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In the years following its formation in 2007, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emerged as one of Pakistan’s deadliest militant organizations. Maintaining close ties with Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and a host of other militant groups, the TTP marked the Pakistani landscape with some of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in the country’s history.
Among its most notorious attacks were an assault on the Pakistani navy’s largest airbase in 2011; an attack on Karachi’s international airport in 2014; and, also in the same year, a massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed 150 people, almost all of them students.
Sustained efforts by the Pakistani government and the military Operations, most notably, Zarb-e-Azb, begun in 2014; the National Action Plan adopted in 2015; and a US drone campaign, together with factors intrinsic to the militant organization like leadership decapitation, internal struggles, and splintering, precipitated the TTP’s steep decline. By 2016, TTP was profoundly weakened as an operational force and in 2018, it hit its lowest point as it could perpetrate only 21 attacks in comparison to 402 attacks that it had carried-out in its peak year, 2010.
However, since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, there has been a 60% rise in terrorist incidents in Pakistan. Apparently, the objective of TTP is to dislodge the government of Pakistan from erstwhile Fata and enforce its interpretation of Sharia.
Although the Taliban deny it, most official and independent assessments indicate that the TTP uses Afghan soil and has the new government’s backing. According to the report compiled by a UN committee that monitors terrorist activities across the globe, “20 terrorist groups are operating in Afghanistan, enjoying freedom of movement under the Taliban’s protection and the General Directorate of Intelligence’s oversight.” The UN committee also observed that the distinctions between members of Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups, including TTP, and (IS-K) are at times blurred, with individuals sometimes identifying with more than one group and having a tendency to gravitate towards the dominant group.
Notably, the Afghan Taliban’s relationship with the TTP is the closest. This is because the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban are two sides of the same ideological coin. Both derive their inspiration from the founder of the Taliban movement. Moreover, the TTP helped the Afghan Taliban during the latter’s fight with Americans while now the Afghan Taliban are returning their favour. Furthermore, the TTP wants to do what the Afghan Taliban would welcome: establish an Islamic emirate in the tribal belt straddling the Pak-Afghan border.
Reportedly, the estimated strength of TTP in Afghanistan is 4,000 to 6,000 fighters, based mainly in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar, Logar, Paktika, Paktia and Khost. Its leader, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, and deputy, Qari Amjad Ali, are based in the Paktika and Kunar provinces, respectively. The Taliban provides TTP not just safe havens but also logistical support. Since the official announcement of the end of the ceasefire on 28 November 2022, TTP has launched more than 100 attacks against Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on the Peshawar police compound mosque on 30 January 2023, which killed 84 people. During the Chitral offensive of September 6, 2023, video footage of the TTP chief, Noor Wali Mehsud, instructing his fighters from Afghanistan’s North-Western province, Nuristan, surfaced, indicating the freedom TTP enjoys in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to target Pakistan.
Taliban’s incessant refusal to assuage its security concerns pushed Pakistan to take a series of steps to secure itself including enforcing passport and visa policy for cross-border movement, deporting illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, and combating smuggling of foreign currency.
It must be noted that as Pakistan’s crackdown on the expulsion of undocumented Afghans ramped up following the expiry of 31 October 2023 deadline for voluntary repatriation, it did not only draw anger from the government officials of IEA, threatening Pakistan to face serious consequences for its repatriation policy, but a dramatic uptick in terrorist assaults in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab was also witnessed.
Since the forced return of illegal Afghans coincided with the upsurge in terrorism in Pakistan, the Balochistan caretaker information minister was quick to allege the terror onslaught as a tactic employed by IEA to coerce Pakistan into revisiting its policy. Upping the ante, the Afghan Taliban went ahead with publishing a former TTP spokesperson’s, Ehsanullah Ehsan, propaganda article in the Taliban-run Al-Mersad media, accusing Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, of supporting ISKP activities in Afghanistan — demonstrating the deep nexus of the Afghan Taliban with the TTP and the former’s intention to use it against Pakistan for its strategic interests.
Regrettably, CPEC is another dynamic underlying the heightened terrorist activity in Pakistan. The US-led West and India view CPEC as a symbol of an aggressive China. As 60% of China’s energy requirements come from the Persian Gulf, Gwadar Port will reduce the distance for Chinese vessels from 10,000 km to just 2,500 km, making it the speediest and direct trade route to the markets of the Gulf region and Africa. Gwadar Port can also serve as China’s alternative route if access through Malacca strait is denied. Hence, the successful conclusion of CPEC will greatly accelerate the Chinese economy and its international status. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economic and geo-strategic position is also likely to see a strong boost with the completion of CPEC.
Since both China and Pakistan have much to gain economically and geo-strategically out of the success of Gwadar, the possibility of the US-led West and India to jointly destabilize Pakistan to contain China cannot be discounted. Left-behind American stockpiles of arms and vehicles worth $7.12 billion and their sales by the Taliban to militants, not least next door, substantiates the point under discussion. Evidently, in an escalating war against the Pakistani state, the TTP in Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions and separatists in Balochistan are increasingly using made-in-America weapons to kill police and soldiers. In the recent brazenly launched 4 November 2023 Mianwali air base attack, claimed by the TTP linked Tehreek-i-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), American weapons, such as RPG-7, AK- 74, M-4, and M-16/A4 , were confiscated from the killed militants. According to Pakistan’s security experts, terrorists have easy access to American-manufactured ammunition in Afghanistan which they use against Pakistan.
Taking stock of the complex threat matrix confronting Pakistan, what could be Pakistan’s counter-terror options? While the external source of instability in Pakistan must be tackled diplomatically, more important, however, are the steps Pakistan take at home. To this end, our security apparatus will need to remain extra vigilant and flush out not just the militants active in Pakistan but also their local facilitators. The National Action Plan must comprehensively be implemented against militants of all stripes and financial streams that support terrorists must be identified and cut off. Border security must be strengthened. Lastly, the state must invest in the socio-economic development of areas that are breeding grounds for militant groups. Until the root causes are addressed, militants will continue to maintain the recently witnessed momentum of their nefarious activities. It, however, must be noted that to address Pakistan’s security challenges, political and economic stability in the country are sine qua non.
