency defeated on 4 

December 1975, he appreciated the firqatmen’s contribution to defeating 

the insurgency.114 He took Graham’s suggestions and employed them 

as a home guard. The firqat still provide security on the jebel today. 

Qaboos continues to employ the firqat for security in Dhofar. In 1990, 

the government paid each firqatman about 120-140 Omani riyals monthly 

($370-$430).115 The money also subsidizes the tribal way of life on the 

jebel.

Conclusion

Since the Dhofar insurgency is one of the few examples of a 

counterinsurgency campaign executed successfully, it is tempting to 

cherry-pick lessons from the campaign without considering its context. 

It is important to note that the odds heavily favored Sultan Qaboos 

once he started his program of social and economic reforms. The future 

counterinsurgent should consider a few other factors to prevent the 

application of a cookie-cutter Dhofar-like solution to future campaigns.

First, the Dhofar insurgency was a relatively small and isolated event. 

John Watts’s five-front plan, Operation Storm, remained the overarching 

campaign plan for the entire war. Every commander remained committed 

to the five-front plan despite the fact that the BATT commander changed 

every four months, the SAF commanders changed every 18-24 months, 

and the CSAF changed every few years. Jeapes actually believed that this 

was the most important lesson of the war.116

Second, several veterans of the conflict acknowledge that the lack 

of media in the country allowed them to prosecute the campaign without 

external influences from Great Britain.117 Most of the public back in 

Great Britain did not know the location of Dhofar, let alone that 22 SAS 

had deployed there in September 1970 to support the Sultan’s program. 

In fact, the CSAF did not publish media guidance to the SAF regarding 

the presence of the SAS in Dhofar until 8 February 1972.118 The public 
93

remained disengaged from the war because of the relatively small number 

of British casualties (BATT or SAF) during operations from 1970-1976. 

Furthermore, the events in Northern Ireland started to overshadow even 

rumors of SAS presence in Dhofar.119 It is doubtful in the modern media 

age, with near-time reporting, that an interventionist power could achieve 

the same level of secrecy.

Third, the communist movement, PFLOAG, failed to address the 

tribes’ grievances, and in the process the communists attempted to change 

the tribes against their will. PFLOAG attempted to break down the tribal 

structures. They encouraged, sometimes by force, the integration of men 

from different tribes into the same fighting units. Additionally, the Chinese 

and PDRY advisors to the adoo sought to reduce the influence of Islam 

on the jebel without understanding how deeply rooted Islam was to tribal 

culture.

Conversely, the BATT used the firqats to reinforce the tribal 

structure. Several commanders, including Jeapes, credited the creation 

and employment of the firqats as a turning point in the insurgency.120

The firqatmen supplemented the SAF during large operations, providing 

scouting, guiding, and other small unit operations. These duties allowed 

them to remain outside of the traditional military structure epitomized by 

the SAF. 

The BATT encouraged the firqat to celebrate their Muslim traditions. 

The BATT allowed the firqat named their units after important Muslim 

warriors and Islamic holidays. The communists did not realize their 

mistake until late 1974, too late for the insurgency to recover from its 

military setbacks.121 Both BATT and SAF veterans confirmed that they 

never attempted or were ordered to impose western, liberal democratic 

values on the Sultan or the Dhofaris.122 In other words, the role of religion 

in society, the rights of women, and elections did not factor into the plan. 

Even after the so-called Arab Spring, Sultan Qaboos remains the head of 

one of the longest reigning authoritarian governments in the Middle East.

Fourth, Sultan Qaboos benefitted from a certain element of luck. 

Funding the counterinsurgency routinely used between one-third and 

half of the annual revenue of the Sultanate. This expenditure rate was 

unsustainable.123 The British government assisted the Sultan slightly by 

subsidizing the cost of contract and seconded SAF officers. However, the 

Yom Kippur War in October 1973 drove up the price of crude oil over 

70-percent.124 Although government expenditure on the counterinsurgency 

programs remained high throughout the end of the war, the price increase 
94

on Oman’s sole export allowed the Sultan to continue his reforms at an 

increased pace.

Finally, the SAS, operating as the BATT, had Soldiers uniquely 

qualified for working with irregular, local forces. Unlike British India, the 

SAS Soldiers were not picked specifically chosen to work with indigenous 

forces, although they had plenty of experience in that line of work before 

arriving in Dhofar. Before Dhofar, the SAS had worked with the Senoi 

Praak during the Malaya Emergency and the Border Scouts in Borneo 

against Indonesian incursions. Jeapes stated it takes a special type of 

Soldier to work with irregular forces because irregulars lack the discipline 

and work ethic of a regular Soldier.125 The BATT veterans named many of 

the same characteristics that led Lawrence to appoint Lumsden the first 

commander of the Guides; patience, initiative, experience, and physical 

fitness. In the case of Dhofar, the SAS Soldiers were screened and selected 

for similar characteristics during their SAS selection and qualification. 

Even with centralized selection for the SAS, commanders still determined 

which SAS Soldiers were best suited to partner with the firqats when they 

rotated into the country.126

Additionally, the BATT took advantage of each advisor’s individual 

experience, initiative, and leadership skills that SAS Soldiers are screened 

for during selection. The BATT advisors received broad guidance on the 

training and employment of their firqat. The tribal nature of the firqat

meant that each set of advisors could not follow the same set of rules. What 

worked one set of advisors, would not work for another group. Mission 

command in this type of environment is necessary to produce a successful 

outcome. When the BATT left in September 1976, the SAF inherited a 

working system based on how the BATT visualized and assessed training, 

partnership, and mentoring.

If a future counterinsurgent remembers the context of the insurgency, 

then the Dhofar Insurgency provides another example of the successful 

recruitment, training, partnership, and employment of local irregular 

security forces. Just like the PIF, the firqats eventually joined the Sultan’s 

regular security forces. In terms of size and scope of the mission, the BATT 

model in Dhofar is probably more representative of what an interventionist 

power could accomplish with an advisory force in the current political and 

media environment.
95

Notes

1. The exact English translation of firqat is not clear. The Arabic word 

loosely translates to “task force” or “company” in military terms; however, other 

translations suggest it may only mean “group.”

2. Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

3. The division of labor between the firqat and the SAF is an example 

of the mobile and static forces relationship described by Galula in his book. 

David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: 

Praeger Security International, 1964), 75-80; Ian Gardiner, In the Service of the 

Sultan (Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books, 2007), 24.

4. The firqats still exist and provide security in Dhofar.

5. In 1798, the Sultanate did not include all of present-day Oman (including 

Dhofar). The Sultan of Muscat signed the initial treaty with British East Indian 

Company, who acted as an agent for the government.

6. “Annex B to SD/29 39, History” Deane-Drummond Collection, 

LHCMA.

7. The Wahabi and Saudi threat to the Sultanate continued until the 1950s. 

The Saudis contend that the Burami Oasis is part of their historical territory. The 

land disputes escalated as oil was discovered in the region. “Annex B to SD/29 

39, History”.

8. J. E. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies: The Sultanate’s Struggle for 

Supremacy (London: SAQI, 2007), 40-41; “Annex B to SD/29 39, History,” 

Deane-Drummond Collection, LHCMA.

9. The 1913 succession crisis was the greatest threat to the Sultan’s rule 

until the coup in 1970. The secular Sultan and the religious Imam informally 

shared power in Oman and Muscat. Occasionally, the Sultan and the Imam used 

events to rally support for uniting the Oman and Muscat under a single leader. In 

1913, the newly elected Imam Salim bin Rashid al-Kharusi sought to consolidate 

control of Oman and Muscat under his authority. The Imam’s tribes gradually 

took control of most of the country. The Indian Army rushed a regiment to Muscat 

at the start of the emergency, the 2d Queen Victoria’s Own Rajput Light Infantry. 

The 102d King Edward’s Own Grenadiers and the 95th Russell’s Infantry later 

reinforced them. The two forces maneuvered against each other for more than 

a year before the Battle of Bayt al-Falaj. At the battle the Imam’s tribesman 

attempted to overrun a series of sangers defended by the Indian troops resulting 

in nearly 500 casualties. The two sides did not engage in another battle during 

the crisis. Negotiations between the Sultan and the Imam went on for nearly five 

years. An agreement was reached after a tribesman assassinated the Imam. For a 

detailed account of the battle, see Peterson, 35-36, 41-46 and the 102d Grenadiers’ 

regimental history.
96

10. The creation of the Sultan’s army started following a visit by the Viceroy 

of India, Lord Hardinge, in February 1915 following the Battle of Bayt al-Falaj. 

During the visit he told the Sultan that he could not depend on the presence of 

Indian troops forever. Major L.B.H. Haworth forwarded a proposal to governments 

in Muscat and Delhi for creation a regiment using 200-300 Baluchi levies. This 

regiment was known as the Muscat Levy Corps (later the Muscat Regiment) and 

was formed in April 1921. Peterson, 47-49.

11. Sultan Said gradually replaced the Royal Air Force squadron with his 

own planes, a process accelerated by the signing of new military agreement on 

28 July 1958. The Sultan continued to use British contract and seconded pilots 

to fly the planes. The air force is formally known as the Sultan of Oman’s Air 

Force, or SOAF. “The Exchange of Letters between the Government of the United 

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Sultan of Muscat and 

Oman concerning the Sultan’s Armed Forces, Civil Aviation, Royal Air Force 

facilities and Economic Development in Muscat and Oman, London 25 July 

1958” HMSO Cmnd. 507, Treaty Series No. 28 (London: HMSO, 1958).

12. Calvin Allen, Jr. and W. Lynn Rigsbee, II, Oman Under Qaboos: From 

Coup to Constitution, 1970-1996 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 12-15.

13. This insurgency is described in greater detail later in the chapter. Frank 

Kitson helped plan the British intervention. He used the insurgency as a case 

study in Bunch of Five. See Bunch of Five Chapter 3 for a detailed account of the 

British response.

14. Walter C. Ladwig III, “Supporting allies in counterinsurgency: Britain 

and the Dhofar Rebellion,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 19, no. 1 (2008): 71.

15. For comparison, Dhofar is approximately the same size as Wales. 

Alexander Melamid, “Dhofar,” Geographical Review 74, no. 1 (January 1984): 

106.

16. Tony Jeapes, SAS Secret War: Operation Storm in the Middle East

(Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1996), 20.

17. Melamid, 106.

18. Population numbers for Dhofar differ greatly based on the source because 

no accurate census was taken on the jebel until after the war concluded. Beckett 

cites the lower number for 1970, while Meland cites the higher number for 1977. 

In reality, the population is probably closer to Meland’s number since it unlikely 

the population doubled in a seven-year span, and Meland’s number is close to 

the post-war census number of 70,000. Interview with Civil Aid Development 

worker, 14 February 2011; Ian F.W. Beckett “The Counterinsurgency Campaign 

in Dhofar, 1965-75,” in Counterinsurgency in the Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel 

Marston and Carter Malkasian (Long Island City: Osprey, 2010), 175; Melamid, 

106.

19. Peter Thwaites, Arabian Command (unpublished) Thwaites Collection, 

Box 1/1, LHCMA, 70.
97

20. Jeapes, 19.

21. A former BATT solder and civil servant in Dhofar also reinforced this 

point with several examples. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 

September 2011; Peter Thwaites, Arabian Command, Thwaites Collection 1/1, 

LHCMA, 29.

22. Beckett in Marston, 175

23. Peterson, 186.

24. The only other province to share this “special” status was Muscat. Allen 

and Rigsbee, 7.

25. Peterson, 186.

26. Allen and Rigsbee, 2.

27. Allen and Rigsbee.

28. Although educated at Mayo College, “the Eton of India”, Sultan Said 

bin Taimur once remarked to his army commander-in-chief, David Smiley, a 

British officer seconded to the SAF, that better health care and education resulted 

in the British loss of India. David Smiley, Arabian Assignment (London: Cooper, 

1975), 41.

29. Allen and Rigsbee, 11.

30. This fact is probably an exaggeration, but it does illustrate the primitive 

nature of the infrastructure and Said’s resistance to modernity prior to the first 

insurgency. Other sources suggest that there were three paved roads in Muscat 

prior to the 1958 rebellion, and Said even tried to introduce a state-run taxi 

service early in his rule. Roger Cole and Richard Belfield, SAS Operation Storm: 

Nine Men Against Four Hundred in Britain’s Secret War (London: Hodder and 

Stoughton Ltd., 2011), 39-40; Allen and Rigsbee, 10.

31. Allen and Rigsbee, 11.

32. Beckett in Marston, 176.

33. J. H. McKeown, “Britain and Oman: The Dhofar War and its Significance” 

(M.Phil thesis, University of Cambridge, 1981), 34.

34. Corran Purdon, List the Bugle: Reminiscences of an Irish Soldier

(Antrim: Greystone Books, Ltd., 1993), 244.

35. Cole and Belfield, 40.

36. The Trucial Oman Scouts contained one squadron (X Squadron) 

comprised of Dhofari tribesman. Seconded British officers led the military unit. 

Interestingly, the organization was multi-tribal. Interview CF20110917DV0002_

SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

37. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011; 

Jeapes, 25; Paul Sibley, A Monk in the SAS (London: Spiderwize, 2011), 62.
98

38. A small region Baluchistan was under Sultan of Oman’s control until 

1958. The Sultan retained the right to recruit Baluchi males for service in Oman 

as part of the treaty returning the port city of Gwadur to Pakistan in 1958. The 

Sultan recruited males for the SAF and police heavily from this area until 1979 

because they tended to be more professional than local males. Additionally, these 

forces tended to work for less than money than Omanis. David C. Arkless, The 

Secret War (London: William Limbar, 1988), 25; John Akehurst, We Won a War

(Guildford: Briddles Limited, 1982), 34.

39. Thwaites, 82.

40. The Sultan authorized Captain St. John Armitage to form the Dhofar 

Force in 1955. The force was never representative of the Dhofaris. The 

approximately 60 Soldiers were initially Baluch, although they were gradually 

replaced with Dhofari tribesman and slaves. The unit manned a number of smaller 

garrisons including the Sultan’s Palace. The first three commanders of the Dhofar 

Force were British-seconded officers, including a former CO of the Trucial Oman 

Scouts. Eventually, command of the unit went a contracted Pakistani officer. 

After the assassination attempt in 1966, the unit was ineffective due to decreased 

resources allocated to it. Sultan Qaboos disbanded the unit after the coup in 1970. 

Peterson, 187-188.

41. The assassination attempt also resulted in the Sultan’s self-exile to his 

palace in Salalah. Peterson, 202-203.

42. P. S. Allfree was a British officer seconded to the Muscat Regiment. He 

later served as the Sultan’s chief intelligence officer. During an inspection of the 

prisons in Muscat he described the prisoners as confined to the same position day 

after day. Eventually, the prisoner’s joints calcified, which resulted in permanent 

state of excruciating pain. Almost ironically, the Sultan believed that the death 

penalty was contrary to the Islamic faith. P. S. Allfree, Warlords of Oman (London: 

Robert Hale, 2008), 162-164; John Townsend, Oman: Making of a Modern State

(London: C. Helm, 1977), 11.

43. Saudi Arabia used Ghalid and his followers as a proxy force to pursue its 

claim to the Burami Oasis. Peterson, 77-78.

44. This campaign is also referred to as the Northern Insurgency and the 

Jebel Akhdar Insurgency.

45. “Annex B to SD/29 39, History,” Deane-Drummond Collection, 

LHCMA.

46. Peterson, 83-84.

47. “Annex B to SD/29 39, History,” Deane-Drummond Collection, 

LHCMA.

48. Jeapes, 18.

49. McKeown, 21.
99

50. Initially, the SAF did not have forces stationed in Dhofar because the 

Sultan remained concerned with the tribes that rebelled in the north in 1957-1959. 

The Dhofar Force lacked the manpower to pursue the rebels following attacks. 

Peterson, 189-191.

51. Later in the war, these countries met annually to determine the methods 

and conditions of continuing to support the insurgency. Support included 

money, weapons, vehicles, and sanctuary. Eventually, Egypt and Saudi Arabia 

discontinued support for the insurgency because of ideological differences and in 

an attempt to normalize relations with the United Kingdom. “People’s Front for 

the Liberation of Oman” (4 November 1974), Graham Collection 2/1, MEC, St. 

Antony’s College, Oxford, 1-2; Peterson, 196.

52. Thwaites, Arabian Command, 10-11; Allen and Rigsbee, 27; Peterson, 

200-212.

53. Ranulph Fiennes, Living Dangerously (London: Athenaeum, 1988), 150.

54. Jonathan Walker, “Red Wolves and British Lions: The Conflict in Aden,” 

in Counterinsurgency in the Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and Carter 

Malkasian (Long Island City: Osprey, 2010), 135.

55. Peter Calvocoressi, World Politics Since 1945, 9th ed. (Harlow: Pearson 

Education Limited, 2009), 410-412.

56. In 1964, the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards attacked Hauf from Aden in 

support of Muscat Regiment attack on the Dhofar side of the border. The Guards 

arrested nearly 50 wanted men, vetted them, and turned them over to the SAF for 

transport to Muscat. Thwaites, Arabian Command, 31.

57. China provided arms, ammunition, and military advisors to PFLOAG. 

They trained 30 Dhofaris as military leaders and political commissars at the antiimperialist school in Peking. One Chinese advisor was actually killed in Dhofar 

still wearing his uniform. Thwaites, 117, 119.

58. Jeapes, 26-27.

59. The Midway Road served as the dividing line between the east and west 

regions. Salalah and the surrounding are was the third region. Allen and Rigsbee, 

28.

60. Arabic for “enemy.”

61. Sibley, 68; Allen and Rigsbee, 66.

62. The SAF assessment cited eight primary problems for the 

failure of the Sultan’s counterinsurgency campaign. The SAF assessment 

is based on lessons learned and codified by contemporary theorists of 

the period including Sir Robert Thompson, Frank Kitson, and David 

Galula. The problems included: (1) No police or Special Branch; 

(2) No resettlement of the population; (3) Scant food control; (4) No surrender or 

amnesty terms; (5) No psyops or propaganda; (6) No hearts and minds; (7) No 
100

civil government on the jebel; (8) Comparatively little intelligence. SAF Report, 

“Dhofar Operations as of January 1970” Thwaites Collection, Box 1/2, LHCMA.

63. Gardiner, 24.

64. Allen and Rigsbee, 28-29; Jeapes, 28.

65. Peterson, 243.

66. Allen and Rigsbee, 67; Jeapes, 29-30.

67. John Watts, “An Outline Plan to Restore the Situation in Dhofar Using 

Special Air Service Regiment Troops” (6 April 1970), Graham Collection 2/2, 

MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. It is curious to note that Watts’s assessment 

took place prior to the coup. Although the British government has never admitted 

to assisting with the 23 July 1970 palace coup, there is a lot of evidence to suggest 

that they knew it would take place in the near-term including the prepositioning 

of the aircraft that carried Sultan Said out of Dhofar. 

68. Headquarters, Sultan’s Armed Forces, “Plans 7” (20 November 1970), 

Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

69. The British citizenry largely remained ignorant of the BATT’s presence 

in Dhofar following the defeat in Aden. The deployment of troops also violated 

Whitehall’s disengagement criteria from interest east of the Suez Canal. Casualties 

could draw unnecessary attention to the mission and force the BATT withdrawal. 

Jeapes, 32-33, 63.

70. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011

71. Jeapes, 40.

72. No one is sure who suggested forming the firqats from surrendered 

enemy personnel first, Jeapes or Mubarak. Neither Graham nor Watts included in 

their guidance for execution. The use of former enemies is not without precedent. 

Kitson formed the pseudo-gangs during the Mau-Mau Uprising in 1952-1956 in 

Kenya from turned insurgents. See Kitson’s, Bunch of Five, Part I, Chapter 3 for 

more information on the creation of the pseudo-gangs. Additionally, Lumsden’s 

initial recruitment of natives for the Guides included Sikhs that had fought against 

the British only two years before in the First Sikh War. He also included tribesman 

that were wanted criminals. General Sir Peter S. Lumsden and George R. Elsmie, 

Lumsden of the Guides: A Sketch of the Life of Lieut.-Gen. Sir Harry Burnett 

Lumsden, K.C.S.I., C.B., with Selections from his Correspondence and Occasional 

Papers (London: John Murray, 1900), 35, 66-67. Interestingly, none of the BATT 

Soldiers’ memoirs, including Jeapes’s, mentioned these organizations as an 

influence for the firqat.

73. Ibid, 50.

74. Headquarters, Sultan’s Armed Forces, “Plans 7” (12 February 1971), 

Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

75. Sibley, 62.
101

76. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011.

77. “Irregular Forces – SAF View” Graham Collection, MEC, St. Antony’s 

College, Oxford.

78. R.C. Nightingale, “The Future of Dhofar” (15 July 1972) Graham 

Collection, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

79. The Bait Kathir consists of two factions, one north occupying the negd, 

and the other south residing in the coastal plain west of Salalah. The BATT referred 

to the southern faction as the al-Kathir. The Bait Kathir consisted of more than 

a dozen sub-tribes. “Summary of Precedents: Anti-Guerrilla Operations” (July 

1971) Graham Collection 2/1, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford; Jeapes, 54.

80. Jeapes, 57.

81. After the SAS agreed to train the Bait Kathir’s Firqat Al Nasr, several 

other tribal leaders approached the BATT requesting permission to form tribal 

firqats. The Firqat A’asifat (Eastern Mahra), Firqat Tariq Bin Zeead (Western 

Mahra), and Firqat Khalid Bin Waalid (Bait Ma’asheni) followed the Firqat Al 

Nasr model for SAS mentorship, training, and employment. In early 1972, eleven 

firqats existed with 25 to 140 Soldiers in each unit. “Irregular Forces – SAF 

View” Graham Collection, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. When BATT 

operations in Dhofar ceased in 1974, the eleven tribal firqats contained nearly 

2,000 SEPs. Jeapes, 213.

82. Tactics instruction included interdiction of enemy supply routes, 

ambushes, raids, working with SAF operations, and leading tribes against enemy 

hardcore elements. “Irregular Forces – SAF View” Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, 

St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

83. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110913C0001_SESSION1A, 13 September 2011.

84. “Irregular Forces – SAF View” Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, St. 

Antony’s College, Oxford.

85. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011;

Interview ICF20110914MS0001_ SESSION1A, 14 September 2011.

86. “BATT Notes on the Raising and Training of Irregular Forces in Dhofar” 

Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

87. The firqatmen preferred the AK-47 to the FN rifle, the SAF service 

rifle, because it could fire on automatic. When a SEP came in to join a firqat, he 

surrendered his communist issued AK-47 in return for the weapon bounty and 

was issued a FN. The BATT demonstrated during each training period that the 

FN was a superior fire in terms of long-range marksmanship, an exercise that the 

firqatmen viewed with skepticism. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 

12 September 2011.

88. Interview CF20110914MS0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011.
102

89. A former BATT commander remarked that one of the first actions 

by a tribe when welcoming a new SEP was to pray with the individual. Most 

SEPs wanted to regain a sense of community after leaving the communist lines. 

Allowing the SEP to pray to with his tribe reinforced both the tribal lines and 

tenets of Islam that the communists sought to destroy on the jebel. Interview 

CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011.

90. The four-man element usually consisted of a team commander (usually 

a noncommissioned officer), an Arab linguist, a medic, and a weapons specialist. 

Additionally, one member of each team had a signal (communications) specialty. 

Interview CF20110914MS0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011. The BATT 

model of four-man teams intentionally differed from the US model of partnership 

with the highland Montagnard tribes in Vietnam. During initial operations trust 

between the trainers and the security force was not established. As a result, the 

trainers maintained a guard to ensure the security force did not attempt to kill 

them in their sleep. Four-Soldier elements allowed for two Soldiers to maintain 

awareness of the security force, operate the radio, and keep each other awake, 

while the other team of two Soldiers slept. British observers in Vietnam noted 

that American advisors were often sleep deprived due to the two-Soldier advisor 

structure. Interview CF20110917DV0002_ SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

91. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011; 

Sibley, 93.

92. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011; Gardiner, 

159.

93. Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

94. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011.

95. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110913C0001_SESSION1A, 13 September 2011; Interview 

CF20110914DV0001_ SESSION1A 14 September 2011; Interview 

CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

96. Jeapes, 65.

97. Jeapes, 76-81.

98. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110913C0001_SESSION1A, 13 September 2011; Interview 

CF20110914DV0001_ SESSION1A 14 September 2011: Interview 

CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

99. Sultan Qaboos suspended the practice and enforcement of blood feuds 

immediately following the coup. The practice still continued with the jebeli tribes, 

but at a much-diminished rate. Interview CF20110912J0001_SESSION1A, 12 

September 2011.
103

100. Headquarters, Dhofar, “INT/15/D Firqa Salahdin – Discipline,” Graham 

Collection 2/2, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

101. Jeapes, 114.

102. Gardiner, 157.

103. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011.

104. “BATT Notes on the Raising and Training of Irregular Forces in Dhofar,” 

Graham Collection, MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

105. Paul Sibley suggested that the firqat took their rations and actually gave 

them to their families as a means of support. Sibley, 92.

106. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011.

107. CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A.

108. After the BATT mission ended, the Sultan, with advise from the CSAF, 

created a new organization, the Firqat Force, to take over the BATT’s training 

and partnership mission. Firqat Force advisors typically had served at least one 

rotation with the SAF or the BATT previously and volunteered to work with the 

firqat. Although the Firqat Force was supposed to look like BATT’s four-Soldier 

teams, each firqat typically had only advisor. At one point in 1973, one advisor had 

responsibility for three different tribal firqats. The tribes correctly pointed out that 

the advisor could not represent the interests of all three tribes to the government, 

and his creditability with the tribes suffered from the cultural oversight. Interview 

CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

109. “Irregular Forces – SAF View,” Graham Collection, MEC, St. Antony’s 

College, Oxford.

110. Jeapes, 110-111.

111. Gardiner, 159.

112. Colonel John Akehurst, the Dhofar Brigade Commander in 1974-

75 outlined a typical operation: 1. A SAF operation in strength supported by a 

firqat secures a position of the firqat’s choice, which dominated its tribal area; 

2. Military engineers build a track to the position giving road access, followed 

by an airstrip if possible; 3. A drill is brought down the track (to bore a well for 

the local civilians) followed by a Civil Action Team (who set up a) shop, school, 

clinic, and mosque; 4. SAF thins out to the minimum security; 5. Water is pumped 

to the surface and into distribution systems prepared by military engineers to offer 

storage points for humans, and troughs for animals; 6. Civilians come in from 

miles around and talk to the firqat, SAF, and Government representatives. They 

are told that enemy activity in the area will result in the water being cut off; 7. 

Civilians move out to the surrounding areas and tell the enemy not to interfere 

with what is obviously ‘a good thing.’; 8. Enemy, very dependent on civilians, 

stops all aggressive action and either goes elsewhere or hides; 9. Tribal area is 

secure; 10. All SAF are withdrawn. Almost all of the operations followed the 

same pattern. Akehurst, 63-64.
104

113. “CSAF Memorandum” (9 January 1972), Graham Collection, MEC, St. 

Antony’s College, Oxford.

114. Akehurst, 173.

115. Jorg Janzen, “The Destruction of Resources among the Mountain 

Nomads of Dhofar” in The Transformation of Nomadic Society in the Arab East. 

ed., Martha Mundy and Basim Musallam (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 2000), 168.

116. Jeapes, 234.

117. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

118. Headquarters, Sultan’s Armed Forces, “Plans/7: References to Presence 

in Dhofar of SAS Personnel” (8 February 1972), Graham Collection 2/2, MEC, 

St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

119. Interview CF20110913C0001_SESSION1A, 13 September 2011.

120. Jeapes, 236-237.

121. Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

122. Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION2A, 17 September 2011.

123. D. L. Price, “Oman: Insurgency and Development” (London: Institute 

for the Study of Conflict, 1975), 13.

124. Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

(New York: Simon and Shuster, 2008), 587.

125. Jeapes, 236.

126. Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011.
105

Chapter 5

Iraq And Beyond

I don’t know if you are one of those people who pretend to despise 

history. As a matter of fact if you do, you’re a fraud. You exist on 

history like everyone else. Frontier and Afghan operations have 

been very fully written up. If you read the books you’ll find the 

same mistakes made with monotonous regularity.

- Colonel J. P. Villiers-Stuart, Letters of a Once Punjab 

Frontier Force Officer

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demonstrate 

the importance of building local irregular security forces to fighting an 

insurgency. In both campaigns the counterinsurgent has attempted to build 

local irregular security forces without the host nation’s commitment to 

the solution. Nevertheless, partnership between the counterinsurgent 

and the local irregular security force is one the most important factors to 

determining whether an indigenous security force is successful in fighting 

an insurgency. Partnership between the security force and advisors can 

increase the security force legitimacy by combining the irregular Soldiers’ 

knowledge of the local conditions with the advisor’s knowledge of 

organization, tactics, and resources. This partnership can professionalize 

the irregular force over time and enhance their legitimacy in the eyes of the 

indigenous government and the population. Simultaneously, the indigenous 

host government needs to be involved in the process of creating the security 

force to help ensure its legitimacy within the security apparatus and with 

the population. By having both the government and the military involved 

in building local irregular security forces, the counterinsurgent can seek to 

restore balance between the three sides of Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity.

A case-study analysis of this problem has significant limitations for 

future counterinsurgents. First and foremost, no two counterinsurgencies 

are exactly identical. The local conditions are extremely important 

for determining how the campaign is prosecuted, especially for the 

interventionist power. Past experience is not a predictor of future success. 

The application of the Iraq surge’s “winning strategy” to Afghanistan in 

2009 has not produced the same results. Enemy attacks have not dropped 

by 60-percent, the Afghans have not overtly rejected the Taliban, and 

the populace has not spontaneously attempted to create a local security 

solution, despite the introduction of 30,000 additional coalition troops.1
106

The Dhofar campaign also demonstrated that counterinsurgency lessons 

from other campaigns do not necessarily transfer to the conditions of other 

conflicts. The Sultan’s Armed Forces assessment of the counterinsurgency 

effort in January 1970 listed eight shortcomings with their strategy.2

 The 

shortcomings listed showed the influence of previous counterinsurgency 

operations in Malaya, Kenya, and Borneo. Although the SAF believed that 

these shortcomings were important to the campaign, only two significantly 

influenced the resulting campaign, the lack of an information campaign to 

inform the population and the lack of campaign to improve local living 

conditions for the Dhofaris. The counterinsurgents never corrected the first 

shortcoming, the lack of police or Special Branch forces. Instead the firqat

acted as a pseudo-Special Branch, gathered intelligence, and reinforced 

the tribal-based government on the jebel.

The local conditions of two different counterinsurgencies will probably 

never be the same; however, as Colonel Villiers-Stuart suggested in his 

Letters there are some lessons for the counterinsurgent within the case 

studies that applied to both campaigns. The local security force needs to 

have legitimacy in the eyes of the state and the populace. The local irregular 

force should reflect the local conditions. The government’s involvement in 

building the security force and addressing the local grievance is important 

to its future success. Finally, not all Soldiers will make good advisors.

Legitimacy

The local irregular security force must have legitimacy in eyes of the 

state and the people on the ground. The government needs to believe that 

the local irregular force is ultimately answerable to the government, not 

the advisory force. The British made this mistake with the Khyber Rifles, 

and it ultimately contributed to their disbandment in 1919. Colonel Robert 

Warburton served as the Political Officer, Khyber when the Khyber Rifles 

were formed in 1878. He worked daily with the irregular force and its native 

commander, Mohammad Aslam, until they both retired in 1897. Shortly 

thereafter during the start of the 1897 Frontier Uprising, the Soldiers 

deserted their positions, surrendered control of the pass, and lost 118 men 

in the process. The Soldiers did not trust their new commander, and the 

native officer lacked the standing with his men in a crisis. Their actions 

revealed that the Soldiers were loyal to the commander and advisor, not 

necessarily the government. In 1919, the British disbanded the unit and 

moved more trustworthy troops to the pass before the Rifles’ loyalty to the 

government could be tested.3
107

An interventionist power building local security forces without consent 

of the internationally recognized government could face similar problems 

with legitimacy. In this case the interventionist power is potentially violating 

the Westphalian system of sovereignty. The Westphalian system has three 

primary tenets, the sovereignty of states and their fundamental right to 

political self-determination, legal equality between states without regard 

to size, population, or influence, and the principle of non-intervention of 

one state in the internal affairs of another state.4 An interventionist force 

must work through, not around, the national government to avoid violating 

these tenets. Otherwise, the government and the local populace could view 

the security force as a different form of threat.5

 This situation is one of the 

problems with President Karzai’s reluctance to build the Afghan Local 

Police (ALP) program, which the government as complained is hard to 

control and potentially dangerous.6

The Sons of Iraq (SoI) program in Iraq could potentially fail after 

the US military withdraws at the end of 2011 because it lacks legitimacy 

in eyes of the Government of Iraq. The United States built this irregular 

force without consulting the Baghdad government. Several Shia leaders 

considered the Sunni militia a potential future threat. The SoI program grew 

quickly to 103,000 mostly Sunnis legally carrying weapons.7 Furthermore, 

Multi-National Forces-Iraq did not control the development, numbers, 

or training of this force with a policy standardizing procedures. Instead, 

the headquarters delegated responsibility for the program to brigade 

commanders. As a result, most units, already adverse to partnership with 

national forces, took a hands-off approach with the Sons of Iraq. Some 

tribal leaders viewed Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki’s maneuvers in 2007 

to weaken the Awakening through a divide and rule policy. He offered 

jobs to SoI Soldiers in the Diyala Province, arrested former insurgents that 

assumed leadership roles in the Awakening, and initially refused to fund 

the local force.8

The fact that the Government of Iraq consistently failed to meet 

milestones for the SoI program despite assurances to the US government 

also suggests a legitimacy problem with the force. It failed to meet the 

mid-2009 deadline to integrate the nearly 76,000 Sons of Iraq into the 

government despite an agreement to do so with the Multi-National ForcesIraq. In October 2008, only 8,748 SoIs had transferred into Iraqi Security 

Forces.9

 A second deadline at the beginning of January 2010 also passed 

with less than 54-percent compliance.10 Similar deadlines regarding 

the Government of Iraq taking over the payment of the Sons of Iraq in 
108

November 2008 also resulted in the US guaranteeing the payrolls to 

prevent the local security forces from walking off the job.

The Dhofar counterinsurgency is an example where the Sultan’s 

Armed Forces and the local police lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the 

populace. The populace viewed the Omani police forces as interlopers due 

to the ethnic and cultural differences. The firqats did not have the same 

problem, although they did encounter a different form of the problem. 

The tribes refused to cross into each other’s territory to conduct missions. 

The tribal firqats had legitimacy within their tribal area, but their value 

decreased when operating in other tribal areas.11

Another method of gaining legitimacy through the use of a local 

irregular security is to fully integrate them within the counterinsurgent’s 

“whole of government” approach. In British India, the PIF escorted the 

British political officers when they paid subsidies and leveled fines against 

the tribes. The PIF also made arrests when they were required. In Dhofar, 

the firqat secured provided security within their tribal areas while the Civil 

Aid Teams built roads, airstrips, and wells.12 The firqat stayed in the area 

even after the SAF moved on to the next mission. The local irregular force 

can then become the face of the counterinsurgent and the government.

Reinforce the Local Systems

The counterinsurgent should build local security forces with the 

existing systems rather than trying to change society. In British India and 

Dhofar, the British trainers reinforced the existing tribal and class systems. 

The Sunni Awakening initially started with a tribal element in Al-Anbar 

Province.13 During a counterinsurgency the army should not be a social 

experiment to build a national identity, gender equality, or other reforms. 

The indigenous national government should introduce these reforms.

Conversely, the initial BATT approach and the insurgents in Dhofar 

failed to create irregular forces that broke down the existing tribal system. 

The communist advisors to PFLOAG desired to break down both the tribal 

and Islamic elements of life on the jebel. The communist realized too late 

that they were alienating the local populace by violently suppressing these 

elements. Salim Mubarak and Major Tony Jeapes attempted to create a 

multi-tribal irregular unit, the Firqat Salahdin, on the belief that fighters 

could overcome traditional tribal rivalry. Although initially successful, the 

Firqat Salahdin only fought as a multi-tribal organization for five months.14

The use of the local populace in an irregular security force can give 

the counterinsurgent force an advantage. Sometimes the use of national 

forces is not the best solution to defeating an insurgency with a local 
109

grievance. This is a problem that is probably exacerbated in countries 

where the populace lacks a strong sense of national identity like Dhofar 

and the North-West Frontier’s tribal areas. The local populace can also 

offer the counterinsurgent other advantages over the national forces. In 

British India, the British opted not to use national forces for a different 

reason. The Indian Army lacked the training and equipment to operate 

efficiently in the mountains. The Guides were able to capture the fort at 

Govindgarh during the Second Sikh War precisely because they looked 

and spoke like the local populace.15

Over time the local irregular security forces can be fully integrated 

into the regular forces. The PIF operated as a separate force for about 

thirty years before their integration into the Indian Army. The PIF served 

in the regular army, deploying to the Middle East and even Europe with 

the Indian Army. Dhofar is another example of integration even though the 

force continues to only provide security within their tribal areas. A sense 

of Dhofari and Omani identity is slowly emerging in the region. The firqat

still patrol the jebel under the nominal command of the Sultan’s Firqat 

Force.

The Peshmerga in Iraq is another local security forces that produced a 

slightly different outcome than the Sons of Iraq program. The Peshmerga 

is a tribally based Kurdish force in northern Iraq, southern Turkey, and 

northwest Iran. In this case, the Peshmerga eventually joined the national 

army. Entire Peshmerga battalions joined the Iraqi National Guard in 

2004. Those battalions proved important for fighting the insurgency in 

Mosul after other non-tribal units refused to fight. The battalions are now 

part of Iraqi 2nd Division stationed in Mosul and part of the Iraqi Army 

Northern Forces.16

Selection of Advisors

 Not every Soldier can effectively serve as an advisor. The officers 

and Soldiers directly involved in building local indigenous forces should 

be chosen based their ability and demonstration of certain traits. The 

most important trait is that the advisor has a desire to perform the job. 

Commanders in North-West Frontier and Dhofar chose trainers for their 

flexibility, tolerance, patience, physical fitness, and initiative. Advisory 

duty is a careful balancing act of respecting the irregular forces’ culture 

and meeting the needs of the military. The BATT advisors in Dhofar cited 

the case of one of their own trainers that went “native”, meaning he tried to 

replicate being a Dhofari to build trust. The firqat did not respect the Soldier, 

and the BATT did not feel that he could conduct his job objectively.17
110

The trainers and the local force should share risk when working 

together in order to build trust and confidence in each other. Theater 

policy in Iraq and Afghanistan prevented coalition troops from sharing 

quarters and supplies with indigenous forces, both regular and irregular. 

Although troops often share a common base, the two forces are segregated. 

Furthermore in Iraq, training teams could not work with indigenous forces 

without a platoon-sized force protection element. In some cases the 

number of Soldiers protecting the advisory team equaled the number of 

Iraqi Soldiers, which can undermine the government’s message of who 

is control of the security mission. Casualties will occur with this system; 

however, the long-term benefits of close partnership should outweigh the 

risk. Since 2005, 52 “green-on-blue” attacks in Afghanistan resulted in 

coalition deaths. However, 36-percent of the attacks were attributed to 

combat-stress related incidents, whereas only 23-percent of the attacks 

resulted from Taliban infiltration of the organization.18 In both PIF and 

firqats, the trainers rarely numbered more than ten in a battalion-sized 

element; however, in both cases there is not one instance of an irregular 

murdering an advisor.

The military needs to take steps to ensure that advisory duty a 

desirable job to volunteer for in the future. Political and military leaders 

should realize that good training teams as strategic assets similar to 

Special Forces. The military needs to take steps to ensure that officers and 

Soldiers recruited for training teams remain competitive for promotion 

and command within the larger army.19 In 2009, Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates wrote that it remained to be seen if the Pentagon could adapt 

the personnel and promotion systems to reward officers and Soldiers for 

taking advisor assignments.20

The two case studies primarily examined in this study are limited to 

primarily to the British experience. It does not suggest that the British have 

mastered the training of local irregular forces. In fact, the British failure 

to create Military Training Teams for even the national forces during 

Operation Telic in Iraq might suggest that the British have forgotten this 

past experience.21

An officer or Soldier’s exposure to foreign cultures prior to assuming 

an advising mission is another area that should be examined in the future. 

Many of the advisors working in both British India and Dhofar either 

grew up or worked outside of the United Kingdom prior to serving in the 

advisor role. A former US division chief of staff and brigade commander 

also suggested that US Army units stationed in Germany performed better 

than US-based units early in Iraq. He attributed this observation to the 
111

number of rotations that Germany-based units conducted in the Balkans 

and Eastern Europe. In effect, these deployments exposed Soldiers to 

working with foreign Soldiers.22

Partnership with local irregular forces should remain an important 

aspect of any future counterinsurgency effort. Local forces help the 

government and the military maintain influence with populace during an 

insurgency. The advisory force can help legitimize an irregular force by 

offering it training, resources, and experience. Additionally, the advisory 

force can serve as a check to ensure accountability back to the government 

during military and civil operations.

Good advisors and advisory teams can be strategic assets. For this 

reason, advisors need to be carefully chosen for the job. Successful 

partnership missions rely on a small number of Soldiers having an 

effect on a large number of irregulars. In both the North-West Frontier 

and Dhofar, teams of as few as four Soldiers partnered with platoon and 

company-sized elements. Their partnership allowed the host indigenous 

government to relay their message to the people. The forces also reported 

back to the national government on what was occurring in areas that were 

not fully under government control. Advisory missions, when conducted 

well, can result in the irregular force’s integration into the regular forces of 

the counterinsurgent. In a time when both the US and the UK are reducing 

the end strengths of their militaries, partnership has the potential to be a 

small investment, large pay-off military mission.
112

Notes

1. The Iraq surge of troops coincided with a 60-percent drop in attacks 

and a 70-percent drop in civilian deaths. Sunni tribal leaders rejected Al-Qaeda’s 

continued violence in the country, and they declared support for the Government 

of Iraq. Sunni leaders formed the Concerned Local Citizens program, the Sons of 

Iraq, and other local security solutions to keep Al-Qaeda and other malcontents 

out of their neighborhoods. Kimberly Kagan, The Surge: A Military History (New 

York: Encounter Books, 2009), 196.

2. The eight shortcomings are listed in Chapter 4. SAF Report, “Dhofar 

Operations as of January 1970,” Thwaites Collection, Box 1/2, LHCMA.

3. Trench, 8-11.

4. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power 

and Peace, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 284.

5. Indian-administered Kashmir is an example of counterinsurgency where 

this is true. Paramilitary forces operate in Kashmir under the Armed Forces Special 

Powers Act. The populace views this force with contempt, often resulting to 

throwing stones at the militiamen to provoke a response. In 2010, India started to 

recruit local Kashmiri youth for the paramilitary forces in Jammu and Kashmir to 

change the face of the paramilitary forces in the hope of gaining local legitimacy. 

See Sumantra Rose’s Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press: 2005); Sumit Ganguly “Explaining the Kashmir 

Insurgency: Political Mobilization and Institutional Decay,” International 

Security 21, no. 2 (Autumn, 1996): 76-107; Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, 

and Kashmir: Antimonies of Nationalism,” Asian Survey 31, no. 11 (November 

1991): 997-1019 for more information on the role of paramilitary forces in the 

Kashmir insurgency.

6. Allissa J. Rubin and Richard A. Opeel, Jr., “US and Afghanistan Debate 

More Village Forces,” The New York Times, 12 July 2010.

7. Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American 

Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 203-204.

8. The arrests of Adel Mushadani in east Baghdad proved especially 

controversial within the SoI program, because it nearly confirmed the 

government’s fears of an armed opposition. Malaki ordered Mushdani’s arrest for 

crimes he committed as an insurgent prior to assuming the leadership of the Fadhil 

SoI unit. A day later, the military arrested Raad Ali, the SoI leader in the west 

Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya. The SoI in that neighborhood threatened the 

government with violence if they held Mushadani. Ned Parker and Usama Redha, 

“Sons of Iraq leader Adel Mashadani arrested in Baghdad,” Los Angeles Times, 

29 March 2009; Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed, “Sons of Iraq Movement Suffers 

another Blow,” Los Angeles Times, 30 March 2009.
113

9. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Quarterly Report 

and Semiannual Report to the United States Congress” (30 January 2011), 70.

10. In January 2010, MNF-I reported that the Government of Iraq had 

integrated 41,000 Sons of Iraq, out of the 76,000 local forces on the payroll. 

In October 2009, the government had integrated only 16,300 Sons of Iraq into 

government. Less than 9,500 Sons of Iraq were integrated into the security forces. 

Major General Stephen Lanza interview with Al-Sumaria TV (11 January 2010); 

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Quarterly Report to the 

United States Congress” (30 October 2009).

11. Gardiner, 157.

12. Akehurst, 63-64.

13. Najim Abed Al-Jabouri and Sterling Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI roles in 

the Sunni Awakening,” Prism 2, no. 1 (December 2010): 3-4.

14. The fact that Queens’ Own Corps of Guides and the Firqat Salahdin 

were both initially mixed units that seem to provide exceptions to this conclusion. 

Leadership may be an important factor in explaining this phenomenon. Advisors 

for the Firqat Salahdin suggested that Salim Mubarak’s leadership and charisma 

enabled the multi-tribal organization to overcome traditional rivalries. The Firqat 

Salahdin mutinied within 48 hours of Salim’s death. Lumsden’s leadership in the 

Guides seems to an influencing factor for building a unit that could transcend 

class issues in British India. The Firqat Salahdin mutinied within 48 hours of 

Salim’s death. However, Lumsden lead the Guides for nearly 15 years.

15. The Govindgarh fortress had a regiment of Sikh infantry and at 18 

guns protecting one of the approaches to Amritsar. The Guides devised a plan 

by which a small force would penetrate the fortress with part of their own posing 

as prisoners and their guards. The Guides gained entrance to the fortes, turned 

over their “prisoners”, co-opted the garrison’s commander, and loitered near the 

guardhouse. When the British forces neared, the Guides overpowered the guards 

and opened the fortress’s gates for another force of Guides outside. The fortress 

was taken without any losses for the Guides. Younghusband, The Story of the 

Guides, 31-38.

16. David Chapman, Security Forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government

(Costa Mesa: Mazda, 2011), 162-164.

17. Interview CF20110914DV0001_SESSION1A, 14 September 2011; 

Interview CF20110917DV0002_SESSION1A, 17 September 2011.

18. The term “green-on-blue” attack refers to attacks that involve coalition 

troops and host nation security forces. It is a form friendly-fire incident. Tim Lister, 

“Attacks by Afghan troops on NATO Soldiers rising, but motives complex,” 

CNN World, 15 June 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/14/

afghanistan.nato.attacks/ index.html (accessed 10 November 2011).
114

19. The Pakistani Army’s partnership with the Frontier Corps in the Federally 

Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) could be another important case study to 

understanding importance of this aspect of advisor duty. Following partition, 

Pakistan focused its military resources on the border shared with India, primarily 

the Line of Control in Kashmir. The Pakistani Army continues to second officers 

to the Frontier Corps, but most officers consider the duty a dead-end assignment. 

A 2008 study by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Islamabad Policy 

Research Institute recommended that Pakistan officers sent to the Frontier Corps 

receive specialized training in mountain and counterinsurgency operations. 

Hassan Abbas, “Transforming Pakistan’s Frontier Corps,” Terrorism Monitor 5, 

no. 6 (March 2007): 5-8; Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, “Challenges Facing a CounterMilitant Campaign in Pakistan’s FATA,” NBR Analysis 19, no. 3 (August 2008): 

26-27.

20. Robert Gates, “A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a 

New Age,” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 1 (January/February 2009): 37.

21. A number of British officers have suggested that this oversight in Iraq is 

partially related to two important events. First, the military’s emphasis remained 

focused on the British Army on the Rhine During the Cold War. Second, the 

Northern Ireland counterinsurgency created a number of institutional obstacles for 

sharing information, emerging doctrine, and best practices across units. Interviews 

with present and former British officers, 16 September 2011 and 21September 

2011. Additionally see Daniel P. Marston, “Adaption in the Field: The British 

Army’s difficult Campaign in Iraq,” Security Challenges 6, no. 1 (Autumn, 2010): 

71-84 and Brigadier Richard Iron’s upcoming article on the continuing influence 

of Northern Ireland on the British Army.

22. Countries with a liberal democratic tradition provided the trainers in 

the case studies presented. Further research should examine countries with more 

authoritarian governments to understand if this limitation is significant. Interview 

CB20110901G0001_SESSION1A, 1 September 2011.
115

Glossary

Adoo. An Arabic term for the enemy used during the Dhofar insurgency.

Arbakai. A tribal security force formed for the purpose of enforcing a 

jirga’s decisions. The arbakai is unique to the Pushtun tribes in the Paktia 

province.

Badel. A Pushtunwali principle stating that a tribesman must exact 

vengeance for a wrong done to his family. The term is also referred to as 

a blood feud.

Firqat. An Arabic word loosely translates to “task force” or “company” 

in military terms; however, other translations suggest it may only mean 

“group” used during the Dhofar campaign.

Firqatman. A tribesman fighting with the firqat in Dhofar.

Foreign Internal Defense. In US joint doctrine, the participation 

by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action 

programs taken by another government or other designated organization, 

to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, 

terrorism, and other threats to their security.

Hamsayas. A Pushtun word for people who assist the tribesmen with the 

daily functioning of the tribes that are not necessarily Pushtun.

Harasis. A term used to describe the glottal dialect used by the tribes in 

Dhofar.

Imperial Policing. In UK doctrine, campaigns where civil control of the 

population does not exist, or has broken down to the extent where the 

military is the only institution that can provide security.

In Aid of the Civil Power. In UK doctrine, a campaign where the civil 

government maintains control but lacks the personnel numbers to provide 

adequate security for the populace. The military’s duty is to provide 

assistance for the restoration of law and order during the disturbance.

Irregular Force. Armed individuals or groups who are not members of 

the regular armed forces, police, or other internal security forces.

Jebel. Arabic for mountain or hill.

Jebebi. A term used to describe the glottal dialect used by the tribes in 

Dhofar. The term also describes a person that lives on the jebel.

Jirga. Primary decision making body for both intra- and inter-tribal 

disputes in the Pushtun society.
116

Khareef. Arabic term for the southeast monsoon in Dhofar.

Lashkar. An irregular force or war party raised by a tribe or tribes to 

punish the party that violates the decision of a jirga, or commits a violation 

contrary to the Pukhtonwali code.

Melmastia. A Pushtunwali principle stating a requirement for hospitality.

Military Capability Building. In UK doctrine, the range of activities in 

support of developing an indigenous security force including partnering, 

monitoring, mentoring, and training.

Nanawati. A Pushtunwali principle stating that any man can request 

asylum in the presence of the Koran and that request cannot be denied.

Negd. The desert region north of the jebel in Dhofar. Refers to the region 

known as the Empty Quarter Desert.

Operation EMU. The operational name given to the mission of raising 

the firqat in Dhofar by the British Army and the Sultan’s Armed Forces.

Operation STORM. The operational name given to the mission of 

defeating the insurgency in Dhofar by the British Army and the Sultan’s 

Armed Forces. It was comprised of five fronts.

Operation TELIC. The operational name under which all British military 

operations in Iraq were conducted between the invasion of Iraq on 19 

March 2003 and the withdrawal of the last remaining British forces on 22 

May 2011.

Pagri. Hindu term for a long piece of cloth that must be manually tied into 

a headdress. The color of the headdress can indicate the wearer’s caste.

Population Control. In US Army doctrine, determining who lives in an 

area and what they do.

Pushtunwali. An unwritten system of principles that govern individual 

and collective relations between members of the Pushtun and Pukhtun 

tribes. 

Security Force Assistance. In US joint doctrine, the unified action to 

generate, employ, and sustain local, Host Nation, or regional security 

forces in support of a legitimate authority.

Security Sector Reform. In UK doctrine, a specific program of activities 

coordinated to create capable indigenous security forces (police and armed 

forces) generally tailored to a specific theatre.

Small War. In UK doctrine, all campaigns other than those where both 

the opposing sides consist of regular troops. In US Marine Corps doctrine, 
117

an operation undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force 

is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of 

another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory 

for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the 

foreign policy of our Nation.

Wali. Governor of a province or region in Oman.

Watch and Ward. The informal term used by the Indian Army for the 

mission of guarding the frontier.

119

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Combat Studies Institute Press

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Art of War Papers