COUNTER INSURGENCY AND JUNGLE WARFARE

SCHOOL

AMLEKHGUNG, BARA

S.N. 1 ARMED POLICE FORCE, NEPAL COUNTER

INSURGENCY (COIN) COURSE

KUSUM INCIDENT

(CASE STUDY)

By

Insp. Mahesh Neupane and Insp. Som Bdr. Gurung

January, 2024
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THE KUSUM INCIDENT

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TABLE OF CONTENT

CONTENT Page No

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
AIM ..................................................................................................................................... 2
SCOPE ................................................................................................................................ 2
KUSUM INCIDENT .......................................................................................................... 3
RELEVENCY IN SECURITY FORCE IN NEPAL .......................................................... 9
LESSON LEARNT ............................................................................................................. 9
CONCLUSION AND FINDINGS ................................................................................... 10
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 12
APPENDEX-A ................................................................................................................. 13
APPENDEX-B .................................................................................................................. 14
APPENDEX-C .................................................................................................................. 15

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION AND ACCRONYM

APF Armed Police Force

CASEVAC Casualty Evacuation
DSP Deputy Superintendent of Armed Police Force
HE High Explosive
IED Improvised Explosive Device
LMG Light Machine Gun
SLR Self Loading Rifle
S.M.G Sub machine gun
SP Superintendent of Armed Police Force

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DS COMMENT

S.N. Comment Remarks

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 THE KUSUM INCIDENT

INTRODUCTION

1. Kusum Base camp lies on Former Kusum village development committee, ward
number 2 now Rapti Sonari Rural Development Municipality ward number 1. For
the security of that place 211 Armed Police personals were deployed. Due to
undulating and stony ground around the base camp field fortification was made
with a lot of struggles. Base camp was under the command of DSP. There were
total of 24 posts including over and underground and bunkers. There were 2 high
points 9 LMG posts and was under 24 hours duty. There was 1 LMG post in the
main gate. Total area of Kusum base is 500 square meters.
2. On 2052 Magh 22 contemporary Nepal communist party raised a voice against
existing political system and state arrangement and put forward 40 points demand
Infront of government. Government denied their demand and NCP declared
armed rebellion against Nepal government on 2052 Falgun 1. This armed
rebellion remained for 10 yrs. and thousands of innocents were killed. (Bhatt,
2021)
3. Due to severe security state of country government has decided to establish a
paramilitary like organization on 2058 kartik7. During that period APF was able
to fight and manage the armed rebellion activities happening inside the country’s
territory. In Nepal, counter insurgency took place upto10 years and thousands of
innocent peoples and security personals were killed during this period. During
insurgency time patrols of security forces, temporary and permanent camps of
security forces were the main targets of hostiles. Due to this reason Armed Police
Force also became the main target of Hostiles as it was mainly formed to
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demoralize and to take a specific and counterproductive action against armed
rebellion activities. (Bhandari,2022)
4. Before the establishment of Kusum Base camp Nepal police used to have a small
police circle in that place. Due to the attack of Maoist in 2057 Nepal police left
that place and was empty till 2060. In that empty place Armed police Force
established a base camp known as Kusum Base camp on 2060 Jestha.

AIM

5. The aim of this case study is to study and analyze the CPN(M) attack on the APF
Nepal unit in Kusum Base camp on 2060/06/23.

SCOPE

6. The paper will analyze the following aspects of the Maoist attack on APF
Chainpur unit.
a) To Analyze the detail study of case
b) To analyze relevancy of the case study in security force
c) Pre scenario of the attack
d) Preparation done by APF
e) Aftermath

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KUSUM INCIDENT

Date and time of incident: On 2060/6/23 from 21:30 to 4:30.

Location of incident: Contemporary Banke district, Kusum village development

committee ward no 2. Now Banke district, Rapti Sonari rural municipality ward no 1.

Base commander: DSP Gajendra Bahadur Shahi

Platoon commander and sector commanders:

a) No.1 sector: Inspector Tanka Bahadur Khadka

b) No.2 sector: Inspector Naresh Kumar Paudel
c) No .3 sector: Inspector Mahendra Bharati.

Pre-scenario of attack

7. Before the attack occurred in Kusum, APF personnel had heard about the accident
likely to take place soon after the attack of Sadbariya and Chainpur. Maoists had
created the huddles in Mahendra highway as well as ambushed in IED. The troops
came from Shamshergunj could not reach to Kusum. Kusum base had drawn the
telephone line from below the village, nearby vdc office. There were many
incidents taken before from which Maoist were highly moralized. Strange faces
were seen before incidents.

Preparation of war by Armed police force

8. After the incidents of Chainpur personnel had highly prepared for war to be taken
place soon. Distribution of password and weapon handling.
a) Digging of trenches
b) Stand to practices often and often
c) Timely trainings given by Nepal army

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d) Cleaning of weapons and readiness for firing
e) Regular briefing of likely incident by commander

The Day of Attack

9. Burst fire of LMG came from northern side from a dense forest at 21:30 and
suddenly at the same time diversionary attack was done by hostiles from south
west with maximum fire. Hostiles attacked from all the directions with maximum
weapons, grenades, IEDs and tried to enter inside the base

10. After the fire from hostile Sentries in the Base camp started returning fire and
except sentries all the APF soldiers started appropriate firing immediately. Five
minutes after the start of attack commander on gate SHC Tej Bahadur Darji was
gun shot by insurgents and in the place of him ASI Hari Nepali continued fire.
After some time, he was also gun shot by insurgents and insurgents captured that
post and LMG and entered the base and started rapid fire. As a result, commander
and troops started a counter fire and killed all the hostiles that entered into the
base and forced them to go back from the base.

11. By gaining the cover from trees, hostiles blasted pressure cooker IEDs, socket
IEDs around the base. Some of them also breached the obstacle wire of base and
tried to enter inside the base but the troops continuously fired without any panic
condition and made them to withdrawal from the base. By using their resources
and weapons without any deviation from their mission they faced them very hard
and demoralized them. Hostiles attacked with the help of rocket launcher, 2”
mortar, GPMG, LMG, as a support weapons and SLR, 303 SMG as assault
weapons. In this incident three APF personals became Marty’s and 9 were deadly
injured.

12. In the incident number 1 sector was destroyed by hostile. This incident took place
upto7 hours and a lot of weapons of hostile were also captured. Due to the

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obstacle created by hostile in the road the support team of Bageshwori Battalion
of Samsergunj were unable to reach on time and they reach on 5: 50 am on the
morning.

13. Due to regular training and practice of troops, high morale, good command
control, mutual understanding and coordination, appropriate and controlled used
of available weapons, change of field fortification in timely basis, hostile were
unable to capture the base of APF and APF won the battle and proved themselves
as angry lion.

Table 1: List of APF personals deployed during attack:

S.N Rank Number S.N Rank Number

1. DSP 2 2. Inspector 3

3. S.I 1 4. A.S.I 3

5. S.H.C 14 6. H.C 22

7. A.H.C 53 8. Constable 109

9. Followers 5 Total 211

Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

Table 2: List of arms and ammunitions in the base:

S.N Weapon Number Remarks

1. L.M.G 10

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S.N Weapon Number Remarks

2. S.L.R 188

3. S.M.G 25

4. 2 “ mortar 4

5. 9 mm browning pistol 4

6. Chinese Pistol 1

7. Plastic Hand Grenade 410

8. No 36 hand grenade 300

9. 7.62 mm round 1,31,000

10. 9 mm round 7,871

11. Chinese pistol round 21

12. L.M.G Barrel 10

13. L.M.G magazine 200

14. S.L.R magazine 855

15. 9mm magazine 4

16. S.M.G magazine 95

17. Magazine Chinese Pistol 3

18. H.E Bomb 400

19. Para Bomb 23

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S.N Weapon Number Remarks

20. Smoke Bomb 20

Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

Table 3: List of weapons captured by hostiles

Body Number Remarks

S.N Weapon Number

1 LMG 1 17058332

Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

Table 4: List of casualties in APF

S.N ID Number Rank Name

1 4719 A.S.I Hari Bdr Nepali

2 8031 S.H.C Tej Bdr Darji

3 6500 H.C Sushil Dhobi

Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

Table 5: List of casualties in hostile side

S.N Number Death Remarks

1 Injured were carried away by 53 dead bodies were Name and address
hostiles so exact number is not found around the base. is unknown.
obtained.
Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

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Table 6: List of weapons used by insurgents to attack

S.N Weapon Remarks

1 SLR

2 GPMG

3 Gallil

4 SMG

5 LMG

6 303

7 Short gun

8 12 bore pistol

9 Chinese Pistol

10 Hand/plastic grenade

11 Pressure cooker/Socket IEDs

12 Pipe IEDs

13 Rocket Launcher

Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

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Aftermath

14. After the attack of Maoists to Kusum base of APF there was a huge loss in
Maoists side.51 dead bodies of hostiles were found around the Kusum base area.
According to locals many much insurgents were killed during attack but they
were evacuated during night time. Large number of arms and ammunitions were
captured by APF in the next morning.3 APF personnel were killed during that
attack.

RELEVENCY IN SECURITY FORCE IN NEPAL

15. The battle fought between the than Maoist and the APF Nepal at Kusum base is
one of the major battles fought and won by the APF Nepal at the time of Maoist
insurgency which helped us to gain importance of the field fortification to
dominate the battleground and also how vital role the morale of the troops plays
to win the battle so this case study is very relevance to us. This incident also
reveals the regular rehearsal makes the battle win for us.

LESSON LEARNT

16. 1The tactics and war are not similar in all situations. The tactics are flexible and
the situations are different. In case of Kusum incident, the use of password, use of
available resources, bunkers, posts, signal and communications, and most of all
the very important thing is that there should be detailed plan sound deployment of
personnel. The best part in this battle was the strong field fortification and the

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morale of the troops was high. There is necessity of more infrastructures for
security personnel. Heli support is mandatory to infiltrate the hostiles

CONCLUSION AND FINDINGS

Conclusion

17. Kusum attack in the history plays the vital role in context of Nepal. Prior to this
attack, two major attacks done by Maoist had been won and badly ridiculed over
the presence of security organizations and their capabilities. But in contrast to all
these attacks, Kusum attack was won over by Apf Nepal and forced Maoist to
step back from attacking strategies and it also gave considerations for enforcing
the fighting capabilities and equipment and new recruitment. I would like to
recommend all the people who would like to know about the history of Nepal and
the surging Maoist insurgency, the glorious history of paramilitary of Nepal, then
Kusum incident may be pioneering and cornerstones for knowing the actual
scenario of war and its effects in the general people.

Findings

18. The major findings are listed below:

a) The Maoist rebels were well-equipped and had modern weapons.

b) The attack caused significant human loss on the Maoist side, with over 50
insurgents were killed.

c) Three APF personnel were martyred in the incident.

d) The incident highlights the strong fortification of Kusum Base.

e) The incident highlights the challenges faced by security forces in Nepal in

responding to insurgent attacks.

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f) The incident underscores the importance of command and control during times
of crisis.

g) The incident highlights the need for ongoing training and preparedness of
security forces to respond to unexpected attacks.

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REFERENCES

Bhandari, K. (2020). Role of APF in Maoist Insurgency. Kathmandu: janata publication.

Bhatt, S. (2021). Insurgency in Nepal. Kathmandu: NAPFA.

TV, S. (2020). Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJqe-

iEZcHw&t=31s.

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APPENDEX-A

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APPENDEX-B

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APPENDEX-C

Figure 1: Eye Sketch of Kusum Base camp

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Source: Case study on Kusum attack 2021

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