Tehrik Taliban-i Pakistan (TTiP)
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been waging war against Islamabad for over a decade as it seeks to establish Sharia law in Pakistan, while they consider the founder of the original Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, their spiritual leader and also recognise Daesh as an existential threat just like the Afghan Taliban does. Pakistan's military crackdown on the outfit, which pushed it to relocate from Pakistan's North Waziristan to Afghanistan’s neighboring provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar and Loya Paktika. The Afghan Taliban will not expel the TTP militants from the country but perhaps ask the group not to operate from there.

On 17 August 2020, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) and the Hizb-ul-Ahrar (HuA) - the two militant groups that splintered from the TTP - announced they would merge back into one fearsome terror outfit, pledging their allegiance to its chief Mufti Noor Wali. Wali took charge of the terrorist group in 2018 after the killing of his predecessor Maulana Fazlullah in a drone attack in Afghanistan. After developing differences with Fazlullah, Abdul Wali - alias Omar Khalid Khorasani - founded the JuA in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal district in 2014. The JuA also splintered in 2017 as its commander Mukarram Khan created his own outfit, HuA.

Reports coming from TTP's inner circles suggest that the outfit had generated too many leaders with their own sets of followers. Now, the reunification has brought them back together under Wali's command. Even militants associated with the 'Punjabi Taliban' led by Asmatullah Muawiya have also rejoined the Pakistan Taliban mothership. Not only did the TTP end factionalism and localise its ideological narrative by aligning with local ethnic issues, but it also repudiated Daesh’s claim as a franchise of the so-called Caliphate.

Daesh’s Khorasan chapter, also known as ISIS-K, also poses a new challenge to the TPP. It has caused further splintering in the group because Daesh's extremely radical ideology and substantial financial resources have attracted a number of disgruntled leaders from the TTP, including senior commanders like Hafiz Saeed Khan and Haji Daud, the former chief of the Taliban in Karachi. Khan, who operated in a tribal district called Orakzai, joined Daesh in October 2014 and he was killed in 2016 in a US drone attack. The JuA had also briefly joined Daesh for a few months in late 2014. The UN reported in July 2020 that at least 6,000 Pakistani Taliban militants who were hiding in Afghanistan, had “linked up with the local affiliate of ISIS in Afghanistan.”

The extremist Pakistani Taliban formally confirmed the death of its chief in an American drone strike in eastern Afghanistan and announced the appointment of his successor. The slain militant leader, Mullah Fazlullah, and his four key commanders were traveling in a vehicle in the Afghan border province of Kunar on 13 June 2018 when missiles fired from an unmanned aircraft, or drone, hit them just before midnight. In a statement issued 23 June 2018, the militant Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, said that its leadership council has named Mufti Noor Wali Mehsood as the group's new chief and Mufti Mazahim as his deputy. The militant outfit praised slain Fazlullah's services for TTP saying he had become a "headache for slaves of America in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Negotiators for the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban met in Islamabad February 06, 2014 for a first round of talks aimed at ending the militants' bloody insurgency. The first meeting was aimed at charting a plan for future peace talks. The Pakistani Taliban demands include imposition of strict Islamic law, the release of its fighters from jail and the withdrawal of government troops from northwestern tribal areas of Pakistan. The region is known for harboring local and foreign militants. Several earlier efforts at striking peace deals with the militants failed to end the violence for long, only allowing them to regroup, recruit new fighters and strike back with renewed vengeance. The Taliban insurgency has taken thousands of lives, as Taliban members battled for establishment of an independent, Islamic-controlled state.

The government of Pakistan agreed to participate in the talks because it wanted to bring an end to bloodshed in Pakistan as soon as possible. Preliminary peace talks between the Pakistani government and and the Pakistani Taliban were delayed after the government team failed to show up for a meeting in Islamabad February 04, 2014. Both sides were scheduled to meet at the office of Jamaat-e-Islami, a major Islamic party. The Taliban had originally appointed a five-member negotiating team, but two of them backed out. The Taliban team consisted of leaders from Pakistani religious parties with representation in the national parliament, but there was no active leader or fighter of the insurgent group in the peace committee. The group of Islamist leaders representing the Taliban appeared, but the government team decided at the last minute against attending the talks. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had "come under pressure” for his peace initiative. Critics have accused Sharif's government of taking a weak stand against the Taliban in the past.

Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a Pakistan-based terrorist organization formed in 2007 in opposition to Pakistani military efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Previously disparate militant tribes agreed to cooperate and eventually coalesced into TTP under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is a network of at least a dozen groups that claimed responsibility for suicide bombings across Pakistan.

Tehrik Taliban-i Pakistan (TTiP / TTP - Movement of Studens in Pakistan) was an umbrella organization for indigenous Pakistani Taliban commanders, based in Pakistan, in the FATA. The name "Tehrik-i-Taliban" had been used prior to the latest December 14 announcement. An organization with a similar name emerged in FATA's Orakzai Agency in 1998. Some reports also mention a similar organization by the name of Tehrik-i- Tulaba (Movement of Students) also operating in Orakzai Agency that even established an active Shari`a court. The name and idea, therefore, is not original.

The Waziris, who by 1910 numbered some 40,000 fighting men altogether, were at that time divided into two main sections, the Darwesh Khel (30,000) and the Mahsuds (8,000), with two smaller sections. The Mahsuds, who then inhabited the tract of country lying between the Tochi Valley on the north and the Gomal river on the south, had earned for themselves an evil name as the most confirmed raiders on the border; but they were a plucky race, as active over the hills as the Afridis [in the Khyber Agency], and next to them the best-armed large tribe on the frontier. From Wana to Tank, from Tank to Bannu, and from Bannu to Datta Khel, for a distance of over 200 miles, British territory in India before the Great War was open to Mahsud depredations.

The Government of Pakistan sought stability along the border with Afghanistan by continuing their traditional policy, which followed in the footsteps of the British Raj. Pakistan achieved a series "truces" with local leaders in 2004, 2005, and 2006. In February 2005 the Pakistani military reached a peace deal with Baitullah Mahsud, and withdrew its forces from check points in the region. A Pakistan Army spokesman confirmed that a November 2004 deal included giving Baitullah Mehsud and three other tribal leaders about $540,000 to repay loans they had taken from Al Qaeda. Abdullah Mehsud vowed to continue his "jihad" despite the pact between the Pakistan government and several of his former allies. In mid-2006, Islamabad struck a peace deal with insurgents in North Waziristan. Pakistan agreed to end military operations and remove local checkpoints, in return for an halt in insurgent attacks on government officials.