Reason behind TTP tearing up cease fire deal now?
We have known for the past two months that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTPflimsy )’s truce with the government has broken down. The group “directed” its field commanders to resume attacks across the nation “in retaliation” for the security and intelligence agencies’ “relentless operations” in defiance of the ceasefire. The TTP asserted that it had “executed restraint for too long to keep the negotiation process on track,” but the government disregarded it.
It is noteworthy that the declaration was made by the TTP’s self-proclaimed “defence ministry” and bears Mufti Muzahim’s signature, the group’s chief military planner. Additionally, Mufti Burjan, the head of the TTP’s military committee (South Zone), announced at the same time that senior commander meetings with their emir Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud would be prohibited for two months. He gave no explanation, but it’s assumed the organisation is worried the emir would become a target if hostilities resume.
The TTP declared the truce in June 2022 after months of covert negotiations with the Pakistani government. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior minister of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, mediated the procedure. Until he was transferred and assigned as corps commander Bahawalpur in August 2022, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, then corps commander Peshawar, is said to have oversaw the negotiation process. The TTP’s demands for a final peace agreement, particularly the reversal of FATA’s merger with K-P and the withdrawal of troops from these regions, were equivalent to the state’s surrender and prevented the process from progressing beyond “confidence-building measures.”
The negotiations’ sluggish pace infuriated the group. Its leaders would occasionally express this discomfort. But after some of the TTP’s top commanders, including Abdul Wali, alias Omar Khalid Khorasani, were killed in enigmatic targeted assaults in Afghanistan in August 2022, the simmering resentment reached a boiling point. On September 3, 2022, the TTP’s spokesman “Khalid Khorasani” sent text messages to a few media that formally brokered the truce. Publicly, neither party made the assertion. Despite the fact that the TTP formally claimed responsibility for a few attacks on that particular day, they instead sought to conceal the information. The gang has increased its aggression since then, carrying out 50 bombings and shootings in November alone, including one on November 16 in Lakki Marwat.
This begs the question: if the truce had already ended, then why did the TTP announce it now?
After the foreign ministry announced that deputy foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar will be in charge of a significant group travelling to Kabul for discussions with Taliban leaders, the TTP released a statement. According to rumours, Interior Minister Haqqani also extended an invitation to the TTP to visit Kabul, but the group turned it down. According to sources, the TTP appears to have lost faith in the Afghan Taliban’s “Haqqani faction,” which is regarded as being close to the Pakistani establishment, and is now attempting to align itself with the rival “Kandahari faction,” which is led by Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob.
Mullah Yaqoob allegedly declined to meet with the Pakistani team in Kabul, according to some Afghan media sources. However, a representative of the defence ministry denied that such a meeting was ever scheduled. The Kabul regime may have orchestrated the TTP’s action in order to apply pressure in their discussions with Khar and her delegation because they think Pakistan is once more siding with the US after warming up to them.
A day before Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa was to hand over command of the army to Gen. Syed Asim Munir, the TTP announced the truce’s collapse. This could serve as a reminder to the new army chief to restart the negotiations that have stalled since Lt Gen Faiz Hameed was transferred out of Peshawar.
After losing some of its top fighters in recent months in Afghanistan, it’s also possible that the TTP wants to split from the Afghan Taliban. They may believe that the Kabul government, which has come under increasing pressure from Islamabad to destroy TTP strongholds, is to blame for this. If so, the TTP may subsequently begin to drift toward the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State terrorist organisation. And should that take place, the Taliban regime would experience its worst nightmare. The TTP would go to whatever lengths to avoid this because it understands that its partnership with Da’ish could pose the greatest threat to the Taliban’s fledgling government.
Reason behind TTP tearing up cease fire deal now?
Whatever the reasoning behind its most recent action, the TTP has no incentive to stop using violence and disband, especially after the Taliban seize control of Kabul in August 2021.
The Pakistani government also understood how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to convince its citizens to support a peace agreement with the TTP, which is accountable for some of the worst terrorist atrocities.
