Another act of barbarianism by so-called godfathers of Islam. They are brutal butchers, they have no right to be called as human being. They are worse than animals. They kill innocent people just for their own benefits  and pretend it … Continue reading →

Image for representative purpose – Agencies
Pakistani warplanes pounded militant hideouts in the northwestern tribal area before dawn on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Taliban insurgents, security officials said.
The jets targeted hideouts in the tribal Orakzai district and at least four compounds were hit, they said, in the latest surge of fighting between government security forces and

PESHAWAR: The bodies of 15 members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC) were found Thursday, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped from a northwestern town, officials said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the killings.

A senior local FC commander confirmed the news and told that the 15 kidnapped FC men were killed in Shawa, a small town in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border. He told that all the corpses had bullet wounds.

Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the killings, saying the troops were killed as a revenge for continued operations of security forces against them in Landi Kotal.

The FC personnel were kidnapped late last month during a night-time attack on a checkpoint in the northwestern town of Tank.

Source:PKKH

ISLAMABAD: Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani militants have held a series of meetings aimed at containing what could soon be open warfare between the two most powerful Pakistani Taliban leaders, militant sources have said.

Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP), and his deputy, Waliur Rehman, were at each other’s throats, the sources said.

“You will soon hear that one of them has eliminated the other, though hectic efforts are going on by other commanders and common friends to resolve differences between the two,” one TTP commander said.

Any division within the TTP could hinder the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda’s struggle in Afghanistan against the United States and its allies, making it more difficult to recruit young fighters and disrupting safe havens in Pakistan used by the Afghan militants.

Despite multiple reports of the Rehman-Mehsud split, Rehman told Reuters on Tuesday there was no problem between the two.

“There are no differences between us,” Rehman said.

The TTP, formed in 2007, is an umbrella group of various Pakistani militant factions operating in Pakistan’s unruly northwestern tribal areas along the porous border with Afghanistan.

It has long struggled with its choice of targets. Some factions are at war with the Pakistani state while others concentrate on the fight against the United States and its allies in Afghanistan.

There has been a noticeable decrease in militant attacks in Pakistan, but there continue to be random acts of violence across the country.

Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban commanders are asking the TTP to provide more men for the fight in Afghanistan and are looking to smooth over the dispute between Mehsud and Rehman.

Long-standing feuds

Taliban sources said Rehman had ordered his fighters to kill Mehsud because of his increasing closeness with al Qaeda and its Arab contingent.

Mehsud’s former deputy has also confirmed that the TTP chief received money from Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, to kill former ISI official Colonel Imam, who was acting as a mediator between the Pakistani Taliban, Afghan insurgents and the Pakistani government.

The reported enmity between Mehsud and Rehman is not the only conflict within the TTP ranks.

Mehsud has a long-standing feud with militant commanders Maulvi Nazeer in South Waziristan and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, both of whom have non-aggression agreements with the Pakistani military.

Mehsud’s men have also fought with the militia under the control of Fazal Saeed Haqqani, the former TTP head in the Kurram tribal region. He has accused Mehsud of killing his commanders and innocent people and kidnapping for ransom.

Haqqani, who is close to the militant Afghan Haqqani network, broke away from the TTP last year.

A pamphlet distributed by militants in North Waziristan this week announced the formation of a council to try to resolve the conflicts.

“All jihadi forces have jointly, on the recommendation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, formed a five-member commission which will be known as the Shura Muraqba,” the pamphlet said, using the term by which the Afghan Taliban describe themselves.

“The Shura Muraqba will be working to resolve differences and problems between mujahideen.”

It said that any “mujahideen” found to have committed an “unlawful” killing or kidnapping would be punished under Islamic law. It is likely any attack on a fellow “mujahideen” commander would be considered “unlawful”.

“All mujahideen should respect the decisions of the council that has been set up,” a senior commander of the Haqqani faction in Kurram said.

“If people continue to do as they like, the situation will not improve. Things will instead get much worse.”

The group responsible for most violence in the country is in disarray with its ‘chain of command’ crumbling, funds dwindling and infighting intensifying, admit Taliban foot soldiers. “It appears the TTP’s days are numbered … what was a well-coordinated militia just a year ago has fragmented now and dozens of splinters groups have emerged,” a disgruntled member of the network told.

At least two associates of the group in South Waziristan, the strongest bastion of TTP where its chief Hakimullah Mehsud is hiding, also confirmed this. They said Mehsud has further isolated himself due to threats to his life from the dreaded American drones and Pakistani spy agencies.

“He is virtually a lonely man running for his life … he is always on the move and doesn’t meet even his once most-trusted lieutenants,” said Muhammad, a nom de guerre because the militants seldom use their real names.

Muhammad, who lives in the North Waziristan tribal region, was in Islamabad for the treatment of some kidney ailment at a private clinic. Mehsud has stopped meeting members of his notorious network from Punjab, better known as Punjabi Taliban, suspecting that some of them might be spying on him for Pakistani agencies.“This is one of the reasons for relative peace in the country … there is no coordination among various groups of the Taliban,” said an intelligence official. There has been a visible decline in the Taliban violence in the country over the past few months.

The TTP associates said that their group was crumbling due to differences on the question of pursuing peace talks with the government — an option Mehsud had rejected outright when he was first approached with the offer.

One the other hand, several key TTP leaders have responded positively to peace overtures from the Pakistani agencies. TTP’s deputy chief in South Waziristan Mufti Waliur Rehman and the group’s No 2, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad from Bajaur Agency, are reportedly in talks with the government, indirectly though. Officially, both the government and the TTP deny peace talks.

Muhammad claimed that several members of the TTP shura, or decision-making council, have also showed willingness for talks. He added that the shura, which once had around three dozen senior leaders, has now shrunk to less than 10.

“People are now deserting Mehsud and joining the group led by Waliur Rehman,” he said, adding that the latter’s group is becoming more powerful.

No more money

Apart from differences within, supply of foot soldiers to the TTP is also drying up fast, said Muhammad who himself has given up violence to start a small business in his village.

“They (foot soldiers) are deserting because it no longer earns them money,” said Raqeebullah Mehsud, a former TTP field commander.

Intelligence officials are claiming the credit for the TTP’s imminent collapse, saying it was their squeeze that had played a key role in blocking funds supply to the Taliban. But experts like Brigadier (Retd) Muhammad Saad believe that TTP’s inability to generate money might be the result of what has been happening behind closed doors in Afghanistan in the recent past.

“There have been reports that the Afghan Taliban are actively engaged in peace talks,” he added.

Saad said that the war in Afghanistan was the main source of funds for the TTP “but it may not be the case anymore”.

But Brigadier (Retd) Mehmood Shah, another security analyst based in Peshawar, said it won’t be fair to deny the Pakistani agencies credit for the isolation and subsequent rupture in the ranks of the TTP.

“Much of this happened due to their (Pakistani agencies) maneuvers,” he said.

The current showboating between Pakistan and the US will not bring any solution to the table.

It looks like the Tehrik-i-Taliban has a highlighted a new societal ill: un-Islamic kapra.

A book about partition-era trains filled with corpses has more relevance today than ever before and has one reader drawing parallels to the fate of children suicide bombers.