Earlier this year the Tehrik I Taliban (TTP) terrorists fired on military posts in the two Waziristan agencies from inside Afghan territory. The terrorists also planted IEDs and land mines in bordering areas of the two agencies causing numerous casualties. There are social media reports now indicating that the TTP activists are sneaking into Pakistan’s tribal areas with sinister intentions.
A UN report published in February had noted with concern the reunification of TTP splinter groups in Afghanistan. According to the report, five extremist outfits that pledged allegiance to the TTP in July and August 2020 included the Shehryar Mehsud group, Jamaatul Ahrar, Hizbul Ahrar, the Amjad Farooqi group and the Usman Saifullah group, formerly known as Lashkar-e- Jhangvi. Last month in an interview with the CNN, TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud promised to fight to turn Pakistan’s tribal areas into an independent state. From introducing Sharia throughout Pakistan, the TTP has now decide to act as a secessionist network which wants to carve out Pakistan’s tribal areas into a separate country by launching terror attacks on Pakistan’s civilians and security personnel.
In his first news conference on Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had declared that the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a launching pad by terrorist networks to attack other countries. In what can only be described as an abrupt departure from that policy, Mujahid, in an interview to a private Pakistani news channel yesterday stated that the TTP is an issue that the Pakistan government must resolve on its own, not Afghanistan. That the two divergent views on the TTP problem come within weeks of each other demonstrates how fluid the situation in Afghanistan really is. Pakistan must understand that the new government in Kabul is in complete disarray and will take a considerable amount of time to reach some modicum of stability and until such a time, will tread carefully in dealing with the more volatile and violent groups present on its soil. They neither have the resources or capacity to tame a splinter group from amongst their cadre while attempting to run an entire country that is in state of turmoil. The PTI government and the military must now reassess the country’s security policy and up its efforts to ensure that peace is maintained within our borders.
