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How the Pakistani Taliban Became a Deadly Force How the Pakistani Taliban Became a Deadly Force
(about 4 hours later)
Q. Who are the Pakistani Taliban?Q. Who are the Pakistani Taliban?
A. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is a loose and often chaotic umbrella organization representing roughly 30 groups of Pakistani militants along the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The group was officially founded in 2007 by a prominent jihadi commander, Baitullah Mehsud, and for years it and allied groups like Al Qaeda have been based in the ethnic Pashtun tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan, particularly in North and South Waziristan. A. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is a loose and increasingly divided umbrella organization that once represented roughly 30 groups of militants. The group was officially founded in 2007 by a prominent jihadi commander, Baitullah Mehsud, and for years it and allied groups like Al Qaeda have been based in the Pashtun tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan, particularly in North and South Waziristan.
Many Pakistani Taliban commanders had fought in Afghanistan as part of the movement that swept to power in Kabul. When American forces ousted that movement in 2001, many of its leaders fled across the border into Pakistan. The Pakistanis among them played host to their Afghan counterparts — as well as hundreds of fighters from Al Qaeda — providing them with shelter, logistical support and recruits. Many Pakistani Taliban commanders fought in Afghanistan as part of the movement that swept to power in Kabul. When American forces ousted that movement in 2001, many of its leaders fled across the border into Pakistan. The Pakistanis among them played host to their Afghan counterparts — as well as hundreds of fighters from Al Qaeda — providing them with shelter, logistical support and recruits.
The Afghan Taliban and Qaeda fighters steadily radicalized the tribal regions, encouraging the Pakistani Taliban to spread their influence across the mountainous region and beyond into Pakistan’s settled areas and main cities. Under pressure by the United States, the Pakistani Army made tentative efforts to dismantle those sanctuaries in 2003 and 2004, but it was too late. The tribal militiamen, enriched and radicalized by their Qaeda guests, chafed under the army's attempts to impose control.
The militant groups resisted the Pakistani military’s efforts to impose control. They sometimes cooperated in cease-fire agreements with the Pakistani military and then reneged months later. After Mr. Mehsud created Tehrik-i-Taliban, he led the group in attacks against the Pakistani state, striking military and civilian targets in various cities. The group accused the Pakistani government of siding with the United States after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and vowed revenge for the killing of Pakistani civilians in the 2006 bombing of a madrassa in North-West Frontier Province, which was renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2010, and in the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in 2007. They sometimes cooperated in cease-fire agreements with the Pakistani military, only to renege months later. Under Mr. Mehsud, the Taliban started to attack the Pakistani security forces and government, even within the country’s major cities. Soon, they openly declared their goal of imposing their will across pakistan.
The United States designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist organization in September 2010.The United States designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist organization in September 2010.
Q. What relationship do the Pakistani Taliban have to the Afghan Taliban?Q. What relationship do the Pakistani Taliban have to the Afghan Taliban?
A. The group owes allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and cooperates closely with the Afghan movement in its insurgency in Afghanistan, providing men, logistics and rear bases for the Afghan Taliban. It has trained and dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers from Pakistan’s tribal areas into Afghanistan. The movement shares a close relationship with the Haqqani Network, the most hard-core section of the Afghan Taliban operating out of North Waziristan, which has been behind repeated suicide attacks in and around Kabul and eastern Afghanistan. The groups also cooperate and provide safe haven for Qaeda operatives, including Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Pakistani intelligence, which has longstanding ties with the Haqqani Network, has sought to turn the Pakistani Taliban to fight Western forces in Afghanistan and desist from attacks against Pakistan. A. The group owes allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and cooperates closely with the Afghan movement in its insurgency in Afghanistan, providing men, logistics and rear bases for the Afghan Taliban. It has trained and dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers from Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The movement shares a close relationship with the Haqqani Network, the most hard-core affiliate of the Afghan Taliban, which has been behind repeated suicide attacks in and around Kabul and eastern Afghanistan. The groups also cooperate and provide haven for Qaeda operatives, including Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The wide extent of militant cooperation in the tribal areas has complicated matters for the Pakistani military intelligence agency, which has long provided support for the Afghan-focused Taliban, even while trying to fight the Pakistani Taliban in recent years.
Q. What are the most significant attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban?Q. What are the most significant attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban?
A. The Pakistani Taliban and affiliated militant groups have mounted a long series of devastating bomb blasts in Pakistan’s cities over the years. They attacked Pakistani military and intelligence targets, including a suicide bombing in the canteen of Pakistan’s elite special forces commandos, the Special Services Groups, and a hostage-taking inside the army’s General Staff Headquarters in Rawalpindi. The Pakistani Taliban were also behind fatal bomb blasts on softer targets like the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008 and the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar in 2009. A. The Pakistani Taliban and affiliated militant groups have mounted a long series of devastating attacks in Pakistan’s cities over the years.
One of their most significant attacks in 2014 was an audacious siege of the Karachi international airport in June. The attack, in which a group of 10 attackers fought security forces for hours and killed 13 people, represented the final straw for Pakistan’s military. Within days, an extensive military air and ground assault began against Taliban leaders headquartered in North Waziristan. It is that offensive that a Taliban spokesman said led to the retaliatory militant attack in Peshawar on Dec. 16 that killed dozens of Pakistani schoolchildren and teachers.
In September 2013, the Pakistani Taliban unleashed one of their deadliest attacks ever, sending suicide bombers to the historic All Saints Church in Peshawar, a symbol of cooperation between Muslims and Christians. All told, at least 120 people died in the attack and its aftermath, which refocused attention on the Taliban’s persecution of religious minorities. The attack was ordered even as the Pakistani government and Taliban leaders were exploring peace talks.
In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl in the Swat Valley, for advocating the education of girls. Ms. Yousafzai went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and has become a worldwide symbol of the group’s indiscriminate violence and subjugation of women and girls. She and her family live in England, in part because the Pakistani Taliban have vowed to attack her again.
Through the years, the militants have also hit Pakistani military and intelligence targets, including a suicide bombing in the canteen of Pakistan’s elite special forces commandos, the Special Services Groups, and a hostage-taking inside the army’s General Staff Headquarters in Rawalpindi. The Pakistani Taliban were also behind fatal bomb blasts on softer targets like the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008 and the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar in 2009.
Baitullah Mehsud is also thought to have been behind the suicide bombing that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.Baitullah Mehsud is also thought to have been behind the suicide bombing that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
Under Hakimullah Mehsud, the group demonstrated a close alliance with Al Qaeda. He claimed a role in the suicide bombing by a Jordanian double agent that killed seven C.I.A. officials and a Jordanian intelligence official at Camp Chapman in eastern Afghanistan in December 2009, mounted in revenge for the killing of Beitullah Mehsud. Under Hakimullah Mehsud, the group demonstrated a close alliance with Al Qaeda. He claimed a role in the suicide bombing by a Jordanian double agent that killed seven C.I.A. officials and a Jordanian intelligence official at Camp Chapman in eastern Afghanistan in December 2009, mounted in revenge for the killing of Baitullah Mehsud. The Taliban disseminated video footage showing Mr. Mehsud beside the bomber before the attack.
The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence and was being used to try to undermine Al Qaeda’s leadership based in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Taliban disseminated video footage showing Mr. Mehsud beside the Jordanian before the bomber traveled from North Waziristan to Afghanistan to carry out the attack.
Mr. Mehsud later trained Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in New York City in 2010.Mr. Mehsud later trained Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in New York City in 2010.
In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl in the Swat Valley, in the head for advocating the education of girls. Ms. Yousafzai went on to become a worldwide symbol of the group’s indiscriminate violence and subjugation of women and girls, traveling to New York to give a speech at the United Nations. She and her family have moved to England, in part because the Pakistani Taliban vowed to attack her again. Q. What is the state of the Taliban’s leadership?
Q. Who has led the Pakistani Taliban? A. The Pakistani Taliban group is now nominally led by Maulana Fazlullah, a jihadi leader thought to be in hiding on the Afghan side of the border. But the organization has been under pressure from a military offensive in North Waziristan since June 2014, and the main group has suffered at least two major schisms and several bouts of deadly infighting, as rival leadership factions have differed over the group’s direction.
A. Hakimullah Mehsud became the leader of the Pakistani Taliban after an American drone strike killed Baitullah Mehsud in August 2009. A onetime driver for the Taliban who had risen to prominence through a series of daring attacks, he played a major role in the humiliating kidnapping of 250 Pakistani soldiers in 2007. He later stole American jeeps as they were being transported to Afghanistan and was filmed driving around in one. Yet Mullah Fazulullah was seen as a possible peacemaker within Pakistan’s militant firmament when he was chosen to lead the Taliban after the previous leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in an American airstrike in November 2013.
Mr. Mehsud proved a wayward, vicious leader. He appeared at the execution of a former Pakistani intelligence officer, Sultan Amir, known as Colonel Imam, in 2011. Colonel Imam had long been a trainer and mentor to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, yet Mr. Mehsud ignored efforts to intercede on his behalf by senior Taliban figures, including Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the powerful Haqqani network. Mr. Mehsud was the Taliban’s most flamboyant leader. He was a close aide and deputy to the Pakistani Taliban’s founder, Baitullah Mehsud, coming to prominence through a series of daring attacks. He rose to supreme leadership after an American drone strike killed Baitullah Mehsud in August 2009.
Hunted by American drones, Mr. Mehsud adopted a low profile in recent months and was rarely seen in the news media. But in a BBC interview that was broadcast in October, he vowed to continue his campaign of violence. He was aware that the C.I.A. was seeking to kill him, he said, adding: “Don’t be afraid. We all have to die someday.”
Mr. Mehsud’s deputy, Abdullah Behar, was among the four people who were killed with him, according to a Pakistani official, and it was not clear who might succeed him. Mr. Behar had just assumed the deputy post from Latif Mehsud, a militant commander whom American forces in Afghanistan detained in 2013.