It is estimated that the victims of his action are almost 80,000.
The Pakistani Taliban on Monday announced the end of a ceasefire they had declared in June but which was only partially kept by them, ordering their fighters to resume attacks across Pakistan.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (“Taliban Movement of Pakistan”, KTP), an organization distinct from the Afghan Taliban but with the same ideology, has killed tens of thousands of people, civilians and members of the forces, since its birth in 2007 security. It is estimated that the victims of his action are almost 80,000.
Although it has weakened since 2014, following intensive operations by the Pakistani army, it recovered after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, amid the withdrawal of foreign troops, especially those of the United States, after two decades of war.
The KPT justified the end of the ceasefire, which it had extended indefinitely in July to facilitate peace negotiations with representatives of the Pakistani state, citing its breach by Islamabad.
“We have shown great patience in order not to sabotage the peace process,” said a statement from the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban.
“But the army and the intelligence services did not stop their attacks, so now there will be retaliatory attacks across the country,” he explained.
Peace talks began in May in the Afghan capital, Kabul, brokered by the Afghan Taliban, but there has been no substantial progress since then.
Moreover, the ceasefire was never really observed, neither by the KTP, which multiplied targeted attacks, no longer against civilians as in the past but mainly against the security forces, nor by the Pakistani army, which never stopped pursuing the fundamentalist fighters.
In mid-November, six policemen were killed in an ambush in the village of Sahab Khel (northwest), about a hundred kilometers from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Rising tension
Since Friday, the army has been increasing its presence in the area to drive out KTP fighters. Bomb their hideouts with attack helicopters.
The movement was created by Pakistani jihadists, allies of al-Qaida, who fought alongside the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s, before rebelling over Islamabad’s support for the US when the US-led invasion of that country began in 2001.
It was at the height of its power from 2007 to 2009, when it controlled the Sawat Valley, not even 140 kilometers from Islamabad, imposing its own highly fundamentalist version of Islamic law.
The group is particularly notorious for the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s history: around 150 people, mostly students, were massacred in December 2014 in a raid on a military school in Peshawar.
Weakened by frequent US UAV strikes, its internal divisions and the emergence of the Islamic State jihadist group, it was eventually driven from the semi-autonomous tribal lands of northwestern Pakistan into Afghanistan during the army’s large-scale operation in 2014.
It began to regroup in the summer of 2020, with dissident factions coming together. But her fortunes seemed to really change after the Taliban seized power in Kabul.
KTP attacks have increased by 50% since August 2021 and have claimed the lives of at least 433 people, according to Pakistan’s PIPS Institute. At the same time, the organization seems to have systematically blackmailed businessmen and politicians to secure funding, according to testimonies gathered by AFP.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border has been a source of increasing tension for a year. Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of allowing the KPT to plan and organize attacks on Pakistani territory there. The regime in Kabul denies this.
“It is important to have serious negotiations with the Afghan Taliban on the issue and let them understand the gravity of the problem,” says Saad Khan, a Pakistani analyst.
Officially, the Pakistani government has not reacted to the KTP announcement at this stage.
A Pakistani delegation headed by Hina Rabbani Kar, the foreign minister, is expected in Kabul today.
RES-EMP
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