ISLAMABAD: The Taliban have reassured Islamabad it won’t allow the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan group to operate on Afghanistan’s soil against Pakistan, Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said on Monday.
Trained and funded by India, the Afghanistan-based UN-designated terror group is responsible for a majority of deaths of civilians and security forces since 2007 — the year it formed as an umbrella organisation of various militant entities ostensibly in retaliation for the government’s decision to cooperate with the United States in the war on terrorism.
Over the years, US drone strikes and targeted operations by Pakistan’s military targeted and killed successive TTP leaders, including Baitullah Mehsud in 2009, Hakimullah Mehsud in 2013, Mullah Fazlullah in 2018 and Wali Mehsud in 2021.
Largely routed since 2015 following Zarb-e-Azb military operation, the group has been regrouping since last summer. Various breakaway factions pledged allegiance to the group last July to carry attacks on security forces.
Ahmed, while addressing a press conference, said the government has taken note of the reports suggesting the Taliban have released from prisons some TTP militants, including its leader, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, after taking over the country, and disclosed Islamabad was in “full contact” with the group on the issue.
“The related [Afghan] authorities there have been told to control those who have done terrorism in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban have reassured [us] that Afghanistan’s land will not be allowed to be used in any case by the TTP,” the minister said.
Over the weekend, the Foreign Office, when questioned on the release of TTP militants, said Pakistan would “continue to oppose support for any individual or any proscribed groups that remained involved in terrorist activities inside Pakistan”.
Ahmed’s presser came amidst a report that Pakistan has handed over to the Taliban a list of “most wanted terrorists” linked to the TTP, who were still active in Afghanistan.
“We have taken up the issue with them [Afghan Taliban]. We have given them a list of wanted TTP terrorists operating from Afghanistan,” the report said, quoting an unnamed senior official familiar with the development.
The Foreign Office also said Pakistan would ask the incoming government in Afghanistan to act against the TTP.
“Pakistan has been taking up the issue of the use of Afghan soil by the TTP for terrorist activities inside Pakistan with the previous Afghan government and would continue raising the issue with the incoming government in Kabul as well to ensure that the TTP is not provided any space in Afghanistan to operate against Pakistan,” the Foreign Office had said.
According to a United Nations Security Council report released in July, the TTP has about 6,000 trained fighters operating in Afghanistan.
The report had noted that “despite growing distrust, TTP and the Taliban carry on with relations mainly as before”, adding the former supported the latter in its operations against Kabul.
The Taliban regained power in Kabul last week after overrunning most of Afghanistan within the past two weeks in a largely unexpected development.
But the Kabul takeover has largely been peaceful and the group is currently consolidating its power by engaging former local rivals in their bid to form an inclusive government in order to win international recognition for it.
Pakistan has over the past five years constructed a robust fence and hundreds of forts along what used to be its historically open border with Afghanistan. The massive project, says the military, has effectively blocked militant infiltration in either direction.
Taliban reassure it won’t allow TTP to use Afghanistan against Pakistan: minister just we released all Taliban Pakis and asked to go to Quett Shura/Peshawar shura/KP shura and fight to get your Pasthun Lands.