Showing posts with label Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Show all posts
It may have taken a few rounds of surgical assaults on part of the state security apparatus to get Taliban feel the heat, but it is probably too late for the terrorist outfit to mend faces and make up with the state after more than enough of the innocent blood has been spilled.
A subtle air of mistrust and disorientation characterises Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) freshly discovered penchant for peace (only for thirty days). Pakistan’s strategic gurus, be they security officials, defence experts or the civilian government functionaries, all look aptly justified to see through this entire affair from the spectacles of scepticism.
As the orthodox lot of ‘Taliban lovers’ jumps into motion to shower endless praises on the TTP’s newly revived love for dialogue, the public, security establishment, politicians, civil society, journalists and the different cross-sections of Pakistani society in general are not ready to buy this, especially at a time when surgical missions in the north-western tribal areas have had more than 140 terrorists including some top TTP commanders eliminated from the face of the earth.
“They talk sense only when they are made to face the music,” said Lieutenant General (Retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch in an obvious reference to the TTP’s ceasefire announcement for 30 days. “This clearly indicates we have taught them a real good lesson.”
Baloch, an incumbent federal minister, did not seem much moved. “They talked like that in the past and they were the ones to have breached the peace agreements and resorted to violence. We really have to look if this is yet another eyewash only to buy time for regrouping or they really mean business,” the former general referred to the peace dialogues initiated in the past all of which died an ultimately obvious death.
“Even just recently, the Taliban were the ones who offered peace talks and they were the ones who spilled our innocent blood. Our brave security men and civilians were so ruthlessly targeted in dozens of attacks. So, if this is just another time-buying tactic only to regroup to unleash more havoc, we are not going to buy it and the TTP will have to pay for it the hard way.”
The TTP’s offer, the minister said, would be taken up for discussion by the prime minister and the cabinet members. “We will see if the TTP is serious enough to mend its ways or they’re just playing games. Our future policy line would be determined after we exchange notes,” he told this correspondent.
Dr Hassan Askari Rizvi did not think differently. “Taliban cannot be trusted,” he said while describing this fresh offer from the notorious terrorist outfit as a gimmick for saving its skin. “More than 14 peace agreements were struck in the past and see what was the result. We cannot and must not act in such a naïve and gullible way so as to trust these terrorists again and again.”
Wishing to stay unnamed for obvious reasons, a security Czar, in a meeting with this correspondent in the recent past, did not mince words to term the TTP and its allied militant groups as “mercenaries who have lust for blood.”
The official, a highly placed one, could see it coming what the TTP had to offer on Saturday. “Their chain of command is broken. Now they’ll talk about peace. They’ll talk about the country and Islam and there would be certain elements that would stand up to support this demand. Such kind of melodramas creates discontent within the rank and file of the military.”
The security official believed it is not about weeks or months, but a matter of a few days to wipe out the militants from the planet. “It’s all about will. The political will. The security forces are ready to make the terrorists pay through the nose, the way we have had, recently. It’s the politicians who always back off.”
Lieutenant General (Retd) Talat Masood shared his views in a similar vein. “The Pakistani nation should not be made to suffer for the misdeeds of the militants. The TTP does not call the shots anymore. The security forces have neutralised the militants in several parts. After achieving a high level of success, the option to reverse the ongoing action would have adverse consequences. The public, political parties and the security establishment are all on same page to take on terrorism. The government should honour the wishes of the people.”
The Nation
Pakistan on Sunday said it was halting air strikes against Taliban militants in response to a month-long ceasefire announced by the insurgents a day earlier, paving the way for the resumption of peace talks.
The government entered into peace talks with the Taliban last month aimed at ending the militants' seven-year insurgency, but the dialogue broke down after militants killed 23 kidnapped soldiers.
The military responded with a series of air strikes in the volatile northwestern tribal areas that left more than 100 insurgents dead, and on Saturday the Taliban announced a month-long ceasefire aimed at resuming the stalled talks.
“After the positive announcement yesterday by the Taliban, the government has decided to suspend the air strikes which were continuing for the past few days,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a statement Sunday.
The statement added that “the government and armed forces of Pakistan, however, reserve the right for a befitting response to any act of violence (by the Taliban).”
The Taliban's ceasefire announcement on Saturday was met with scepticism by analysts who said it may have been a tactic to allow the militants to regroup after they had taken heavy losses in air strikes.
But Khan said the “government considers the announcement of stopping of violent activities by Taliban a positive development.”
He added that since the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took charge in June last year, Islamabad had not taken “any unjustified action” against the militants, choosing only to react to violence rather than initiating any new military operations.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a member of the government's negotiation team, told AFP: “I think that the possibility of resumption of peace talks has now increased. A ceasefire was the demand of the government and the negotiations committee.
“But the ceasefire should be effective. If attacks continue then the conducive environment we are searching for won't materialise.”
Balancing act
Reacting to the minister's announcement, political analyst Raza Rumi told AFP that the government was attempting to play a balancing act and had to match the Taliban's ceasefire “to ensure right wing public opinion does not turn against them.”
“I think one issue is the government wants to appear as a peace loving political entity. But deep down there is a desire by both parties to buy more time given the way the situation is unfolding in Afghanistan.”
“They want to wait for what happens,” he said, referring to the withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and its regional impact.
Security analyst Talat Masood, a retired general, said the ceasefire had come about because the military's air strikes had forced the Taliban back to the negotiation table, and that the government should be careful not to lose its advantage.
“One of the inherent dangers of a ceasefire is that it allows militants to regroup or reorganise. We will have to increase our intelligence to closely monitor if militants are regrouping or escaping during the ceasefire,” he said.
He added that militant groups which are not in favour of talks may try to disrupt the ceasefire.
Eleven paramilitary soldiers and one child died while 11 other people were wounded when three roadside bombs targeting a polio vaccination team in the lawless Khyber district exploded Saturday, in an attack carried out by the little-known Abdullah Izam Brigade, according to an official.
The Pakistani military earlier on Sunday deployed a helicopter gunship to kill five militants it blamed for the attack, a senior security official told AFP.
DAWN
Rustam Shah Mohmand on Sunday said foreign terrorists hiding in tribal areas have three options: surrender, leave the area or live in peace.
Talking to reporters, the government committee member said the government needed to assimilate foreign terrorists in the mainstream who could not go back to their countries.
Prayers were answered as Pakistan won cricket match against archrival India in Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bungla stadium. Earlier, Mohmand had urged the Taliban to pray for Pakistan’s victory in the Asia Cup against India.
The government interlocutor said that the Taliban have declared a ceasefire on the government’s demand. He said that the government committee members would be meeting in a day or two to review the situation.
He said that following the ceasefire, an environment of trust would be created and swapping of prisoners would further strengthen the confidence in each other. He said that the government should demand extension in the period of Taliban ceasefire.
Mohmand said that the resolution of issues would take time.
Pakistan Today
Pakistan calls it a "positive development" toward addressing recent violence
The Taliban in Pakistan announced a one-month truce Saturday to allow negotiations with the government to move forward, a move Pakistani authorities called a “positive development” after deadly strikes interrupted peace talks last month.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Shahidullah Shahid, said he wanted a ceasefire ”because of a positive response from the government, an appeal from the religious scholars and for the better future of Pakistan,” reports the BBC. He called on the Pakistani government to end U.S. drone strikes and introduce Sharia law in the country.
The two sides will meet “within a day or two” said Pakistani officials after 17 days of talks. “This is the first big breakthrough that we are seeing,” said Irfan Siddiqui, an advisor to the prime minister.
Violence has flared up in the region and hundreds have been killed by the Taliban in recent months as U.S. forces prepare to leave Afghanistan, and talks between the Taliban and the Pakistani government had dragged on with little to show until the ceasefire was announced.
Negotiations ceased last month when Taliban-linked militants said they killed 23 soldiers they were holding and the government responded with airstrikes on dissidents in the country’s northwest. On Saturday, a bomb attack on a polio vaccination team killed 11 in northwest Pakistan, but the Taliban has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
[BBC]
(Left) This satellite image provided by TerraServer.com and DigitalGlobe shows an image of Guantanamo Bay captured on Sept. 2, 2010 with “Penny Lane” marked in red. (Right) Abdullah Mehsud in Pakistan (comic)
On November 25, The Associated Pressreleased a news report which strengthens the beliefs held by many security analyts, that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or ‘TTP’ for short, a terrorist organization which repeatedly claims ties to the Afghan Taliban, is a fake group bred by the American intelligence community.
According to the report, the CIA had a secret facility (until 2006) near the main Guantanamo Bay prison, dubbed “Penny Lane“, where captured jihadists and fighters from Afghanistan were turned into double agents. This fundamentally required that those who agreed in being American spies would guarantee full cooperation in “killing terrorists” (or, in other words, targeting elements who are eyesore for the US).
Captives who signed up to be double agents were offered millions of dollars from the CIA’s (read American taxpayers’ money) secret account (Codename ‘Pledge’), along with safety for their families.
But that’s not all. According to a report in the Voice of Russia compiled from various established sources, a few of these prospective double agents who were apparently lured by opportunities to be filthy rich and yet retain their iconic ‘warlord’ status, would sometimes request for porn material. It is said that Penny Lane was quite comfortable, in comparison to Guantanamo Bay prison, as it had beds, private kitchens and also a small patio.
The militants who decided once and for all to end fighting American forces signed formal agreements to work for the CIA. One prisoner though, was reportedly forced into agreeing because the CIA threatened of harming his children.
The CIA + Abdullah Mehsud = TTP is born
Abdullah Mehsud can be described as one of the key founders of the TTP, an organization whose country-wide attacks in Pakistan have resulted in 15,681 armed forces casualties. Similarly, approximately 5,152 civilians have been killed and 5,678 injured in bomb blasts and suicide attacks since 2008. These statistics werepresented by legal counsels for Pakistan’s intelligence agencies at the Supreme Court on 26 March 2013.
Abdullah Mehsud had lost a leg in a landmine explosion in 1996 and was captured sometime later by Uzbek-origin Afghan commander Abdul Rashid Dostum while fighting the Northern Alliance. He was imprisoned at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay for two years and later, to much surprise and shock, released in March 2004. What’s even more astounding is that he was also gifted a prosthetic limb by his captors, according to a statement by Brigadier General Jay Hood who was then running the camp.
A document titled JTF-GTMO Information on Detainees mentions that Abdullah Mehsud was released because he “claimed to be an office clerk and driver for the Taliban from 1996 to 1998 or 1999. He consistently denied having any affiliation with al Qaida. He also claimed to have received no weapons or military training due to his handicap (an amputation resulting from when he stepped on a land mine 10 years ago). He claimed that after September 11, 2001 he was forcibly conscripted by the Taliban military“.
This same Abdullah was later named as the commander of Al Qaeda-affiliated militants who ordered his band of subordinate fighters to kidnap two Chinese engineers (one was killed during a rescue attempt gone bad).
The Afghan Taliban were displeased with the incident and reportedly booted Abdullah Mehsud out. They were also suspicious of his activities since he was mysteriously released by the US military “crusaders” from Guantanamo.
While in Afghanistan, Abdullah Mehsud had created his own parallel “Taliban” militia and proudly claimed while giving media interviews in Afghanistan, that he was behind a series of attacks on Pakistani security forces (unlike the Afghan Taliban who were focused on fighting ISAF-NATO). Upon his return through Zhob in Balochistan province of Pakistan, security forces were aware of his presence and raided the house of Sheikh Ayub Mandokhel to capture him on 24 July 2007. Sheikh Mandokhel was a leader affiliated with the Islamist JUI-F of Maulana Fazlur Rehman. However, before he could be arrested, Abdullah blew himself up.
It is worth noting that before Abdullah Mehsud was released from Guantanamo and dropped in Afghanistan, there were no attacks taking place against Pakistani security forces. This is where a large information vacuum exists and which must be explored further. Had Abdullah Mehsud created a new “Taliban” that would be America’s own brand of Islamists?
In an article for The New Tork Times dated 22 October 2009, journalist Scott Shane quoted an unnamed Afghan Taliban official as saying that for the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), “there will not be any support from us”. He added the Afghan Taliban “don’t have interest in fighting against other countries”.
Furthermore, the Afghan Taliban commander said their mission is to get occupation forces out (of Afghanistan) and “not get into a fight with a Muslim army”.
Many journalists and security officials in Western states have been alleging since long that the Afghan Taliban are aided by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. Had that been the case, their so-called assets would have prevented Colonel (retd) Sultan Amir Tarar alias “Colonel Imam”, their former teacher from the Afghan war era, from being killed at the hands of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the recently-killed TTP chief.
There are also many other incidents such as this which suggest that had the Afghan Taliban indeed been proxies of the Pakistani agencies, as is routinely alleged, they would have instructed the TTP to stop attacks on Pakistani forces. But this never happened. Instead, as reported earlier, more than 15,000 soldiers and high-ranking armed forces personnel from Pakistan lost their lives.
But then, the question arises, who are these Pakistani Taliban fighting a Muslim army (of Pakistan) which the Afghan Taliban do not wish to fight? Are they a band of militants who were recruited by Abdullah Mehsud and later on joined hands with Baitullah Mehsud?
The ominous release of Abdullah Mehsud, when reviewed today in context of the new disclosures published by the Associated Press, lay bare historical facts and confirm the fact that he (Abdullah) had been set free because he must have agreed on becoming a double agent for the CIA, hence the safe haven in Afghanistan and US forces not capturing him there again. This also explains why his ideological descendants who later on coalesced to form the TTP are hell-bent on destroying Pakistan.
This also explains why both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have been working on different lines, although appearing the same on the outset (basically we have the identical nomenclature to blame for mass confusion).
Felix Kuehn, renowned researcher on terrorism and author of “An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan 1970-2010″, said at an event organized by the Afghanistan Study Group and the Center for International Policy, that although the (Afghan) Taliban and Al Qaeda have some ties, “they are separate and distinct groups with different constituencies and different goals”. Kuehn had studied the Taliban and Al Qaeda closely while staying at Kandahar despite extreme risks to his life.
From a report by Bob Dreyfuss in The Nation:
For at least three years, Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten have lived and worked in Kandahar, where they’ve studied the two organizations, lived with Kandahar citizens, and met people of all political persuasions there, including Taliban commanders.
Kuehn points out that the Taliban and Al Qaeda adhere to different strains of Islamic thought, the Taliban associated with Saudi-influenced, Wahhabi-style Hanafi beliefs, and Al Qaeda associated with the more radical, more rigid Hanbali school. The Taliban, of course, are Afghans, and Al Qaeda mostly Arab and almost entirely non-Afghan. Generationally, they are different, too, with most Al Qaeda leaders older than the young commanders of the Taliban, and whereas many Al Qaeda people are professionals and well educated, the Taliban are rural, unschooled, and grew up in places like Kandahar where newspapers were nonexistent and even radios were in the hands of only a privileged few.
When Al Qaeda arrived in Afghanistan from Sudan around 1996, says Kuehn, its membership was not more than 30. Al Qaeda fighters, and the growing number of recruits who came to Afghanistan from elsewhere, kept apart from Taliban fighters, who resented Al Qaeda, and there was a great deal of animosity between the two. Osama bin Laden insisted that international actions against the United States and other countries was crucial to his strategy, while Mullah Omar opposed such actions, says Kuehn.
“Osama bin Laden’s death will have zero impact on the Afghan Taliban,” says Kuehn. In part, that’s because they “didn’t have much a relationship to begin with.” Still, he says, it’s foolish to expect the Taliban to denounce Al Qaeda or to formally break with the organization, in part because bin Laden and Al Qaeda were Mullah Omar’s bridge to the Arab world. Yet when bin Laden was killed, the Taliban’s reaction was muted, and its statement—released via the Taliban’s semi-official web site—was mild and restrained. (If you haven’t spent time reading the Taliban in its own words, its web site is the place to start.)
Yet, we saw that Hakeemullah Mehsud and his groups under the umbrella of the TTP were openly supportive of, and aligned with, the global Al Qaeda. The attack on a CIA base by Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal Al-Balawi, who was seen in a video statement released by the Umar Media of TTP to be sitting next to Hakeemullah Mehsud, was most possibly a false attack which the CIA itself ordered as a stunt to prove it has no ties with the TTP.
Later, we saw Baitullah Mehsud, then Hakeemullah Mehsud (who lived in a luxurious $120,000 mansion), continue the legacy of this fake brand of Taliban. Or putting it more precisely, the CIA brand of Taliban. A group which has caused more damage to Pakistan than any other through brainwashed suicide-attack blasts, IED explosions, urban warfare, destruction of strategic defence equipment in use by the Pakistan Army, Air Force and Navy, bombing of ISI offices, murder of thousands of innocent civilians, beheading of hundreds of Pakistan Army troops, and what not.
It is most likely that the birth of these murderers’ ideology took place at the once-secret Penny Lane facility.
And when the controllers of these cheap hirelings and ignorant “holy warriors” of the Pakistani Taliban, who liaise between Langley and FATA/Afghanistan are no longer needed, they are simply disposed by being “droned” to death, just like Baitullah and Hakeemullah were. That is the destiny awaiting every worthless CIA asset.
Many sectors of the Pakistani society were well-aware of these facts but these mainstream revelations (still not complete though) are ample proof that the US has played a major role in destabilizing Pakistan, as it wants to avenge its own strategic blunders which it committed by unnecessarily invading Afghanistan.
The US needs it’s own Taliban to keep Pakistan engaged in internal house-cleaning and meanwhile give free space to India to attain what is has always desired: a large strategic stake in Afghanistan.
(Left) This satellite image provided by TerraServer.com and DigitalGlobe shows an image of Guantanamo Bay captured on Sept. 2, 2010 with “Penny Lane” marked in red. (Right) Abdullah Mehsud in Pakistan (comic)
For at least three years, Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten have lived and worked in Kandahar, where they’ve studied the two organizations, lived with Kandahar citizens, and met people of all political persuasions there, including Taliban commanders.
Kuehn points out that the Taliban and Al Qaeda adhere to different strains of Islamic thought, the Taliban associated with Saudi-influenced, Wahhabi-style Hanafi beliefs, and Al Qaeda associated with the more radical, more rigid Hanbali school. The Taliban, of course, are Afghans, and Al Qaeda mostly Arab and almost entirely non-Afghan. Generationally, they are different, too, with most Al Qaeda leaders older than the young commanders of the Taliban, and whereas many Al Qaeda people are professionals and well educated, the Taliban are rural, unschooled, and grew up in places like Kandahar where newspapers were nonexistent and even radios were in the hands of only a privileged few.
When Al Qaeda arrived in Afghanistan from Sudan around 1996, says Kuehn, its membership was not more than 30. Al Qaeda fighters, and the growing number of recruits who came to Afghanistan from elsewhere, kept apart from Taliban fighters, who resented Al Qaeda, and there was a great deal of animosity between the two. Osama bin Laden insisted that international actions against the United States and other countries was crucial to his strategy, while Mullah Omar opposed such actions, says Kuehn.
“Osama bin Laden’s death will have zero impact on the Afghan Taliban,” says Kuehn. In part, that’s because they “didn’t have much a relationship to begin with.” Still, he says, it’s foolish to expect the Taliban to denounce Al Qaeda or to formally break with the organization, in part because bin Laden and Al Qaeda were Mullah Omar’s bridge to the Arab world. Yet when bin Laden was killed, the Taliban’s reaction was muted, and its statement—released via the Taliban’s semi-official web site—was mild and restrained. (If you haven’t spent time reading the Taliban in its own words, its web site is the place to start.)
by Zaki Khalid
Veterans Today
The Jamaat e Islami (JI) Chief has flabbergasted and outraged the people and probably his own party by a statement that makes no sense unless his aim was to create the kind of controversy that is now raging. He has said that the terrorist leader killed in a Drone strike recently is a Shaheed (martyr) and that those killed while defending the country against the scourge of terrorism are not. Coming from a religious leader such a statement is a direct assault on the integrity of the country’s armed and law enforcement forces. It is also a statement that undermines the honor of the thousands who have been killed and crippled while executing the government’s policy to defend the country and the cause of Islam. Can one even begin to understand how such a statement can undermine morale and motivation — the bedrock of the spirit that leads men to sacrifice their lives? Can anyone imagine the anguish of the wives, daughters, sons, fathers and mothers of those who did not reason why and chose to die? There is rage and anger across the land and it is justified. Lost in the confusion is another statement by another Chief of a religious party that — ‘even a dog killed by the Americans is a Shaheed’ — talk about bad taste and distorted thinking.
After waiting for a government reaction to these most damaging statements and not getting any, the Armed Forces through the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate has issued a strong statement that is a condemnation, rebuttal and a demand for an apology. So far there is silence from the government while the JI is doing damage control of sorts by saying that their shura will decide on a response and this was the personal opinion of their Chief. None of this makes sense. What has been said cannot be unsaid. As we have seen from recent events in the senate, apologizing is not what we are good at — even when the image of our country and its integrity is at stake. Is this the much talked about beauty of democracy?
The reality is that rash, spur of the moment statements create problems. The tone for the entire debate should have been carefully set and modulated right after the Drone strike that killed the TTP leader. There should not have been two views about it and this should not have been used to get on the bandwagon against the US. Talks had not started. The dialogue option had not been turned into a proposal. TTP attacks had escalated. TTP demands could not be met. Yet we are talking about the murder of peace by a drone strike that took out the TTP leader? The dialogue option and possible peace has been murdered not by the Drone strike but by the elevation of a murderer to the leadership of the TTP. He has promptly ruled out the dialogue option and vowed revenge against Pakistan. Some are now hoping for a divide within TTP ranks and infighting among the many groups. The country’s leadership needs to step back, review the situation, acknowledge mistakes and then act to influence opinion that will lead to a rational acceptable narrative.
In an enfeebled, fractured society already divided by sectarian and ethnic issues and being exploited from across our borders there is absolutely no scope for the kind of religious, political and civil-military divides that are now being created by people who need to keep themselves zipped up. The no action, no reaction, thick hide policy that seems to be prevalent will not work — not any more. We have very little time to get it right otherwise the disillusionment with democracy will trigger events that will take their own course. As the Americans tell us — ‘all options are on the table’. Act to rule out the negative ones — and act quickly.
By Adam Raj
By Fahd Humayun
Maulana Fazlullah was always the wild card. As Hakimullah Mehsud’s last rites were being read, and emergency conclaves were being summoned across six other tribal agencies to deliberate upon the militant organization’s future leadership and policy direction, it was expected that operational control of the TTP would remain with the organization’s natural custodians – the Mehsuds.
But the Mehsuds have increasingly become a house divided. Internal cohesion in the militant outfit was frayed first by the death of Wali-ur-Rehman in May, and then the sacking of longstanding party spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan in June after he suggested that the TTP and Afghan Taliban were separate entities. The capture of Hakimullah’s close aide Latifullah Mehsud in Afghanistan’s Logar province this October was another unexpected blow to the TTP’s central command. That Latifullah was picked up, and not eliminated like so many others by surgical drone strikes, has augmented the possibility that the once trusted deputy may have played a part in providing actionable intelligence to the US about the TTP chief’s movements. If correct, this is undisputedly symptomatic of deeper fissures colouring the group’s social fabric.
As news of Hakimullah’s death broke on TV channels across the country, Maulana Fazlullah and Umar Khalid convened rival shuras in Swat and Mohmand Agency respectively to discuss the game plan for their own individual chapters. In South Waziristan, meanwhile, local commander Khan Said was considered by many to be the natural heir in the Mehsuds’ jealously guarded line of succession.
As contenders for the TTP title, Maulana Fazlullah was, by all accounts, the weakest link. It was argued that his dwindling shelf-life notwithstanding, the former Radio Mullah’s capacity to lead a splinter faction was constrained by his relegation to eastern Afghanistan. As potential power brokers, Umar Khalid and Khan Said were thought to present significantly greater challenges.
However, legitimacy is disputed currency in the tribal areas. Reports that 17 out of 60 members of the majlis-e-shura voted against South Waziristan commander Khan Said’s nomination for TTP chief suggest that internal voices of opposition had shrunk the Mehsuds’ own political space within the organization. And bipartisanship is an indulgence that non-state actors at war can rarely afford.
In an organization where blood is spilt to establish hierarchy, Hakimullah’s failure to leave behind a will or a clear choice of successor is likely to carry a heavy price tag for the Mehsuds. For militants who claim they are prepared to die fighting, the level of unpreparedness exhibited at the funerals of Baitullah Mehsud and now his protégé Hakimullah has been striking. Hakimullah took charge of the TTP following a long summer of protracted political infighting after Baitullah’s death in 2009; that he would spend his own days fighting on the frontline without giving a thought to his future successor seems to have been a managerial oversight on his part.
2013 has been a year of existential crisis for the TTP, and Maulana Fazlullah’s quiet rise to the forefront may be indicative of the underlying mood within the organization. Notorious for his iron-fisted control of Swat between 2007 and 2009, Fazlullah is remembered as the man who transformed Mingora’s Green Square into a public execution ground, and ordered the attack on Malala in 2012. Rumours that he may recently have been shifted to Pakistan from Afghanistan in an attempt to facilitate negotiations with the PML-N government, while speculative, suggest that power dynamics within the TTP have been in a state of flux for a while.
With Hakimullah’s death, it seemed as if uncertainty about TTP’s future had set in. And while uncertainty in times of war can be debilitating, Fazlullah’s selection as the new face of the TTP raises the possibility that the appointment will be internally contested. As the first non-Mehsud to lead the organization since its ethnogenesis in December 2007, the core message here is that the TTP has less to lose; in this context, desperation and conviction of cause are likely to translate into infrequent but higher-intensity attacks against the state.
Against this backdrop is a ferocious debate on the CIA’s controversial drone campaign, and while the Hellfire missiles targeting Hakimullah and his men have certainly left cracks in the walls of House TTP, they have also divisively split public opinion in Pakistan. As the US counterterrorism strategy of choice, drones continue to do more harm than good, fuelling radicalization and undercutting national and regional stability.
Given these arguments, the altered demographic reality of the TTP has heightened the need for a revised CT strategy. The targeting of the militancy’s topmost leadership tier has significantly narrowed the pyramid that forms the TTP’s organizational structure. A once prolific cadre of battle-hardened lieutenants has been washed thin, leaving behind an unwieldy base of foot soldiers with basic education and training, and greater prospects for de-radicalization and social mainstreaming.
In this context, a systematic strategy of fight-talk-fight (continue to target the hardliner leadership tier, but offer individual groups amnesty if willing to renounce violence) may help arrest the TTP’s strategic momentum. With the conflict in Afghanistan entering its twilight, the likelihood of a tribal buy-in to such a strategy is closely linked to the desperate desire for peace in a war-ravaged frontier.
Given that the PML-N government has already bitten the APC bullet, negotiations with the TTP need to be approached strategically rather than apologetically – a willingness by the government to talk does not necessarily imply a Faustian bargain. However, Fazlullah’s hardliner posturing also suggests that the TTP may now be less willing to talk.
Ultimately there was never a shortage of able-bodied protagonists to carry the fallen TTP banner, but there was a clear shortage of self-assurance. If exploited correctly, this vacuum could still give way to a deeper identity crisis within the movement’s ranks. For violent non-state actors, success is path-dependent on internal cohesion, and the last standing groups are those that amount to more than the sum of their individual parts.
For Fazlullah, finding that crucial balance will depend on coming to terms with the political compulsions of his own game of thrones; this will entail either a ruthless consolidation of power, or a judicious accommodation of centripetal tendencies within the movement. The latter will provide the state with a comparative advantage. The former will be a game-point for the TTP.
The writer is a project manager for Jinnah Institute’s Strategic Security Initiative, and tweets @fahdhumayun.
Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, stated that the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement directed at the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Munawar Hassan was not an interference in politics, Express News reported on Tuesday.
“ISPR’s statement is the voice of every Pakistani,” said the information minister, endorsing ISPR’s condemnation of the JI chief Munawar Hassan calling the the slain Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah a ‘martyr.’
The Jamaat-e-Islami had held a meeting on Monday to specifically discuss the Pakistan Army’s press statement.
“The Pakistan army does not have the right to make political or democratic statements,” JI General Secretary Liaquat Baloch had stated.
Baloch also said that a letter regarding the involvement of ISPR in politics would be sent to the Prime Minister.
“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has not received any letter from Liaquat Baloch,” revealed Rasheed, who is a known figure in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Background
In addition to calling Mehsud a martyr, JI chief had reportedly said on television that if an American who died on the battlefield was not a martyr, then his backers were also not martyrs because they were chasing the same goal. This was implicitly directed towards the Pakistan Army.
The ISPR had then demanded an apology from the JI chief and stated that Hassan should take his words back.
Within 24 hours of Pakistan Army’s angry rejoinder to a controversial statement by the JI ameer Syed Munawar Hassan, the party’s Shura (consultative body) had pored over the issue during a meeting on November 11.
Though no formal clarification was issued as was demanded in the ISPR statement, JI leaders had said their party considered everyone who dies fighting for the country a martyr (Shaheed).
The Shura meeting – which was chaired by JI chief Syed Munawar Hassan – had agreed that the armed forces have no right to interfere in politics or democratic issues. Briefing the media after the meeting, JI Secretary Baloch had said the Shura decided to draw the government’s attention to the matter because the military’s interference in politics was unacceptable.
JI chief Hassan had stated that his statement regarding the Pakistan Army was correctaccording to Sharia Law during a party session held in Lahore on November 11.
JI Secretary Baloch and senior JI leader Fareed Piracha were also present at the session, which was held to specifically discuss the Pakistan army’s response to Hassan calling the slain TTP chief Mehsud a ‘martyr.’
Maulana Fazlullah, the new Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader, is a ruthless fighter who is vehemently anti-state and unamenable to peace talks.
Fazlullah was elected as TTP commander by a consultative council of the group on November 7, almost a week after Hakimullah Mehsud, the group’s former leader, was killed by a US drone in the tribal area of North Waziristan.
He is the first commander of the group not to come from the Mehsud tribe in Pakistan’s tribal areas, hailing instead from the northwestern valley of Swat, where he waged a bloody war against the Pakistani state from 2007 to 2009.
As chief of the local chapter of the TTP in Swat, Fazlullah drove civil and military authorities out of the area in 2007, before finally signing a peace agreement with the government in 2009.
The agreement, dubbed the “Nizam-e-Adl” (system of justice), granted the TTP virtual control over Swat and implemented their interpretation of Sharia law, in exchange for the cessation of hostilities.
It soon disintegrated, however, when Fazlullah’s men attempted to expand their sphere of control to neighbouring Buner district.
As a result, Pakistani forces moved into Swat for the second time in two years, resulting in hundreds of deaths and millions of civilians displaced. Fazlullah was finally driven out of the valley by September 2009, with several of his top commanders captured.
But while the government and civilians rebuilt lives in the valley, Fazlullah continued to conduct operations in Swat remotely, from neighbouring Dir district and, as many locals tell Al Jazeera, the Afghan border provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.
From his base, Fazlullah ordered the targeted killings of elders who led peace committees against the Taliban, as well as rights activists. Among the dozens of people the Taliban killed or attempted to kill during this time was Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl activist who rose to global prominence following the attempt on her life.
Early history
Born in 1974 in the village of Kuza Bandai, Fazlullah spent his teenage years selling wooden shuttering and doing odd jobs selling items off pushcarts.
He then enrolled in an Islamic school, or madrassa, run by Sufi Mohammed, a prominent anti-government cleric and leader of the Tehreek-e-Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM). The TNSM had for years been agitating against the government to have Sharia law imposed in the Swat valley.
Fazlullah went on to join TNSM chief Mohammed when he led a group of fighters from Swat into Afghanistan to fight US forces following the invasion of that country in 2001. He also married Mohammed’s daughter.
By 2004, having returned from the Afghan war, Fazlullah started a local radio station in the valley, hosting a one-hour programme that, to begin with, focused on women’s role in Islam and society.
The show spread his ideas regarding a strict intepretation of Sharia law in all spheres of life. He also took a stance against polio vaccinations for children, dubbing them a “Jewish” or “Western” conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.
‘Sharia or martyrdom’
His status as Mohammed’s son-in-law, a veteran of the Afghan war and his radio show all gained him increased prominence, and the man known locally as “Mullah Radio” was soon rivalling his father-in-law in leading the call for Sharia law in the valley.
His rise culiminated in him leading Eid prayers in the valley’s Kabal ground in 2007, an occasion that saw thousands fall in line behind him as he raised the cry of “Sharia or martyrdom!”
With such support, Fazlullah opened a madrassa of his own at Imam Dehri, imparting both religious knowledge and paramilitary training to those who enrolled, with a view to carrying out “jihad” against both the US and Pakistan.
By late 2007, Fazlullah’s chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban had established control over large parts of the valley, weathering a military operation that resulted in the Nizam-e-Adl peace deal.
His group had already established a parallel court system, and he outlawed the operation of businesses such as CD shops, which his group believed to be against Islam. They also carried out attacks against dozens of girls schools, based on the assertion that women should only receive an Islamic education.
During his time in control, Fazlullah ruled over Swat with an iron fist, publically executing both those who would stood against him and those who his group deemed to have violated Sharia law.
Blow to peace talks
Having been targeted in two military operations and engaged in a failed peace deal with Pakistan’s government in the past, it is unclear if Fazlullah will accept an offer of a return to peace talks in his new capacity as overall TTP chief.
Following his election, Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesperson for the TTP, told Al Jazeera that Fazlullah was picked because he was a hardliner who had refused to surrender to Pakistani forces.
The Reuters news agency quoted Shahid as saying: “There will be no more talks as Mullah Fazlullah is already against negotiations with the Pakistan government.
“All governments play double games with us. In the name of peace talks, they deceived us and killed our people. We are 100 percent sure that Pakistan fully supports the United States in its drone strikes.”
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