f late, there have been some key developments in Pakistan’s indigenous war on terror. The largest of the militant-terrorist outfits, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has announced an end to an indefinite ceasefire with state forces that had been in place for several months. For its part, the government has declared that it has not renounced its truce with the TTP. A top commander of the group has been killed in Afghanistan. The Taliban-ruled Kabul is seen actively supporting the re-emergence of the Pakistani Taliban in Swat-Malakand and Waziristan regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Mass protests have taken place in Swat against the regrouping of the TTP. The government strategists have apparently decided to start launch new offensives against the militants-terrorists in the Malakand division and Tirah valley of Khyber district. All these developments are very important. What are the bigwigs of the TTP thinking? Why have they opted to regroup now?

Incidents involving Pakistani Taliban using bases in Afghanistan to launch attacks in Pakistan have been on the rise since the US-backed Afghan government was overthrown by the Afghan Taliban in August 2021. The Taliban regime is seen extending support to the TTP and has advised Pakistan to negotiate with its leaders. Several rounds of talks were held between May and July between a Pakistan-sponsored jirga including tribal chieftains, top Pakistani clerics, government officials and an adviser to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister. The inclusion of independent clerics was apparently meant to imply that Pakistan was a Muslim state and jihad could not be waged against it. Whether convinced or not, the TTP did initially announce an ‘indefinite’ ceasefire. It also promised a permanent one once a broad agreement was reached between the two sides.

However, some of the demands raised by the TTP, including the reversal of the merger of the what used to be Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the KP under the 25^th Constitutional Amendment, the withdrawal of security forces and permission for the returning TTP fighters to carry arms were too much of an ask for the state and predictably prevented a breakthrough. In the meantime, the killing of a top TTP commander, Omar Khalid Khorasani along with three others in an IED blast in Afghanistan soon after a round of talks made progress difficult. While the TTP has announced an end to the ceasefire, so far they have not issued a detailed statement scrapping the idea of negotiations.

Irrespective of the outcome of the talks and a possible truce between the two sides, what leaders of the militant-terrorist group have on their minds is important. This may be analysed in the context of the evolution of the group, its tactics and its narrative.

Pakistani Taliban leaders have time and again claimed that their struggle is mainly aimed at establishing an ‘Islamic’ state, a euphemism for an ultra-radical clerical state in the country.

It is important to note that the after the December 2014 APS massacre in Peshawar in which more than 150 school children and staff members were gunned down by terrorists, Pakistan launched sweeping military offensives against the group. By 2016, the group had been largely uprooted in most parts of their home turf in the Tribal Areas. Cracks had also started appearing in the TTP and its head Fazlullahhad perished in a drone strike in Afghanistan. Significant losses in Swat-Malakand and tribal regions, described as tactical retreat by militant commanders, had resulted in a transition and change in leadership. The bits of reliable information coming out of TTP ranks suggest that important deliberations are going on within the movement. However, the focus is not on a re-evaluation of objective(s). Rather a reassessment of tactics and strategy is under way. The reports, analysed in the historical perspective, suggest the groups are considering strengthening their links with non-Taliban Islamist militant outfits and some religious parties to enlist broader public support. The somewhat new strategy is aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the insurgency and garnering greater public-political support.

The so-called Taliban groups had started emerging in 2004 as disparate violent elements in the country’s borderlands, widely believed to have helped the Afghan Taliban regime fight the ISAF and the NATO forces and enabled the latter to recapture power by August 2022. These groups have gradually organised themselves into a clerical-terrorist movement, setting its sights on establishing a puritanical state.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have a common Pashtun ethnicity. The predominantly Pashtun Afghan Taliban Movement had a clear aim of re-establishing its dislodged (what they perceived) Islamic Emirate (1996-2001) in a Pashtun-majority Afghanistan.Its leaders had justified their resistance to US-NATO forces as an Islamist and nationalist liberation struggle. Pashtuns are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban’s activities against the Pakistani security forces in Pakistan, can’t be described as a Pakistani or Pashtun nationalist struggle. Having said that, the TTP does associate itself with the Afghan Taliban on the basis of their common ethnicity and some Pakistani Taliban have tended to regard Afghanistan and Pashtun-dominated regions of Pakistan a single geographical entity.

Pakistani Taliban leaders have time and again claimed that their struggle is mainly aimed at establishing an ‘Islamic’ state, a euphemism for an ultra-radical clerical state in the country. Muslim Khan, an important spokesman of the Taliban, had on one occasion even said that his organisation aimed to establish the governance of Taliban not only in Pakistan but also over the whole world starting with the Indian subcontinent.

The Pakistani Taliban not only have political objectives but for years enjoyed control over vast areas. Baitullah Mehsud (2007-2009) had established a so-called Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. His group and successors have wanted to impose their conception of an Islamic caliphate on Pakistan. Before being crushed by state forces in 2016 they had established crude and ruthless governance structures including so-called Islamic courts and prisons in the areas under their control in North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Orakzai, Bajaur, Khyberand Swat. Noticeably, the Pakistani Taliban’s success in controlling and governing small territories has not been a part of their ultimate agenda. They have had a wider political agenda of establishing an Islamic Emirate (state) a la Afghan Taliban’s emirate (1996-2001) in Pakistan. The formation of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan was meant to attain this political end.

The TTP had unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks in Pakistan seemingly to incapacitate the Pakistani state with the aim of creating space. To translate this strategy into action it believed it necessary to attack state institutions and security personnel including the soldiers, civilian administrations, the police and the parliament. There were clear attempts to intimidate traditional political and societal elites. In the process it killed more than 70,000 Pakistanis including security forces personnel.

The writer is a political, security, governance and public policy analyst and researcher. He holds a doctoral degree and has over two decades of work experience.  razapkhan@yahoo.com