TRT World<\/em>. \u201cThe TTP is now mainly headquartered in Afghanistan\u2019s Kunar province and does not have a formal structure in Pakistan anymore.\u201d<\/p>\nStatistics compiled by independent security think-tanks also suggest that successful crackdowns have resulted in a significant decline in terrorist attacks across Pakistan since 2013, showing the TTP has lost its capabilities to carry out terror attacks.<\/p>\n
But along with the military\u2019s actions on the ground, the US drone attacks helped significantly in eliminating the TTP central leadership \u2013 from Baitullah Mehsud to Maulana Fazullah – hiding in Pakistan\u2019s tribal areas or its bordering provinces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah, the TTP chief, was killed in a drone operation on June 13 in Afghanistan\u2019s Kunar province, close to the border. After his killing, Mufti Noor Wali, a leader of the outfit\u2019s faction for Mehsud area, has been elevated to the central chief.<\/p>\n
Wali, who also goes by Abu Mansoor Asim, is a religious scholar who was assigned to oversee the party promotion in the media, serving as a judge and managing the affairs of Karachi from Miramshah office in North Waziristan.<\/p>\n
However, for the TTP\u2019s newly-appointed chief, overcoming the internal differences within the group and increasing its operational capabilities are the main challenges.<\/p>\n
Tribal divisions and disagreements on various issues, such as peace talks with the government, have been the main factors behind discord and splits within the group. The arrival of Daesh in the region, in mid-2014, also caused splintering in the TTP as the former\u2019s ideological appeal, worldwide reputation, and substantial financial resources attracted a number of commanders from the latter.<\/p>\n
Although the leadership tussle in the TTP emerged after killing of Baitullah Mehsud in a drone attack in 2009, the infighting continued over the years, plaguing the group not only in Pakistan\u2019s tribal districts but also in Kunar Province of Afghanistan, according to sources familiar with the rift in TTP’s rank and file.<\/p>\n
TTP\u2019s disgruntled commanders from Mohmand region formed Jamaat ul Ahrar (JuA) in 2014. Soon after its creation, Ahrar too splintered when Mukarram Khan, a militant leader in Mohmand agency, who created Hizbul Ahrar, after he had a falling out with JuA chief Omar Khalid Khurasani in November 2017. Also, the Asmatullah Muawiya-led TTP Punjab chapter, known as Punjabi Taliban, reportedly surrendered to the government in September 2014, promising to cease his operations in Pakistan and instead take its fight to neighbouring Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
After Wali became the TTP\u2019s new chief, the main efforts of the organisation seemed to unite the splinter groups, achieving some success, said Iftikhar Firdous, a Peshawar-based journalist, covering the militancy extensively. An online booklet titled Strategy for the TTP militants, released for its members in September also mentioned the internal differences in the group\u2019s ranks and provided special instructions to overcome them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in recent times, we have seen the attacks that IS [Daesh] has claimed responsibility for, were jointly coordinated with a group that the TTP has distanced itself from,\u201d Firdous told\u00a0TRT World<\/em>.<\/p>\nHe said although the TTP has been pushed to the peripheries after the military operations, they still carry out attacks intermittently. \u201cThe current state of the organisation is scattered, but in recent times most of their attacks seem to be centred in and around Balochistan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the start of 2019, the TTP has carried out three major attacks in Balochistan\u2019s Pashtun areas, bordering with Afghanistan and tribal areas. On January 1, TTP gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked a residential compound at a paramilitary force\u2019s training base in the area, killing security officials in Loralai district. In the same district, on January 29, the group carried out suicide attacks on a district police office, killing nine people and wounding 21 \u2013 most of them were policemen. On March 26, four suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up during a raid conducted by security forces in Loralai.<\/p>\n
The operations have not been enough to eliminate the group on Pakistani soil, because the TTP leaders have been masterminding attacks from Afghanistan, and tackling them is turning out to be a key challenge for the Pakistani government.<\/p>\n
End<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Zia Ur Rehman TRT World April 18, 2019 https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/magazine\/pakistani-taliban-between-infighting-government-crackdowns-and-daesh-25976 SOUTH WAZIRISTAN, Pakistan \u2014\u00a0It took three days of back and forth, arguments and counter-arguments, and some persistent convincing to get the leaders of independent Taliban groups operating in various parts of Pakistan to gather under one platform. Some 11 years ago, on December 14 2007, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1361,18],"tags":[959,1232,1268],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-conflict-militancy","category-trt-world","tag-pakistani-taliban","tag-tehreek-e-taliban-pakistan","tag-ttp-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","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=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"6617.png\"](\"https:\/\/afpakwatch.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/6617.png\")
by Zia Ur Rehman<\/p>\n