Terror attacks by Pak's TTP now create greater concerns for authorities

ISLAMABAD: The Border provinces of Pakistan adjoining Afghanistan have been facing attacks by the terror outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after the revocation of a peace treaty between them, Pakistan vernacular media Jang reported, adding the attacks claimed the lives of 419 civilians and defence personnel.

The Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) claimed there were 262 terror attacks launched by the TTP and other terror groups active on the Afghan -Pakistan border during the past year. The PIPS report claimed that 419 Pakistanis were killed and 734 injured in these attacks.

Pakistan authorities believed to be close to Afghanistan’s Taliban at some point in history now face a two-sided battle. As they have been involved in a tussle for quite some time now with TTP on one side and the Afghan Taliban on the other.

Now as the situation gets worse on both fronts day by day, these successive attacks by the terror outfit TTP have once again put the spotlight on the presence of good and bad Taliban in Pakistan, according to an American defence and political analyst based in Moscow, the Jang reported.

The analyst, Andrew Koribko, said this in an interview with American media, citing the report in the Jang.

The same media report quoted the Madsen Center for International Affairs Chief Executive Geoffrey who told the American news agency that the TTP demands that the status of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan- be resolved and the fence built on the Afghan border be removed.

Although, Pakistan’s government recently vowed to crack down on terrorism without discrimination. To which the TTP replied by threatening to attack two of the leading political parties of Pakistan.

At the 40th National Security Committee meeting in December last year, Pakistan vowed to show ‘zero tolerance’ for terrorism amid the spurt in terrorist strikes by banned TTP and a rise in cross-border terrorism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

This zero-tolerance stance on terrorism comes at a time when the peace agreement between the TTP and the Pakistan administration was revoked. And recently Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said despite the agreement, Afghanistan’s soil is being used for attacks against his country.

Asif also pointed out that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounted for 58 per cent of all terrorist incidents in Pakistan, with some of them also occurring in Balochistan.

The TTP recently issued a warning to the top leaders of the ruling parties, urging them not to appease the United States by “announcing a war against the outfit”. Pakistani political parties leaders from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) received threats from the terror outfit for waging war against them.

TTP cautioned the religious and political groups in their letter to refrain from taking action against the terrorist group. The outlawed group allegedly desired ‘harmony’ between the TTP and the religious groups.