TTP declares war on Pakistan

TTP declares war on Pakistan

Dr. Jassim Taqui

TTP Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JA) has released a video announcing the launch of “Operation Ghazi” in the honor of Maulvi Ghazi Abdul Rasheed who was killed in July 2007 by Pakistan Army inside Lal Masjid, Islamabad.

The chief of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar also appealed to other religious groups to form a united front, wherein he would be ready to fight as an ordinary fighter, a possible hint of rejoining the main TTP of Fazl Ullah group. The main TTP and Waziristan Mehsud Taliban (Sajna Group) have already merged on Feb 02, 2017.

TTP-JA has already claimed the Chaman (Balochistan) blast on FC jointly with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s (LeJ) Al-Alami, and blast in Kurram Agency on 21 Jan 2017 claimed by LeJ Al-Alami that they claim was their combined work with Shahryar group of Mehsud Taliban, which means these factions have already joined hands together.

The TTP-JA claimed that the previous Operation Saut-al-Raad (Sound of Thunder), which was aimed at the hit and run tactics, had achieved its targets and that now it was time to launch big operations. TTP-JA has already started this by launching big scale attacks on three Pakistan Army check posts in Baizai (border area with Afghanistan) simultaneously claiming to have inflicted heavy losses onto the Pakistan Army while conceding that two of its fighters were killed and three injured.

LEAs expect a new wave of terror attacks in Mohmand Agency, Bajaur Agency, and Peshawar on the LEAs while sectarian minorities will be targeted too in KP/FATA and Quetta in Balochistan.

TTP threatened to target all legislative bodies, Pak Army, intelligence agencies police, Levies, FC, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Judiciary lawyer bodies, banks, financial institutions, political parties, NGOs and civil society.

In effect, this is a declaration of war against the State of Pakistan. Nobody knows what transpired to justify such a move. One explanation is that TTP fears a cleanup operation against its strongholds in Southern Punjab. Another motive could be a foreign agenda to sabotage CPEC and Pak-Russian embrace or/and an attempt to sabotage the Moscow’s six nations summit moot.

However, one fact behind such an aggressive terrorist campaign is the failure of the ruling regime to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorists even as all political parties unanimously agreed on NAP.