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Pakistani Taliban oust spokesman for pledging allegiance to Isis Isis ascent in Syria and Iraq weakening Pakistani Taliban
(about 4 hours later)
The influential spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban has been sacked for pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (Isis) and for feuding with his leader, Maulana Fazlullah, according to a statement and senior commanders. The dramatic rise of Islamic State (Isis) in Syria and Iraq is helping to tear apart the Pakistani Taliban, the beleaguered militant group beset by infighting and splits.
It is the latest sign of deepening divisions in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which was formed in 2007 but has recently undergone numerous splits that analysts say have damaged its operational capabilities. Once the country’s largest and most feared militant coalition, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been on the ropes since a US drone strike killed its charismatic leader Hakimullah Mehsud in 2013, a blow followed this summer by the launch of a military onslaught against the group’s sanctuaries.
The move came after Shahidullah Shahid, who became the militant group’s spokesman in 2013, was apparently heard in an audio recording released last week pledging allegiance to Isis jihadis who have taken over swaths of Iraq and Syria. The audio could not be independently confirmed and Shahid could not be reached to verify it. But the latest challenge to the TTP has come from the startling military successes of Isis and its demand that all Muslims pledge allegiance to the new caliphate it announced in June.
In a statement published on its Facebook page, the TTP said Shahid was no longer a member of the group and that its leader swore fealty only to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. The claim to global Islamic leadership by the self-styled caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi threatens to undermine the TTP, which draws considerable authority from the fact that its symbolic figurehead is Mullah Omar, the one-eyed village preacher who ruled the original Taliban “emirate” in Afghanistan prior to the US-led invasion of 2001.
“As for the matter of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, the emir of the movement, the seeker of truth, Fazlullah, may Allah preserve him, explained that we pledge to the Emir of the Believers, Mullah Muhammad Omar, may Allah preserve him and protect him.” This week the TTP’s beleaguered leadership announced it had sacked its spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, after the high profile militant announced he had pledged his personal allegiance to Baghdadi.
It said Shahidullah Shahid was a nom de guerre and that the former spokesman’s real name was Sheikh Abu Omar Maqbul. The statement did not mention when a new spokesman would be named. The statement published on the movement’s Facebook page said the spokesman had left the group some time before and reiterated that the TTP’s leader, Mullah Fazlullah, continued to back Mullah Omar, “the emir of believers”.
Two senior commanders confirmed the move, with one saying that internal feuding had played a major part in the decision. “The real reason was that there were differences between Shahid and TTP chief Fazlullah over the command of the group,” he said, speaking from an undisclosed location. Last week an audio recording was circulated in which Shahid and five other senior Taliban commanders from across Pakistan’s troubled north-western borderlands with Afghanistan announced they were now followers of Baghdadi.
Shahid was vocal about urging Fazlullah to come to the North Waziristan tribal district, where the Pakistan military launched an offensive in June, to lead the group from the front, instead of issuing orders from Afghanistan’s Kunar province by satellite phone, the commander said. Mohammad Amir Rana, head of the security thinktank the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, said the turning of Pakistani militants towards Isis was highly significant. “This shows [Isis] has captured the imagination and it will encourage many other smaller groups who have been waiting and watching to see what the major groups do.”
“Secondly, Shahid was also annoyed that he was not taken into confidence by Fazlullah on mending relations with the Sajna faction,” the commander added, referring to an influential faction of the powerful Mehsud tribe that split from the leadership in May. The challenge from Isis is just the latest facing the TTP, which has repeatedly splintered since Fazlullah took control of the movement last year after a bitter succession dispute.
Last month, militants from the Mohmand tribal district announced the formation of a new bloc, the Jamat-ul-Ahrar, in a further fracturing of the TTP. Not being a member of the Mehsud tribe which had dominated the TTP, Fazlullah was unable to hold together a coalition of militant groups that originally joined together in 2007.
The group has killed thousands of civilians and security forces since rising up against the state after an operation against a radical mosque in Islamabad. The movement has fragmented into at least four groups, in part due to disagreements over strategy whether militants committed to imposing Sharia law on the country by force should engage in peace talks offered by the government.
The TTP has close operational and financial ties to Al-Qaida, with both groups routinely claiming credit for attacks on major installations. Fazlullah’s authority was further undermined by the fact he based himself in the relative safety of eastern Afghanistan at a time when Pakistan’s army is engaged in a major operation to destroy the TTP’s sanctuary in North Waziristan, which the army claims has killed 1,100 militants since it was launched on 15 June.
But the Isis ideology of reviving the caliphate concept, as well as its territorial gains in the Middle East, are seen as appealing to Pakistani militants, who are fighting for a stricter Sharia state. Although the TTP disarray and loss of its North Waziristan hideout have contributed to a sharp fall in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, analysts warn the movement and its various splinter groups are anxious to prove they can still inflict serious damage.
Leaflets and wall chalkings from activists sympathetic to Isis have recently been spotted in north-west Pakistan, while al-Qaeda last month launched a new South Asia arm in what analysts describe as an attempt to rebrand in order to remain relevant. Ehsan Ehsanullah, spokesman of the largest and most formidable new group, the TTP Jamat-ul-Ahrar, told the Guardian they were now “the real TTP” because they had been joined by so many of the Pakistani Taliban’s original founders.
And he claimed the loss of North Waziristan had not affected their fighting strength. “Before the operation in North Waziristan was launched we moved our resources and basics to safe places,” he wrote in an email exchange. “Changing headquarters does not change ideologies, strategies and the desire to ruin the enemies.”