TTP is Pakistani movement rooted in its territory, political history, and jihadist ecosystem: Report
Islamabad, Sep 6 (IANS) Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a Pakistani movement rooted in its territory, political history and its own jihadist ecosystem, says a report, even as Islamabad, for the past five years, has described its resurgence as an Afghan problem, accusing the Taliban of providing sanctuary to TTP fighters and allowing them to use Afghan territory to carry out attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s accusation has some truth, as TTP commanders and fighters entered Afghanistan during Pakistani military operations, and the Taliban’s return to power gave advantages to TTP as hundreds of prisoners were released and factions were reunited, according to a report in Stringer Asia.
“UN reports have repeatedly documented a substantial TTP presence on Afghan territory. But sanctuary is not origin, and facilitation is not ownership. TTP is not an Afghan organisation attacking Pakistan from abroad. It is a Pakistani movement, rooted in Pakistani territory, Pakistani political history and Pakistan’s own jihadist ecosystem. Afghanistan may provide strategic depth to TTP today, just as Pakistan provided strategic depth to the Afghan Taliban for two decades, but the war itself remains overwhelmingly Pakistani. That distinction matters because Islamabad’s Afghan explanation conceals more than it reveals,” the report said.
TTP’s resurgence is not only the consequence of the Taliban’s unwillingness to evict militants but also the result of Pakistan’s failure to tackle the ideological, institutional and political machinery that created them, the report stressed. The scale of that failure is so massive that it can no longer be covered up, it added.
By August 23, at least 128 TTP-related incidents have been recorded in Pakistan in 2026, which have claimed the lives of 559 people, including 81 security forces personnel. The number of incidents was higher than the number of incidents reported during the corresponding period in 2025. TTP has claimed that it has carried out 3,573 attacks in 2025 and that thousands of security personnel have been killed or wounded. TTP has been primarily conducting attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Since 2009, the Pakistan military has launched several operations like Rah-e-Rast, Rah-e-Nijat, Koh-e-Sufaid, Zarb-e-Azb, Radd-ul-Fasaad, and Azm-e-Istehkam, and thousands of militants have reportedly been killed and hundreds of hideouts have been destroyed. However, TTP fighters crossed the border, buried their weapons and joined other factions, or waited until authorities’ attention moved somewhere else. Meanwhile, people in Pakistan faced problems due to mass displacement, military restrictions, enforced disappearances, destroyed livelihoods, and a political order in which constitutional rights were frequently considered an impediment to counter-terrorism.
“Pakistan can continue bombing border districts, announcing new operations and inventing Arabic labels for enemies it once helped to cultivate. It can even carry its war into Afghanistan and present the resulting regional crisis as counterterrorism. What it cannot do is defeat a Pakistani insurgency while pretending that its causes live entirely on the other side of the Durand Line. The Afghan sanctuary is part of the problem. Pakistan is the rest of it,” the Stringer Asia report said.
On July 2, two police personnel, including an additional Station House Officer (SHO), were killed after armed assailants attacked a police patrol in Mohmand district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to the police, the attack took place near the Warsak Lift Canal in the Machni area, where a police mobile patrol was attacked by armed assailants. The police said an additional SHO and an elite force constable were killed in the attack, while the vehicle’s driver suffered injuries, Pakistan-based daily Dawn reported. According to the police, Fitna al Khawarij terrorists, a term used by Pakistan for terrorists belonging to the banned TTP, were behind the attack.
–IANS
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