TTP Strikes Again: A Pakistani Military Operation in the Offing?

Avantika Lal

E-Mail- avantika.lal30@gmail.com 

http://www.claws.in/ttp-strikes-again-a-pakistani-military-operation-in-the-offing-avantika-lal.html 

Sixteen militants were reportedly killed in two successive attacks by U.S. drones at Taliban hideouts near Miramshah and Danday Darpakhel, North Waziristan, on June 12; the first such raid in six months. For the first time, Pakistan has admitted to cooperating with the US regarding drone strikes. This is a far cry from their earlier policy of public opposition of the use of these unmanned aircraft, mainly by the CIA, citing the grounds of violation of their national sovereignty by the US and of civilian casualties. One Pakistani official maintained that "We understand that drones will be an important part of our fight against the Taliban now." 

However, this change came in the wake of the recent militant attack on Karachi airport on June 8, in which all ten assailants were killed in a gun battle with the Pakistani forces. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility, stating that the attack was in responseto the killing of the organisation’s former chief, Hakimullah Mehsud by a drone strike in November 2013. All this was in the backdrop of the TTP splitting into two, and the military jets pounding away at their locations. 

A full-scale military operation in North Waziristan is also being presumed likely, in contrast to the conducting of talks, which have collapsed many a time since February. Nonetheless, those very talks had become interspersed with military actions by the Pakistanis. In April for instance, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a meeting on April 28 with top government functionaries and army high command had stated that “dialogue and violence cannot go hand in hand,” and that Taliban violence would be paid in kind and talks without a cease fire cannot be possible; the talks with the Taliban shura should be based on a concise agenda and should take place under well-defined parameters. On April 28, artillery and military helicopters struckmilitant locations in the Bobar area, a Mehsud stronghold, in the South Waziristan agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). 

The government of Pakistan had embarked upon a fresh round of negotiations with the TTP to take the peace process ahead. A day after the Federal Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had presided over a meeting composed of government and Taliban representatives, the Pakistani military’s jets strafed militant hideouts along the Afghan border in FATA’s Khyber agency, while a search operation was conducted alongside in a number of its areas on April 24. In Khyber, the airstrikes< /a> were targeting the TTP and the outlawed Lashkar-e-Islam led by the warlord Mangal Bagh in Akakhel, Bara tehsil. The Pakistani security sources maintained that 37 militants were killed and 18 were injured. 

These strikes were the first air action taken by the military against the Taliban since the latter’s declaration of a month-long ceasefire on March 1, made with the aim of aiding the peace talks begun by the government in February this year. The TTP had later extended it for ten days and which expired on April 10. The Taliban rejected the extension of the ceasefire beyond this date, citing that the government had done little to fulfil its side of the bargain. A series of militant strikes leading to a loss of seven lives across northwestern Pakistan followed. On April 22, the TTP unit from the Mohmand agency in FATA, which has rejected the peace efforts, claimed responsibility for the killing of a senior policeman, Shafiq Tanoli, in Karachi by a suicide bomber. 

For the South Waziristan strikes, launched following the death of three security personnel, including an army officer, in an IED blast on April 27 in the border area between North and South Waziristan, a Taliban commander told Dawn that the government was playing a double game by simultaneously talking and advancing militarily into the Taliban-controlled areas. 

On the other hand, the Pakistan army handed over 13 TTP prisoners to the government for release but on the grounds that “they will be freed only after knowing how and when the Taliban would reciprocate," as stated by a government source to the Taliban representatives led by Maulana Samiul Haq, who had attended the session with the Interior Minister. They were also told to meet the TTP leaders in order to take the peace process forward and get the ceasefire extended, which the outfit has refused to do. 

The government had maintained that while it was easy for itself to come to an agreement over this issue, the Taliban are besotted with problems, least of all internal unity. It is therefore, much more difficult for them to reach a conclusion, especially in a scenario where not all of their associates are fully ingrained with the leadership. On May 16, Chaudhry Nisar said that the government’s dialogue process was due to enter a final, "result-oriented" phase. On May 21, at least 60 people were killed when Pakistani fig hter jets bombardedsuspected Taliban hideouts in Miranshah, Mir Ali, Datta Khel and Ghulam Khan areas. On June 4, a TTP suicide bomber killed two army officers and three civilians in Rawal pindi. 

The recent military activity, in the backdrop of the talks, could be a pointer to the fact that these efforts by the Pakistani government are not out of tune with its previous manner of dealing with the TTP. Peace talks have invariably been followed by military operations as in most cases the Taliban would not adhere to the conditions beyond a point, and the government could not find any other way to rein them in or prevent their waves of violence. It is difficult to see how the Taliban which is wedded to its agenda of fulfilling its goals through primarily violent means, including suicide terrorism, can be won over by carrots dangled by the Pakistani establishment instead of the stick. 

The fact that the government itself accepts the Taliban’s fractured structure and inherent problems attending its decision-making raises questions on the former’s choice of Taliban to conclude the negotiations with. Islamabad has also acknowledged the absence of decline in terrorist activities and Sharif’s statement has taken cognisance of the same, yet Pakistan has not altered its policy of appeasing the Taliban by acts such as release of prisoners. Any amount of pandering by the government has not prevented the TTP from giving up violence or using it to further their aims, but on the contrary incidents, especially those involving the use of terror tactics have continued to claim civilian and military lives alike, as the airport attack has showed. 

Avantika Lal is Associate Fellow at CLAWS. Views expressed are personal.