TTP extends olive branch after N Waziristan air strikes
By
Tahir Khan /
AFP
Published: June 15, 2014
ISLAMABAD: As army air strikes intensified in North Waziristan, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have offered an olive branch to the government, saying theyare still open to ‘meaningful’ peace talks.
“The government has constantly adopted a non-serious approach. This forced us to end [the] ceasefire and launch counter-attacks, which was our right and [an] obligation under Sharia,” said TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid. However, the spokesman said the Taliban are still ready for meaningful talks.
He said statements from a senior member of the government’s negotiation team, Maj (retd) Aamir, have exposed the government’s real intentions. “Changes of the government’s team and their internal rifts have also had a negative impact on the process,” he said.
The government did not release a single non-combatant prisoner and also avoided producing Taliban prisoners before the court, Shahid said.
“The TTP was trapped under the pretext of dialogue. A secret operation code-named ‘root out’ was launched against the Mujahideen and their sympathisers across the country, and over 500 innocent people including some Taliban members were arrested,” the TTP spokesperson alleged.
Shahid also dismissed the army’s claims of casualties caused by air strikes in North Waziristan. He said the fighter jets have once again “targeted innocent people” in North Waziristan, and have killed and injured hundreds of people in overnight air strikes.
“We will launch revenge attacks,” Shahid said Sunday, hours after fighter jets rained bombs on what the army claimed were “hideouts of terrorists” in the Datta Khel area.
A military statement said a number of “terrorist’s hideouts in Degan, Datta Khel in North Waziristan Agency, were targeted by jet aircrafts.”
There were also confirmed reports of the presence of foreign and local terrorists in these hideouts, some linked to the planning of the Karachi airport attack.
The military said over 50 “terrorists, mostly Uzbek foreigners” were killed in the strikes and an ammunition dump has also been destroyed.
The TTP spokesperson said the PML-N and the ‘Punjab establishment’ have planned to launch a full-scale war in the near future.
Shahid said the airstrikes are alienating the people of the tribal region as around 50,000 people have migrated to Afghanistan, and such a situation presents a disastrous situation for the future of Pakistan.
The government began negotiations with the TTP through intermediaries in February, with a ceasefire beginning March 1 but breaking down a month later.
Eight killed in fresh infighting
Eight militants were killed Sunday in the latest clashes between the Pakistani Taliban and a breakaway faction in North Waziristan on Sunday, officials said.
The fighting erupted in the Wacha Mela area 65 kilometres west of Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan tribal district.
A total of 106 militants have been killed since supporters of commander Khalid Mehsud, alias Khan Said Sajna, began battling followers of the slain former Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud in April.
Khalid Mehsud’s group last month split from the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a move which analysts described as a victory for the Pakistani military’s strategy of sowing divisions between insurgent factions.
The latest fighting left eight militants dead and three wounded, a local intelligence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Six of the dead militants belonged to the Hakimullah group,” he said.
Another security official and a militant source confirmed the fighting and casualties.
The powerful Mehsud faction parted ways with the TTP last month after its senior leader, Azam Tariq, blamed the TTP for “falling in the hands of conspirators and indulging in burglaries and extortion.”
The Taliban under Maulvi Fazalullah had been silent over the division for nearly three weeks and TTP spokesperson briefly touched upon what is widely believed as a serious development for the group.
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