A new United Nations Security Council report has highlighted the severe threat to Pakistan’s security from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), noting increased collaboration between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban in cross-border terrorist attacks, primarily targeting Pakistani military posts.
“With Taliban acquiescence, and at times support, TTP has intensified attacks inside Pakistan primarily targeting military installations,” said the report from the Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIL (Da’ish), Al-Qaeda and associate groups. The report noted that Pakistan suffered more than 800 attacks in the past several months.
“TTP camps with Al-Qaeda and Taliban involvement focus on training local Afghan fighters and TTP operatives,” it said, adding that the TTP has between 6,000 and 6,500 fighters who continue to use NATO weapons obtained in Afghanistan. The report also emphasised the role of night vision capability. “Al-Qaeda is funding purchases of weapons and suicide vests for TTP,” it added.
“The terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan is causing heightened concern in many (UN) member states,” the report said.
Pakistan has consistently drawn the attention of the international community to the security threat it faces from TTP terrorists, who it says also have external support.
The report indicated, “There is heightened concern among member states about the terrorist threat emanating regionally from Afghanistan from ISIL-Khorassan and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in particular; new inward travel to Afghanistan of some Al-Qaeda personnel and training, recruitment, and reorganisation activities.”
It cites several UN member states as saying that the Al-Qaeda figure Abu Ikhlas-al Masri is actively collaborating with Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in providing suicide bomber training to TTP in Kunar Province. Two states have held TTP responsible for the March 26 attack against Chinese nationals working on a hydropower dam project near Besham in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
“There is increased support and collaboration between TTP and the Taliban, sharing manpower and training camps in Afghanistan and conducting more lethal attacks under the banner of Tehreek-e Jihad Pakistan (TJP). Therefore, TTP could transform into an umbrella organisation for other terrorist groups,” the report stated.
ISIL-K or Da’ish remains the most serious threat, projecting terror beyond Afghanistan, while Al-Qaeda exercises strategic patience, prioritising its relationship with the Taliban.
“Some Member States estimate that ISIL-K has increased from 4,000 to 6,000 fighters, despite the loss of territory and attrition among leadership, while others assess its strength remaining at between 2,000 and 3,500 fighters,” the report said, adding that it was difficult to estimate an accurate figure.
“ISIL-K has relocated some personnel away from its core area of Kunar and Nangarhar, with factions migrating to Badakhshan, Herat, and Nimroz Provinces, adopting an asymmetric warfare strategy better suited to local conditions and to resist Taliban pressure,” the report added. “The group aspires to control Afghan territory from which to infiltrate neighbouring countries, expanding the terrorist threat to Central Asia, the Russian Federation, and Iran.”
The report also said that ISIL-K perceives the Taliban as an ideological enemy and opposes the notion of a Pashtun-centric Taliban governance. “The group’s narrative aims to reduce the Taliban’s credibility among the Afghan population and trigger sectarian fault lines, promoting the idea that the Taliban has deviated from Islamic principles, while portraying itself as advancing the ‘wider Khorasan’.”
Regarding Al-Qaeda, the report noted that its status, location, and strength in Afghanistan have not changed, remaining dormant and strictly hierarchical.
“Despite lacking current capacity to conduct large-scale operations externally, Al-Qaeda seeks to strengthen cooperation with regional terrorist organisations of non-Afghan origin, such as ETIM/TIP, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Jamaat Ansarullah (JA) for expansion to Central Asia,” the report concluded.