The recent reports about the death of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) commander and head of its suicide bombing wing Saifullah Mehsud have highlighted the increasing presence and the influence of the terrorist group in Pakistan.

Saifullah was the mastermind of a bus attack in Karachi which killed at least 59 people in 2015. He had claimed the responsibility for the attack. He was also involved in several suicide attacks in the country.

According to media reports, he was shot dead by unknown gunmen at the Guloon camp in Khost province of eastern Afghanistan. However, despite multiple operations in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), the TTP has resurfaced in the region.

The TTP, known commonly as the Pakistani Taliban to distinguish them from the Afghan Taliban, announced its arrival through warning letters issued to the residents in Miranshah, the administrative headquarters of North Waziristan.

The letter issued by the TTP warned the locals against playing music, women travelling without male custodians and administration of polio vaccination to children. “We remind you

Target killings on the rise in tribal areas

The ‘Taliban order’, the letter underscored, included restrictions on individuals ranging from DJs to polio workers, with the TTP claiming that every ‘one in three’ locals is an informant of the banned jihadist group.

Despite the fact that such messages have surfaced in the past as well, the security forces in the region are taking special note of the pamphlets this time around. This is because of the recent spike in the TTP’s attacks in the tribal areas, especially IED blasts and target killings.

The most gruesome attack in the lead-up to the TTP formally announcing its presence in the tribal areas came on June 7, 2019, when three army officials were killed by the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan.

In a press release issued last July, the military’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) revealed that 10 security personnel had been killed by militant attacks in North Waziristan, in the months of June and July, while 35 had been injured in the same period.

The resurgence in violence in North Waziristan comes after a through military operation Zarb-e-Azb, initiated in 2014, had largely been credited with cleansing the area of militants. Operation Zarb-e-Azb had followed the success of Operation Rah-e-Nijat, which had largely cleared South Waziristan of militancy in 2009.

The TTP has now resurfaced at a time when the former Fata is being merged into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, undoing the draconian colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation which governed the region till last year’s 25th amendment brought the tribal areas under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Pakistan.

However, even though the state continues to claim major successes in counter-terror operations in the former Fata, where the frequency of militant attacks has indeed decreased in recent years, Islamabad is simultaneously facing resistance in the shape of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that had to leave the tribal areas.

The military operations in North and South Waziristan created over a million IDPs. Despite their return to the tribal areas having been initiated, many of the locals complain about human rights violations at the hands of the security forces.

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) was formed last year to voice the resentment of the locals in the tribal areas. While it was initially a protest movement against the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young man killed in a fake police encounter in Karachi last year, the PTM has gradually enlarged its sphere to include the struggle for the rights of the Pashtun community in Pakistan.

Their demands, especially on behalf of the Pashtun in the tribal areas, include the return of missing persons allegedly abducted by the state, the removal of check-posts and extraction of mines in the region as well.

Observers note that the TTP has resurfaced in the tribal areas at a time when the state is looking to silence the PTM. The military personnel clashed with a PTM rally at a check post near North Waziristan’s Khar Qamar area, amidst widespread silencing of the group on national media.

Senior Pashtun journalist Umer Khan revealed that there is an active effort ongoing as part of the military leadership to silence any coverage of the PTM. “There is a ban

Trouble on the horizon

Other analysts note that the TTP’s formal resurfacing in the former Fata came in the immediate aftermath of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the US. PM Khan had vowed during his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington that Islamabad would facilitate the solution eyed by America in Afghanistan. That would require coordination with the Afghan Taliban.

“It does not matter whether Fata is integrated with KP or not, the tribal areas will be run as the army wants. And when the US leaves the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan, it will be Pakistan that suffers the most,” said military scientist Ayesha Siddiqa and commentator, the author of Pakistan's Arms Procurement and Military Buildup.

However, while many locals, especially those affiliated with the PTM believe that the TTP is being propped up to further silence dissent, many analysts believe that the use of violence against the locals would be counterproductive for the army, especially when the Pakistani Taliban are actually targeting the military in attacks.

“The military wants monopoly over the state, but actual use of violence against the locals would be counter-productive in this regard,” said Lieutenant-General Talat Masood, a former secretary of Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence Production.

101Reporters is a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.