{"id":1462,"date":"2014-09-30T17:57:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afpakwatch.wordpress.com\/?p=1462"},"modified":"2014-09-30T17:57:18","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:57:18","slug":"punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/30\/punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Punjabi Taliban will fight in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Zia Ur Rehman<\/p>\n

September 19, 2014<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.thefridaytimes.com\/tft\/punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Pakistani Jihadi groups are preparing for what they expect will be a civil war in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US forces at the end of this year, analysts say, and a recent video message of the Punjab chapter of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) corroborates the reports.<\/p>\n

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Afghan National Army soldiers from 2nd Kandak, 2nd Battalion, 201st Corps rest during an operation in Kunar province – See more at: http:\/\/www.thefridaytimes.com\/tft\/punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan\/#sthash.c0S5QI3r.dpuf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The TTP Punjab, commonly known as Punjabi Taliban and headed by by Asmatullah Muawiya (a former leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a Punjab-based banned Jihadi group) announced on September 13 the cessation of subversive activities in Pakistan, \u201cin the best interest of Islam and the country\u201d. Earlier, in a September 5 statement, the group said it would continue to fight in the neighbouring Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

TTP insiders say that Muawiya surrendered to the security forces in the Razmak fort of North Waziristan a few weeks ago and made a peace agreement with them. \u201cNow the group will abandon violent attacks in Pakistan and will send militants to Afghanistan for fighting,\u201d said a Meshud tribal elder who is familiar with the development. The information could not be verified from any military sources.<\/p>\n

Pakistan Army frequently denies links with the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan and says its recent operation against militants in North Waziristan is indiscriminate. \u201cFor the security forces, there will be no discrimination among the TTP groups or the Haqqani militant network,\u201d military spokesman Maj Gen Asim Bajwa said during a recent briefing to reporters. \u201cAll the terrorist groups are going to be eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

US Marine Gen Joseph Dunford, who has recently stepped down as the top US commander in Afghanistan, told the Associated Press that although some fighters had fled to Afghanistan, \u201cwe didn\u2019t see hundreds of fighters massing, or any significant level of violence increase that would indicate the enemy came from North Waziristan and was able to conduct operations inside Afghanistan.\u201d US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen Martin Dempsey said it was too early to judge the offensive by the Pakistani military. \u201cI think it\u2019s too soon to say this has all been, you know, symbolic, or this has been less effective than it needs to be.<\/p>\n

The US government is considering withdrawing all of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Regardless of whether it leaves some troops behind, it is certain that there will be major consequences for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, analysts believe. \u201cThe Punjabi Taliban\u2019s decision to take their fight to Afghanistan underscores the perils of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan,\u201d said Michael Kugelman, a security analyst assocaited with the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. \u201cThe departure of most international forces will leave a security vacuum that the Afghan forces will struggle to fill \u2013 and that regional militants, particularly those affiliated with the Taliban, will happily exploit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insiders say Mehsud militants led by Khan Said alias Sajna persuaded Muawiya to lay down arms and abandon subversive activities in Pakistan. After separating from the TTP, Meshud militants decided that they will niether recruit any non-Mehsud fighter nor give shelter them. \u201cIt seems that Mehsud militants led by Sajna and Punjabi Taliban led by Muawiya are also becoming \u2019good Taliban\u2019 and in the near future, they would be in an alliance with the Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led militants in North Waziristan and Bahawal Khan-led militants in Wana \u2013 who are operating under a non-aggression pact with Pakistani security forces and mainly focusing on Afghanistan,\u201d said a Peshawar editor of an English daily. But Swati militants loyal by Maulana Fazlullah, and Mohmand militants who have now formed a new group \u2019Ahrarul Hind\u2019, are unlikely to abandon voilent actitivites in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The recent developments underscore how divided the Pakistani Taliban are<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Experts say the recent developments underscore how divided the Pakistani Taliban are. \u201cOn the one hand, you have Punjabi Taliban laying down arms and deploying their fighters in Afghanistan, and yet on the other hand we have a new splinter group of TTP that vows to intensifity its fighti in Pakistan,\u201d said Kugelman. \u201dThis will all make it even more difficult for Fazlullah to bring any semblance of order to his increasingly fractious organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pakistani Jihadi organizations have already started to reorganize in major cities since the formation of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) in November 2011. The DPC is an alliance of right-wing groups \u2013 including banned Jihadi groups operating under new names \u2013 formed after a NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at Salala, a border area of Mohmand Agency. Pro-Afghan Taliban Jihadi slogans, flags and posters of outlawed militant groups are visible across the country. The banned groups are operating under new names, but old flags, leaders and headquarters.<\/p>\n

The Afghan government is also carefully monitoring the recent divide in Pakistani Taliban and has expressed concerns about the recent announcement of the Punjabi Taliban. Aimal Faizi, spokesperson to the Afghan president Hamid Karzai, said in an interview that Afghan intelligence agencies have pointed to the involvement of Punjabi Taliban in violent attacks in Afghanistan several times. \u201cPunjabi Taliban\u2019s recent message clearly indicate that the Pakistani military is preparing to interfere in Afghanistan\u2019s affairs again,\u201d Faizi told Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty\u2019s Pashto Aazadi radio. \u201cWe have evidences that Punjabi Taliban were leading the recent attacks in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afghan politicians and activists have expressed similar concerns. Habib Khan, a Kabul-based youth activist, believes that the Punjabi Taliban\u2019s statement shows that Taliban groups, whether Pakistani or Afghan Taliban, are proxies of the Pakistani military establishment to fight their war in Afghanistan \u2013 a charge Pakistan Army has repeatedly denied.<\/p>\n

The writer is a\u00a0journalist\u00a0and researcher.<\/i><\/p>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.thefridaytimes.com\/tft\/punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan\/#sthash.c0S5QI3r.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Zia Ur Rehman September 19, 2014 http:\/\/www.thefridaytimes.com\/tft\/punjabi-taliban-will-fight-in-afghanistan\/ Pakistani Jihadi groups are preparing for what they expect will be a civil war in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US forces at the end of this year, analysts say, and a recent video message of the Punjab chapter of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) corroborates the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1364,1361,11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-afghan-migration","category-conflict-militancy","category-published-in","category-the-friday-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}