Islamabad, Pakistan – A latest lethal suicide assault on a army publish in northwest Pakistan has raised fears of the return of armed rebel within the nation’s tribal areas which have seen a dramatic rise in armed assaults this 12 months.
A bit-known group, Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), claimed the December 12 bombing in Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan. At the least 23 troopers have been killed and one other 34 injured within the automobile bomb assault.
The assaults by the TJP have introduced again recollections of the collection of lethal assaults carried out by armed teams led by the Pakistan Taliban, recognized by the acronym TTP, in late 2000.
However why have assaults on safety forces elevated and the way are the Pakistani authorities and the army planning to deal with it?
What explains the surge within the assaults?
The primary 11 months of the 12 months witnessed 664 assaults of various nature and measurement throughout the nation, a rise of 67 p.c from the corresponding period in 2022, in response to the Pakistan Institute for Battle and Safety Research (PICSS), an Islamabad-based analysis organisation.
However the bulk of the assaults have focused two provinces – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa within the northwest and Balochistan within the southwest.
Virtually 93 p.c of the entire assaults happened in these two provinces, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the worst affected province, witnessing 416 assaults since November 2022 when the TTP walked out of the ceasefire with the federal government.
Pakistan Taliban’s ideology is aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which at the moment guidelines the war-torn nation. Nonetheless, the teams have completely different targets they usually function independently.
In January, a minimum of 100 individuals, principally policemen, have been killed within the worst assault of the 12 months, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The assault was claimed by a TTP splinter group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
The genesis for the spike within the violence, analysts say, could possibly be traced again to the unilateral choice by the Pakistan Taliban to finish the ceasefire final 12 months. The armed group has asserted that its assaults have been in response to the renewed army operations within the area.
Amongst their predominant calls for embody the discharge of its members and the reversal of the merger of the tribal area with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A stricter imposition of Islamic legal guidelines can be one of many calls for.
The Pakistani military has performed a number of operations to get rid of the group since 2002 however struggled to attain its aim as fighters have used the porous border to seek out secure haven in Afghanistan.
Since its founding in 2007, the TTP has focused each civilians in addition to legislation enforcement personnel, leading to hundreds of deaths. Their deadliest assault got here in December 2014, after they focused the Military Public College (APS) in Peshawar, killing greater than 130 college students.
The TTP additionally claimed duty for capturing Malala Yousafzai in 2012. Yousafzai went on to win the Noble Prize for Peace in 2015 and is at the moment a globally famend ladies’ schooling activist.
Essentially the most disconcerting facet of TJP lies in its implementation of suicide assaults.
The group stays banned in Pakistan and has been designated a “terrorist” group by the US. Fashioned to unify like-minded teams within the area, the TTP stepped up assaults in response to Pakistani army operations launched to flush out overseas fighters fleeing the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
In response to the APS assault, the Pakistani army launched a large-scale army operation, titled Zarb-e-Azb, towards the armed teams. Whereas the Pakistani military claimed it was in a position to obtain its goal, the army operation was harshly criticised by the native inhabitants in addition to human rights organisations.
The army was accused of adopting scorched earth techniques and finishing up enforced disappearances of people accused of getting hyperlinks with the TTP. A lot of these arrested have been tried in a army court docket, which is taken into account opposite to worldwide legislation.
Which teams have sought to say duty for the latest assaults?
With the return of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan in August 2021, which has had historic hyperlinks with the Pakistani safety institution, it was believed that managing the TTP would change into simpler.
A month after the Taliban took over Kabul, it helped facilitate the assembly between the Pakistani army with the TTP for either side to have interaction in a ceasefire speak, a call endorsed and pushed by Imran Khan, Pakistan’s then-prime minister.
Subsequently, over the subsequent few months, a tentative ceasefire led to the discharge of senior TTP leaders imprisoned by Pakistan. It additionally facilitated the resettlement of tons of of TTP fighters and their households again to Pakistan. A few of their leaders had been launched as a part of peace offers with earlier Pakistani governments.
Nonetheless, low-scale skirmishes between the 2 sides continued nicely into 2022, with either side accusing one another of violating the settlement.
Regardless of repeated conferences, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the rising mistrust between the 2 sides elevated. The elimination of Khan as prime minister in April 2022, adopted by the retirement of military chief Normal Qamar Javed Bajwa in November 2022, didn’t assist the trigger. The TTP introduced a unilateral finish to the ceasefire days after Bajwa retired.
The emergence of an obscure TJP, believed to be affiliated with the TTP, has additional raised considerations amongst policymakers. TJP has been behind a minimum of seven main assaults this 12 months, together with the most recent one in Dera Ismail Khan.
The group focused a Pakistani Air Power airbase in Mianwali metropolis in November and in one other assault this 12 months in Zhob metropolis of Balochistan it killed a minimum of 14 military personnel.
In keeping with researchers who research completely different armed teams in Pakistan and Afghanistan, TJP stays an “enigmatic organisation”.
The group, which has carried out a number of assaults this 12 months, is shrouded in thriller concerning its management, members, and places. The principle supply of details about the TJP is derived from its media releases. The group claims it was shaped to “wage jihad against Pakistan with the aim of transforming the country into an Islamic state”.
Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher on armed teams in South and Central Asia, stated the TTP formally recognised TJP as a fellow armed organisation in July 2023. Pakistani authorities additionally assert that TJP is linked to TTP.
“However, as of now, there is a lack of concrete evidence to substantiate any clandestine connections between the two groups,” Sayed advised Al Jazeera.
Essentially the most disconcerting facet of TJP, he stated, lies in its implementation of suicide assaults.
“In the attacks claimed by the TJP, a group of four to seven suicide bombers conduct assaults on security force camps under the cover of darkness. This strategy has propelled the conflict between militants and security forces in Pakistan to an exceptionally destructive level,” Sayed added.
Two of essentially the most violent assaults this 12 months have been carried out by the regional affiliate of ISIL (ISIS), the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISKP (ISIS-Okay). In July, it focused a political rally in Bajaur, a tribal district neighbouring Afghanistan, killing greater than 60 individuals. It was additionally behind a serious blast in Mastung metropolis of Balochistan in September that killed greater than 50 individuals.
Whereas the ISKP selected to focus on civilians within the few assaults it performed, the TTP and the TJP have singled out safety personnel.
Abdul Basit, a analysis fellow at S Rajaratnam College of Worldwide Research in Singapore, stated the tactic of focusing on legislation enforcement personnel labored on a number of ranges, because it helped demoralise the forces, in addition to assist create terror and air of insecurity.
Why has Pakistan been unable to manage the rise in violence?
For a lot of counterterrorism analysts and observers of the violence within the area, one of many key failings of the Pakistani authorities was its incapability to formulate a “coherent and cogent” coverage in the direction of Afghanistan, which they imagine has led to the present state of affairs.
Elaborating on this, Basit stated the Pakistani military’s technique was primarily based on “assumptions and hope” that after the Kabul takeover by the Taliban, it could be capable to management the TTP from perpetrating its assaults in Pakistan.
Basit stated basically, the mix of getting counterproductive Afghan insurance policies in addition to the shortcoming to construct counterterrorism capability, the federal government was unable to organize itself for the battle it’s confronted with now.
“Pakistan spent a lot of time seeking peace talks, but … it was not proactive in eliminating the threat. But with ceasefire ending, Pakistan is in firefighting mode,” he stated.
“Now, the best they can hope for is damage limitation.”
The peace talks Basit is referring to was endorsed by the Pakistani authorities beneath former Prime Minister Khan in late 2021, when the army engaged with the TTP. These talks have been facilitated by the Afghan Taliban. The TTP demanded the reversal of the merger of tribal districts in addition to the imposition of its interpretation of Islamic legislation. However each calls for have been rejected by the then authorities.
The Pakistani aspect urged for the disbanding of the armed group, a requirement which was by no means met.
Khan was a vocal opponent of the US-led drone strikes focusing on TTP fighters in Pakistan’s tribal area bordering Afghanistan, as these assaults collaterally precipitated lack of civilian lives.
Basit, the Singapore-based professional, stated the present state of affairs, which sees nearly day by day skirmishes between Pakistani troops and TTP fighters, doesn’t enable for any large-scale operation, for which he stated the federal government lacks the capability in addition to the general public goodwill. The researcher stated the resettlement of TTP in Pakistan in early 2022 was seen as a really unpopular choice, leading to public protests.
“In counterterrorism, public support is critical but in the areas which have seen long bouts of fight, such as here in Pakistan, the sentiment is hostile towards both the military as well as the rebel fighters,” Basit stated.
Pakistan up to now has engaged in dialogue with the fighter group on quite a few events, with a minimum of 5 main peace agreements between 2007 and 2014, none of which lasted various months.
The Pakistani army launched a number of operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas towards the TTP throughout the identical interval.
With the federal government having tried each army operations in addition to dialogues, Amina Khan, director of the Centre for Afghanistan, Center East & Africa (CAMEA) on the Institute of Strategic Research (ISSI) in Islamabad, concurs with Basit on the purpose that the federal government by no means had readability on the way it wished to strategy its coverage towards the TTP.
“We do not know whether Pakistan wants to engage with them in a dialogue, or to start a kinetic operation against them,” she advised Al Jazeera, including that there’s a lack of settlement amongst stakeholders within the nation on the difficulty.
What choices does Pakistan have now?
Senior Pakistani civilian and army leaderships have performed a number of high-level conferences with their Afghan counterparts in Islamabad and Kabul this 12 months.
Pakistan has repeatedly alleged that Afghan soil is getting used to harbour fighters, who perform cross-border assaults, a cost the Taliban vehemently denies. After the Dera Ismail Khan assault, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the interim authorities, repeated the defence, saying there isn’t a risk emanating from Afghan soil to any of its neighbours.
“Every incident in Pakistan should not be linked to Afghanistan. This incident [Dera Ismail Khan attack] happened hundreds of kilometres away from our country. There are security forces and intelligence there [in Pakistan], and they should be cautious about their duties,” Mujahid stated final week.
Pakistani officers on quite a few events this 12 months additionally threatened to conduct cross-border assaults on TTP hideouts in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, no assaults have been confirmed from both Pakistan or the Taliban authorities.
Sayed, the Sweden-based scholar, stated the Taliban views the rising assaults by fighters in Pakistan as an inner matter, attributing it to Pakistan’s insurance policies ensuing from its involvement within the so-called “war on terror” led by the US.
Basit, the researcher, stated “choosing bravado” can be a improper lesson from the rising violence within the nation, and waging cross-border assaults in Afghanistan can be a foul concept.
He, nevertheless, supported the concept of conducting focused operations inside Pakistan.
“You must blunt the sharp edge of the knife, first and foremost, for which you will need to use force. However, priority should be focused on internal issues and to dismantle the network of these fighters in the country. The process must be about containment, downgrading, and then eliminating,” Basit stated.
Nonetheless, Khan, the director at ISSI, stated she was firmly of the opinion that the avenues for dialogue should stay open.
“I feel that dialogue is essential, and it must continue,” she stated.