Pakistani Militants Test Taliban Promise Not to Host Terror Groups
By Saeed Shah, Apr. 28, 2022, WSJ

China, Iran, Russia, and other countries in Afghanistan’s
region have all expressed concern that the country could
once again be a haven for international jihadists. There
are Chinese and central Asian jihadists in Afghanistan,
including Uzbek and Tajik militants. Last year, according
to Islamabad, TTP militants based in Afghanistan carried
out a bombing that killed nine Chinese engineers working
on a dam project in Pakistan. A United Nations report in
February said some of al Qaeda’s “closest sympathizers”
within the Taliban now occupy senior positions in the new
administration. It estimated the size of the TTP presence
in Afghanistan at between 3,000 and 5,500 fighters, which
would make it the biggest foreign jihadist group there.

“There are no recent signs that the Taliban has taken steps
to limit the activities of foreign terrorist fighters in the
country. On the contrary, terrorist groups enjoy greater
freedom there than at any time in recent history,” the report
said. When the Taliban seized power, they released thousands
of prisoners, including militants who swelled the ranks of the
TTP and Islamic State. Afghanistan was a sanctuary for Osama
bin Laden at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Just as
the Taliban then said that their culture and religion didn’t
permit them to hand over bin Laden, some Taliban commanders now
say that they should protect Pakistani & other foreign jihadists.

Pakistani militants gave the Taliban shelter in Pakistan after
they were driven out of Afghanistan by the 2001 U.S. invasion
of the country. They fought together against the then American-
backed regime in Kabul. Now the favor is being repaid.
The Taliban have taken on their jihadist rival, the local
branch of Islamic State, which is carrying out a brutal
campaign of attacks inside Afghanistan. Many Islamic State
fighters came from the TTP, and taking action against the
Pakistani militants could spur more to join Islamic State in
opposition to the Taliban.

The U.S. commander who oversees the region that includes
Afghanistan, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, said in March that, even
though the Taliban are pressuring Islamic State, the branch of
the group could establish an attack capability against the U.S.
and allies in 12 to 18 months. Against al Qaeda, he said the
Taliban are “much less firm.” Instead of military action,
the Taliban brokered talks between the TTP and Pakistani
authorities, negotiations that led to the release of dozens
of TTP prisoners in Pakistan and a monthlong cease-fire in
November. Those negotiations broke down in February, however.
The TTP fighters, along with their families, are in areas of
Afghanistan controlled by the part of the Taliban considered
closest to Pakistan, the Haqqani network, whose leader is
Afghanistan’s current interior minister.

Washington accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban as its
proxy for the two decades that U.S. soldiers were in Afghanistan.
During those years, Islamabad in turn alleged that the former
U.S.-backed Kabul government was allowing Pakistani militants
to operate in Afghanistan. Yet now that the Taliban are in power,
Pakistani militants have greater freedom. Video and pictures
released by the TTP show its fighters using American guns, night-
vision and thermal-imaging equipment. One video shows a long-range
sniper rifle with a night-vision scope, purportedly being used to
pick off Pakistani soldiers. They have been shooting some Pakistani
soldiers at night without even crossing the border. A picture of
the TTP’s leader, which was sent to The Wall Street Journal by
the group, shows two guards with him holding American M4 rifles.
The TTP has also released videos showing them traveling in large
motorcades, openly, in what appears to be Afghanistan.

The TTP was formed in reaction to Pakistan’s alliance with the
U.S. in the “war on terror” after the Sept. 11 attacks. The group,
which wants to see strict Islamic law imposed in Pakistan, was
responsible for the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto. In 2012, the TTP shot a young campaigner for
educating girls, Malala Yousafzai, who survived and went on to
win the Nobel Peace Prize. The TTP has been so violent, hitting
mosques and religious minorities in Pakistan repeatedly, that at
one point, bin Laden wrote to its leadership asking them to rein
in the civilian bloodshed as it was giving jihad a bad name,
according to a letter found by U.S. forces in 2011 at the former
al Qaeda leader’s hideout in Pakistan. Under its current leadership,
the TTP is focused on attacking Pakistani soldiers and policemen.

Pakistan’s two airstrikes on April 16, in the eastern Afghan
provinces of Kunar and Khost, killed at least 40 people, including
some civilians, according to local residents. The U.N. said that
20 children were among the dead. Pakistan hasn’t confirmed that it
carried out the airstrikes and declined to comment on the civilian
deaths, but said earlier this month that “terrorists are using
Afghan soil with impunity to carry out activities inside Pakistan.”
“If we tolerated the incident, it would have been due to our national interests. We might not have the same tolerance next time,” Mawlawi
Mohammad Yaqoob, the Taliban’s defense minister and son of the
movement’s founder, said Sunday.

The airstrike in Kunar targeted a militant whom Pakistan suspects
of leading an attack on April 12 near the Afghan border in South
Waziristan, in which a Pakistani major and a soldier were killed.
But locals said the airstrike hit the family of the militant, Umar
Bajauri. He wasn’t with them at the time and survived, they said.
In Khost, the airstrike targeted the Gul Bahadur faction, which
Pakistan suspects carried out an April 14 ambush of a military
convoy, also near the Afghan border in North Waziristan. That
attack killed seven Pakistani soldiers.

“If Pakistan is unable to get the Taliban to comply on restraining terrorists, other countries with limited leverage are likely to
struggle even more,” said Asfandyar Mir, senior expert at the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a think tank in Washington.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pakistani-militants-test-taliban-promise-not-to-host-terror-groups-11651150686

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