True pakis had used tanks, APCs, IFVs, fighter jets, attack helicopters, artillery during zarb e asab... credit where due it was an awesome operation which shows how much they learned from GWOT and murica.. I remember reading an ex-SSG col article where he described their role in that op.. he said that rebels were concentrated in mountains just like our scenario. (Just 400-500x more in number). They had high level humint intelligence (more than army) so any insertion straight into mountains will inflict heavy casualties to them.. to counter this, they first aerial bombed the possibile hideouts (uncle Sam most probably provided Satellite imagery) then huge artillery bombardment.. after that special forces teams where inserted on top of mountains where they will operate in small teams and try to push the rebels downwards where infantry was already deployed and will kill them.. imo that's how you use your spearhead force strategically.
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