Punjabi Taliban to join hands with Haqqani network

Amir Mir

Asmatullah Muavia’s announcement to cease militancy inside Pakistan and redirect it to the neighbouring Afghanistan has caused deep worries in Islamabad’s diplomatic circles, amid ongoing efforts by the Punjabi Taliban to relocate themselves along with the Haqqanis and to join hands with them in their cross-border ambushes.

The ameer of the al-Qaeda-linked Punjabi Taliban has already announced on September 12 that his group would abandon insurgent activities inside the country and redirect its energies towards the neighbouring Afghanistan. “We will confine our practical jihadi role to Afghanistan due to deteriorating situation in the region and internal situation of Pakistani jihadi movement,” said the Punjabi Taliban’s chief Asmatullah Muavia in a video message. He said his faction would operate in Afghanistan under the guidance of Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Afghan Taliban, while its activities in Pakistan will be restricted to preaching Islam and Shariah.

He justified jihad against the foreign forces, saying they were occupying Afghanistan.” The announcement came three months after the start of the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan which had become a haven for the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked jihadis. Ten days after the operation was launched, the Pakistan Army had announced on June 25, 2014 that the Haqqani network was also a target of the military offensive in North Waziristan, being a terrorist group.

“For the security forces, there will be no discrimination among the TTP groups or the Haqqani militant network. All the terrorist groups are going to be eliminated”, said DG ISPR Major General Asim Bajwa during a briefing at the GHQ.

However, the diplomatic community in Islamabad disputes the claim that the offensive in North Waziristan is directed against all the groups without discrimination. In fact, they alleged that the leadership and the fighters of the Haqqani network were relocated to the Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) of Pakistan before the operation was launched. During the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, Kurram was a key safe haven for the anti-Soviet Mujahideen who used it as a launching pad to attack the Russian forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network, which is still viewed by the Pakistani security establishment as a strategic asset (to be used in the post withdrawal Afghanistan), already had substantial presence in various parts of the Kurram Agency ever since the Pakistan Army launched Operation Koh-e-Sufaid there in July 2011 to suppress anti-Shia uprising.

While the ISPR spokesman was not available for comments, an army official refuted (on the condition of anonymity) reports that the Pakistani establishment had been involved in relocating Haqqanis to the Upper Kurram region in Mengal tribe areas of Shalozan, Narai, Muqbal, and Shapo before the launching of the North Waziristan operation after imposing curfew in the Agency. He insisted that Operation Zarb-e-Azb was a battle for the survival of Pakistan and the armed forces were proceeding against all the terrorist groups in North Waziristan, including the Haqqani network, without any discrimination.

But well-informed diplomats in Islamabad insist while requesting anonymity that the Haqqani network had been shifted to the Kurram Agency because of multiple reasons, the foremost being its strategic location, which provides an ideal passage to Afghanistan and allows greater freedom of movement. Secondly, Kurram, despite being located onthe Pak-Afghan border, hasn’t been a common target of the US drone strikes which had killed many key Haqqani group leaders in North Waziristan.

According to these circles, as things stand, the Shalozan area in Kurram Agency seems to be the new headquarters of the Haqqani network as it is strategically placed in the foothills of the Koh-e-Sufaid and gives its fighters quick access to Kabul.

The diplomatic circles say preserving the Haqqanis despite international pressure to dismantle their network from Pakistan clearly shows zero change in the establishment’s Afghan policy, especially when Mullah Mohammad Omar’s Quetta Shura also remains outside the scope of the ongoing operation. But an even more disturbing development for them is the September 12 announcement by the Punjabi Taliban’s chief Asmatullah Muavia to stop militancy in Pakistan and redirect it to the neighbouring Afghanistan. The development came amid reports that having abandoned North Waziristan, many of the Punjabi Taliban fighters who still want to wage jihad, are in the process of relocating themselves to the Kurram Agency along with the Haqqanis with a view to back them in their cross-border ambushes.

Reacting to Asmatullah Muavia’s announcement of parting of ways with the Pakistani Taliban, TTP’s Commander Abu Baseer has alleged in a statement that the ameer of the Punjabi Taliban was a mole of the intelligence agencies who is advancing their agenda. Muavia, who was affiliated with the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the past, was expelled from the TTP in August 2013 for unilaterally welcoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s offer of peace talks, without waiting for the approval of the central leadership. The TTP circles say Muavia’s change of heart was the outcome of a deal which may grant him amnesty despite his involvement in some bloody terrorist activities in the past.

A day after Muavia’s announcement to shift the focus of activities to Afghanistan, the Afghan foreign ministry summoned Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires in Kabul Muazzam Shah and conveyed Kabul’s deep concern. The head of the political affairs in the Afghan foreign affairs ministry Abdul Samad said Afghanistan is suffering from the activities of terrorist groups, which are being funded, equipped and trained by Pakistani intelligence agencies, adding that the use of terrorism as a political tool is not in the interest of any nation.

In a previous statement issued five weeks after the launching of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) - which is the Afghan intelligence agency - had stated on July 23, 2014 that the Pakistani military offensive in North Waziristan did not have any effect on any of the terrorist networks, including the Haqqani Network.

NDS spokesman Haseeb Sediqi told reporters in Kabul that one of the most important terrorist networks - Haqqani Network - remains safe from the offensive as the network leaders have been taken to safe locations along with several leaders from other terrorist networks. He said the NDS has received intelligence information which shows that the Haqqani network leaders were shifted to Kurram, Quetta, Karachi and even Islamabad two weeks before the offensive was launched.

Approached for comments, a former chief of the ISI in Punjab, Brigadier (Retd) Aslam Ghumman, strongly refuted the Afghan intelligence agency’s claim that the Haqqani network remains safe from the North Waziristan operation because its leaders had been relocated to safer locations. “The Pakistani security establishment has learnt the lesson from its involvement in the Afghan jihad - having raised 40,000 militants to fight out the Russian occupation forces. As Pakistan continues to suffer the blowback of the past follies, it can’t simply afford protecting or nourishing any more jihadi Frankenstein. The truth is that the Pakistani establishment wants to secure its borders with Afghanistan. And we can’t achieve this objective by interfering in Afghanistan. If we interfere there, they will react by interfering here. Therefore, we don’t want to interfere in Afghanistan, which is our brotherly Islamic country. And the decision makers in Afghanistan should also understand that their ultimate friend is Pakistan and not India which is using their soil to create problems for Pakistan”, observed the former ISI official.

However, as the Pakistani security forces keep advancing in North Waziristan after uprooting the Taliban, it has transpired the Haqqani network had been running training camps for suicide bombers in North Waziristan who were dispatched to Afghanistan. This became evident in the second week of July when the Pakistan Army finally entered the Serai Darpakhel area, almost a month after the operation was launched. The security forces discovered five suicide bombing facilities owned and operated by the Haqqani network in Serai Darpakhel, which was frequented by would-be-bombers in their teens and twenties; Afghans and Mehsuds mostly. Plastered on the walls of these training facilities were white banners inscribed with Kalma and beneath it ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.’

As Zarb-e-Azb continues to unfold, it seems that the Pakistani establishment is still in no mood to abandon the Haqqanis, which are its best and most lethal bet against Kabul. There were clear signs of tensions between the Haqqani leadership and the Pakistani establishment when unknown gunmen assassinated Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani’s younger brother, Naseeruddin Haqqani, in Islamabad in November 2013, a few days after Hakeemullah Mehsud was droned to death. However, “things” are back to normal between the two allies after the Haqqanis assured their ‘hosts’ that they won’t support the TTP in future. In return, the Haqqanis were given a safe passage before the start of the operation in North Waziristan.

However, Brigadier (Retd) Aslam Ghumman insisted that the Pakistani establishment would not allow any militant group to carry out any terrorist activity from the Pakistani side of the border in Afghanistan, be it the Haqqani network, the Afghan Taliban, the TTP or the Punjabi Taliban. “We don’t want any hostility or enmity with Afghanistan because it will eventually hurt Pakistan”, the former ISI official added.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-273284-Punjabi-Taliban-to-join-hands-with-Haqqani-network