The Pakistani Taliban Supporters of the Afghan Taliban who sought refuge in Pakistans tribal areas morphed into a distinct entity following the Pakistani armys initial incursion into the semiautonomous region in 2002. In December 2007, about thirteen disparate militant groups coalesced under the umbrella of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, led by Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan. Pakistani authorities accused him of orchestrating the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Short-lived ceasefires signed with Islamabad in 2008 and 2009 provided opportunities for the Pakistani Taliban to regroup and make territorial gains, analysts say. After a U.S. drone strike killed Baitullah in August 2009, his cousin and deputy Hakimullah Mehsud assumed leadership of the TTP. Hakimullah was reportedly prepared to take part in imminent peace talks with Islamabad when he was killed in a U.S. drone strike along with a top deputy in November 2013. But analysts say the prospects for peace talks were dim. Hakimullah declared war against the state, saying in October 2013: Pakistans system is un-Islamic, and we want it replaced with an Islamic system. This demand and this desire will continue even after the American withdrawal [from Afghanistan]. Stephen Tankel, scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that if talks had been allowed to fail, Pakistani public opinion would have turned more decisively against the Taliban rather than the United States, which many blame for the insurgencys resilience. A shura council chose hard-liner Mullah Fazlullah as Hakimullahs successor shortly after his death. Fazlullah, who gained infamy for ordering the assassination attempt on Pakistani schoolgirl and activist Malala Yousafzai, rejected talks with the government. Analysts question whether Fazlullah can maintain TTP cohesion as the first emir from outside the Mehsud tribe. The predominantly Pashtun group draws membership from all of FATAs seven agencies as well as several settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa in the northwest. The TTP has declared jihad against the Pakistani state, seeks to control territory, enforces sharia, and fights NATO forces in Afghanistan. We will target security forces, government installations, political leaders, and police, Asmatullah Shaheen, head of the shura council that selected Mullah Fazlullah, told Reuters, adding, We will not target civilians, bazaars, or public places. People do not need to be afraid. Its difficult to assess the size of the Pakistani Taliban. There are not reliable estimates of how large the TTP is, largely due to challenges associated with even defining the borders of the group and the loose-knit nature of how it is organized along either subtribal or subregional lines, CTCs Rassler says. The Pakistani Taliban has targeted security forces and civilians alike; among its most audacious attacks have been bombings of Islamabads Marriott Hotel in September 2008, which killed at least sixty people, and Peshawars Pearl Continental Hotel in June 2009, in which seventeen were killed. TTP expressed transnational ambitions when it claimed responsibility for a failed bombing in New Yorks Times Square in May 2010. The Punjabi Taliban, a loose conglomeration of militant groups of Punjabi origin, gained prominence after major 2008 and 2009 attacks in the cities of Lahore, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi. The network has both sectarian and Kashmir-oriented aims. It has chafed at the Pakistani Talibans central leadership, Janes Intelligence Review reported in late August 2013, but is uniquely capable of mount[ing] complex operations in urban environments, particularly in Punjab, Pakistans most populous and politically significant province. The Haqqani Network, whose operations straddle the porous Afghan-Pakistani border known as the Durand Line, has proven a valuable ally to the Pakistani Taliban in some of these pursuits. The Haqqanis have not only fought alongside the TTP and Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, but have also served as influential mediators between the TTP and Islamabad. Pakistan has long been a supporter and beneficiary of the Haqqanis, according to CTC. The network has helped Islamabad manage militant groups in FATA, and provided leverage against India in the struggle over Kashmir. Pakistan sees the Pashtun group, which has been among the most lethal to NATO forces in Afghanistan, as a potential source of leverage after the scheduled withdrawal of coalition troops at the end of 2014.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:52:00 +0000
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