After BKU attack, TTP coming apart at the seams

[Devil Soul]

After BKU attack, TTP coming apart at the seams
By Tahir Khan
Published: February 1, 2016
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban face another possible split as a top commander who claimed responsibility for the Bacha Khan University assault is upset with the central leadership for disowning the attack and promising action against the perpetrators.

A joint council of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam has also been dissolved over lack of interest by TTP’s fugitive chief Mullah Fazlullah, a Taliban leader told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

The five-member council was formed in March last year after the three groups decided to work in tandem after their hideouts were in the tribal regions were decimated in military offensives. The army says all militant groups now operate from the Afghan side of the border.

“Umar Mansoor faced a huge embarrassment when the TTP’s central leadership disavowed any role in the Charsadda attack,” said the Taliban leader, who requested not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

He is now acting as an independent commander and even introduced himself as the leader of the Taliban in the Darra Adam Khel region in a recent interview with a foreign radio that indicates his serious differences with the central leadership. This is the first time he has introduced himself this way, the commander added.


Umar, who also recently released a video along with the alleged BKU attackers, did not mention the TTP chief in the recording, although he had mentioned and praised Fazlullah in his previous video messages after the Peshawar school and Badhaber PAF base attacks.

The TTP spokesman did not respond to a query sent to him on the group’s official email address if any action has been taken against Umar for the massacre of over 20 students and staff at the BKU.

Some Taliban sources doubt the authority of the TTP leadership to take action against Umar, who is considered among a few powerful commanders still attached to the outlawed group. He was among the three senior leaders associated with Fazlullah at a time when the TTP faced a split after the death of Hakimullah Mehsood in late 2013, a Taliban leader says. The other senior leaders were Khalid Haqqani, the TTP deputy chief and Sheharyar Mehsud, who led a splinter faction of the Mehsud tribe Taliban.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2016.

 

[Zarvan]

After BKU attack, TTP coming apart at the seams
By Tahir Khan
Published: February 1, 2016
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban face another possible split as a top commander who claimed responsibility for the Bacha Khan University assault is upset with the central leadership for disowning the attack and promising action against the perpetrators.

A joint council of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam has also been dissolved over lack of interest by TTP’s fugitive chief Mullah Fazlullah, a Taliban leader told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

The five-member council was formed in March last year after the three groups decided to work in tandem after their hideouts were in the tribal regions were decimated in military offensives. The army says all militant groups now operate from the Afghan side of the border.

“Umar Mansoor faced a huge embarrassment when the TTP’s central leadership disavowed any role in the Charsadda attack,” said the Taliban leader, who requested not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

He is now acting as an independent commander and even introduced himself as the leader of the Taliban in the Darra Adam Khel region in a recent interview with a foreign radio that indicates his serious differences with the central leadership. This is the first time he has introduced himself this way, the commander added.


Umar, who also recently released a video along with the alleged BKU attackers, did not mention the TTP chief in the recording, although he had mentioned and praised Fazlullah in his previous video messages after the Peshawar school and Badhaber PAF base attacks.

The TTP spokesman did not respond to a query sent to him on the group’s official email address if any action has been taken against Umar for the massacre of over 20 students and staff at the BKU.

Some Taliban sources doubt the authority of the TTP leadership to take action against Umar, who is considered among a few powerful commanders still attached to the outlawed group. He was among the three senior leaders associated with Fazlullah at a time when the TTP faced a split after the death of Hakimullah Mehsood in late 2013, a Taliban leader says. The other senior leaders were Khalid Haqqani, the TTP deputy chief and Sheharyar Mehsud, who led a splinter faction of the Mehsud tribe Taliban.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2016.

The only thing good would be when these small groups stop attacks or surrender but if they are only separating to form their own group to kill innocents than dealing with small groups is much more difficult than dealing with one big group.

 

[Darth Vader]

All terrorists must be punished they are the scums of society who shouldn't even be considered humans when these barberic animals cant even leave our children alone.
This battle is for the future safety of our childern

 

[CENTCOM]

Any possible disharmony among the terrorist groups should be seen in a positive light. The divide among these certain factions benefits our shared goal to negate the common threat of terrorism. At the same time, these terrorists group still remain a major threat in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, as evident by the recent attack on the Bacha Khan University. It should be acknowledged that Pakistan’s military offensive has certainly weakened their operations, and according to various reports, terrorist attacks have declined throughout the country. Commander-designate U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen John Nicholson, said: “The military operation being carried out by Pakistan’s Army in the tribal region is critical to defeating terrorism.”

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1037367...s-ability-to-use-pakistani-soil-us-commander/

The wounds from the attack are still afresh, and it is apparent from the readers’ comments that majority feel no mercy should be given to these enemies of peace. While these terrorists have tried everything to gain control in the last decade, to their disappointment, they have been unable to break our common stance against terrorism. We stand with Pakistan during this difficult time, and have full confidence in the government’s ability to eradicate the menace of terrorism.

Ali Khan

Digital Engagement Team, USCENTCOM

 

[Solomon2]

Pakistan Taliban Still Deadly
FEBRUARY 1, 2016, 3:07 PM

Recently Pakistani Army boasted they had the Pakistan Taliban also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on run and are in disarray. It was claimed that the punishing, yearlong offensive had ousted the Taliban insurgents from their most prized tribal sanctuary. The movement’s various factions were riven by violent rivalries, and attacks on Pakistan’s towns and cities had largely ceased because of this.

But now all this claims are doubted after the four Taliban gunmen mounted a deadly attack on Baccha Khan University in the northwestern town of Charsadda, killing 20 people. Taliban argued that they had targeted the university campus because it prepared students to join the government and army. No doubt military campaigns against TTP has deteriorated its fighting capabilities as its leadership is on the run. About 70 percent of the infrastructure in the tribal areas which were once the strongholds of Taliban insurgents has been dismantled. But certainly TTP is not dead and their alliances with other militant groups are still alive and kicking.

The Pakistani military leadership has claimed periodically that the TTP rump is now hiding in Afghanistan’s eastern and northeastern regions and have been calling for an Afghan campaign against them. But it’s a matter of fact that still Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is the largest militant group in Pakistan and its recruitment is done with the help of tribal loyalties and local affiliations.

Certainly, the Pakistani Taliban is no longer the tightly unified force that it once was, when the movement was commanded from the heartland of Waziristan in the tribal belt by swaggering, publicity-hungry commanders who could call on a seemingly limitless stream of suicide bombers to hit targets across Pakistan, including even the army General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi.

The current nominal leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, was a polarizing figure within the militant movement even from the start. But since the military began clearing his subcommanders and allies out of the North Waziristan tribal area, he appears to have even less authority over the Taliban’s factional leaders, many of them headstrong characters who alternate between cooperation and violent feuding. So because of these military campaigns TTP does not possess the capability now of running a parallel government like it did in Swat and South Waziristan once upon a time. But still it can target the civilian soft targets and by doing this it tries to prove itself deadly and active.

The real operational strengths of Pakistan Taliban are its affiliates and support networks, which still exist inside Pakistan. Taliban supporters and sympathizers provide base and facilitate the movements of fighters without which no attack can be planned and executed.

Till now Pakistani authorities have failed to take action against sympathisers of TTP. Now the Pakistani public is starting to question the success of the ongoing military operation. Moreover it can be argued that, in some senses, the government’s military operations have strengthened the region’s fractious jihadist organizations by forcing them to put aside their differences and work together. For example the government’s commencement of the Zarb-e-Azb operation in North Waziristan district, and supplementary operations in other districts of tribal areas, served to soften the TTP’s differences over the leadership and to bind these groups together against a common enemy which is Pakistani state.

The government’s various operations have only been able to restrict the space for Taliban insurgents to operate in rather than deny it complete there is also the fact that no senior militant leaders have yet been killed or arrested, making it is easier for these groups to bounce back and reorganize themselves once government pressure is removed. Moreover Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network are also all weather friends of TTP. The Pakistan army’s protection of the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban as ‘strategic assets’ has helped the TTP to retain its sanctuary and its attack capabilities. The areas dominated by the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban have provided TTP with strategic depth.

Whenever the Pakistan military stepped up its offensive in the tribal areas, the TTP found it convenient to move into the Afghan Taliban-controlled areas. There is substantial evidence that the Haqqani Network has also helped the TTP to survive the military onslaught which, in any case, has been selective and hence ineffective. What Pakistan today faces in the TTP is a hybrid group, a mixture of virulent insurgency and terrorism. By considering the current situation, it’s a high time that the Pakistan military take some other effective steps as well in additions to its ground campaigns against TTP. So that the aim of neutralizing TTP throughout the nation can be achieved by fullest. Pakistani authorities have to identify and break up local terrorist networks which supports TTP, counter radical ideology through deradicalization progamme for youths, and more important, take adequate measures to address lawlessness and extreme poverty in the northwestern mountainous region, a fertile recruiting ground for jihadists.

Manish Rai is a columnist for the Middle East and Af-Pak region; Editor of a geo-political news agency Views Around (VA)

 

[Taimoor Khan]

Pakistan Taliban Still Deadly
FEBRUARY 1, 2016, 3:07 PM

Recently Pakistani Army boasted they had the Pakistan Taliban also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on run and are in disarray. It was claimed that the punishing, yearlong offensive had ousted the Taliban insurgents from their most prized tribal sanctuary. The movement’s various factions were riven by violent rivalries, and attacks on Pakistan’s towns and cities had largely ceased because of this.

But now all this claims are doubted after the four Taliban gunmen mounted a deadly attack on Baccha Khan University in the northwestern town of Charsadda, killing 20 people. Taliban argued that they had targeted the university campus because it prepared students to join the government and army. No doubt military campaigns against TTP has deteriorated its fighting capabilities as its leadership is on the run. About 70 percent of the infrastructure in the tribal areas which were once the strongholds of Taliban insurgents has been dismantled. But certainly TTP is not dead and their alliances with other militant groups are still alive and kicking.

The Pakistani military leadership has claimed periodically that the TTP rump is now hiding in Afghanistan’s eastern and northeastern regions and have been calling for an Afghan campaign against them. But it’s a matter of fact that still Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is the largest militant group in Pakistan and its recruitment is done with the help of tribal loyalties and local affiliations.

Certainly, the Pakistani Taliban is no longer the tightly unified force that it once was, when the movement was commanded from the heartland of Waziristan in the tribal belt by swaggering, publicity-hungry commanders who could call on a seemingly limitless stream of suicide bombers to hit targets across Pakistan, including even the army General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi.

The current nominal leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, was a polarizing figure within the militant movement even from the start. But since the military began clearing his subcommanders and allies out of the North Waziristan tribal area, he appears to have even less authority over the Taliban’s factional leaders, many of them headstrong characters who alternate between cooperation and violent feuding. So because of these military campaigns TTP does not possess the capability now of running a parallel government like it did in Swat and South Waziristan once upon a time. But still it can target the civilian soft targets and by doing this it tries to prove itself deadly and active.

The real operational strengths of Pakistan Taliban are its affiliates and support networks, which still exist inside Pakistan. Taliban supporters and sympathizers provide base and facilitate the movements of fighters without which no attack can be planned and executed.

Till now Pakistani authorities have failed to take action against sympathisers of TTP. Now the Pakistani public is starting to question the success of the ongoing military operation. Moreover it can be argued that, in some senses, the government’s military operations have strengthened the region’s fractious jihadist organizations by forcing them to put aside their differences and work together. For example the government’s commencement of the Zarb-e-Azb operation in North Waziristan district, and supplementary operations in other districts of tribal areas, served to soften the TTP’s differences over the leadership and to bind these groups together against a common enemy which is Pakistani state.

The government’s various operations have only been able to restrict the space for Taliban insurgents to operate in rather than deny it complete there is also the fact that no senior militant leaders have yet been killed or arrested, making it is easier for these groups to bounce back and reorganize themselves once government pressure is removed. Moreover Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network are also all weather friends of TTP. The Pakistan army’s protection of the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban as ‘strategic assets’ has helped the TTP to retain its sanctuary and its attack capabilities. The areas dominated by the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban have provided TTP with strategic depth.

Whenever the Pakistan military stepped up its offensive in the tribal areas, the TTP found it convenient to move into the Afghan Taliban-controlled areas. There is substantial evidence that the Haqqani Network has also helped the TTP to survive the military onslaught which, in any case, has been selective and hence ineffective. What Pakistan today faces in the TTP is a hybrid group, a mixture of virulent insurgency and terrorism. By considering the current situation, it’s a high time that the Pakistan military take some other effective steps as well in additions to its ground campaigns against TTP. So that the aim of neutralizing TTP throughout the nation can be achieved by fullest. Pakistani authorities have to identify and break up local terrorist networks which supports TTP, counter radical ideology through deradicalization progamme for youths, and more important, take adequate measures to address lawlessness and extreme poverty in the northwestern mountainous region, a fertile recruiting ground for jihadists.

Manish Rai is a columnist for the Middle East and Af-Pak region; Editor of a geo-political news agency Views Around (VA)

We do understand that TTP a joint american/Indian/Israeli project and will take time to dismental.

 

[Solomon2]

We do understand that TTP a joint american/Indian/Israeli project and will take time to dismental.

Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, it is because you misunderstand the TTP as "a joint american/Indian/Israeli project" that it will take time to dismantle?

 

[Zibago]

As long S durand line remains porous groups like ttp will continue to operate we need.to mine the b9rder to avoid flow of arms and militants

 

[sohail.ishaque]

Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, it is because you misunderstand the TTP as "a joint american/Indian/Israeli project" that it will take time to dismantle?

Well, RAW has confirmed involvement in it,. and that can only b done if USA gives green signal.. Its not possible that Raw under CIA in afghansitan can do something and CIA is not aware of it,..

 

[punit]

SO some more good talibans for future reference !

 

[TheNoob]

The only thing good would be when these small groups stop attacks or surrender but if they are only separating to form their own group to kill innocents than dealing with small groups is much more difficult than dealing with one big group.

TTP is an umbrella of faction.
So what we deal with now is no different than the ones acting indepedant, however, i do agree since different faction with their own goals can prove troublesome.

 

[somebozo]

We are hearing TTP coming apart since ages..TTP coming apart after Lal Masjid, After APS, after BKU, After Moon landing, After atomic test..enough with this BS!

 

[Solomon2]

Well, RAW has confirmed involvement in it -

Oh, really? linky, please.

,. and that can only b done if USA gives green signal..

What, you think Indians obey U.S. commands? That's really far out. But Pakistanis are all about group-think, right? If everyone believes it that makes it "true", yes?

 

[sohail.ishaque]

Oh, really? linky, please.
What, you think Indians obey U.S. commands? That's really far out. But Pakistanis are all about group-think, right? If everyone believes it that makes it "true", yes?

Indians are working under the shelter of USA,.. without USA, India wud never had been in Afghanistan,.

 

[Taimoor Khan]

Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, it is because you misunderstand the TTP as "a joint american/Indian/Israeli project" that it will take time to dismantle?

You do understand that we are not Arabs, and we got our own ways to do and analysis things? We dont jump to conclusions randomly. There is a long chain of events , geo politics, alliances, and above all religious symbolism and faith at play here. Religious fanatics not only exists in Muslim lands, but they are more powerful in non muslim nations, infact they are in control. If I replace "Israel" with "Zionists", would that make more sense to you, though for me, its the same thing.