Tag: TTP

  • ‘Taliban will legally qualify for recognition once they take over the entire country,’ PM Khan

    ‘Taliban will legally qualify for recognition once they take over the entire country,’ PM Khan

    American Magazine ‘Newsweek’ has published an exclusive interview with Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, conducted by its Senior Foreign Policy Writer Tom O’Connor.

    PM Khan talked about the troubles occurring in Afghanistan, China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the US emerging close relations with Pakistan’s top rival India and shed some light on Sino-US rivalry.

    In reply to a question by Tom about recognising the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, PM Khan said, “Pakistan is obliged to engage with the de-facto authorities in Afghanistan to prevent an economic and humanitarian collapse.”

    “Once a government in Kabul establishes control over the entire country, it would legally qualify for recognition. However, Pakistan would prefer to reach a decision regarding recognition of the new government together with other neighbors of Afghanistan,” he added.

    He stressed that the authorities in Kabul [Taliban] need to neutralise terrorist groups present in Afghanistan, particularly the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and said, “Pakistan will work with the authorities in Afghanistan to halt TTP and other terrorism from there.”

    While answering the question about the US and China’s influence in South Asia after Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Khan stated, “The US can work with a new government in Afghanistan to promote common interests and regional stability and can play an important and positive role in Afghanistan by providing humanitarian assistance.”

    “But if China offers economic support to Afghanistan, it’s natural that the Afghans will accept it. The Taliban have welcomed the prospects of being incorporated in the CPEC and establishing close relations with China,” he added.

    Talking about the close ties between the US and India, PM Khan stated, “We understand that the U.S. military support to India is designed to contain China. However India will never confront China, especially not to serve U.S. strategic objectives. India’s purpose in arming itself so massively is to establish its hegemony in South Asia and especially to threaten and coerce Pakistan.”

    “We believe that the current US-China rivalry is unnecessary and contrary to the interests of both these global powers,” he said while hoping that both countries will reach the same conclusion in the near future.

    He concluded by saying that Afghanistan will only be stabilized through help and that the U.S., China and Russia and all other countries must “contribute” to reconstructing the country.

  • ‘TTP may be considered for general amnesty, provided they follow constitution of Pakistan’: Arif Alvi

    ‘TTP may be considered for general amnesty, provided they follow constitution of Pakistan’: Arif Alvi

    President Dr Arif Alvi has said that if anyone wants to leave the ideology of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and work as per the Constitution of Pakistan, the government may consider a general amnesty.

    Speaking on Dawn News programme, ‘Khabar se Khabar’, President Alvi said, “The TTP is a threat to us. We have been told that they will stay with them [Afghan Taliban] but do nothing against Pakistan.”

    “It’s one step, Pakistan will consider general amnesty, if anyone surrenders,” further added Alvi.

    Earlier, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid had said in an interview that TTP is not a problem of Afghanistan but of Pakistan, so it is Pakistan’s job to formulate a strategy in this regard.

    “If TTP believes in our followers and our Amir-ul-Mominin, then they [TTP] will have to follow them as well,” added Mujahid.

    The detailed interview of the president is yet to be aired on Dawn News. A short teaser of the show was aired by the channel on Wednesday.

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    ‘Don’t call us terrorists and extremists,’ TTP issues warning to Pak media
    
			
    ‘Don’t call us terrorists and extremists,’ TTP issues warning to Pak media
    
			
    “You call us terrorists and extremists, which shows your bias…stop it or you will be responsible for making enemies,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said in a statement addressed to the Pakistani media and journalists.
    

    “It discredits your profession, so from now on, call us by our name, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,” read the statement.
    

    “If you fail to do so, you will not only be doing injustice to your profession but will be responsible for making enemies,” the statement further added. 
    

    Twitter reacted to the TTP statement.
    

    Journalist Azaz Syed wrote, “#TTP issues a latest threat to media in #Pakistan.”
    

    

    


    

    

    

    Journalist Ziyad Faisal wrote, “Notification rejected. My desk will refer to TTP as ‘the banned/outlawed TTP’ & to their activities as ‘terrorist attacks’ – & nothing will ever change that.”
    

    

    


    

    

    

    Four personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) were martyred and 21 others injured in a suicide bombing at a convoy on Quetta-Mastung road on Sunday in Balochistan.
    

    TTP claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released to CNN.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    ‘Pakistan has taken more than its share of responsibility in last many many years’: Hina Rabbani Khar
    
			
    ‘Pakistan has taken more than its share of responsibility in last many many years’: Hina Rabbani Khar
    
			
    Former Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, while speaking on Microsoft/National Broadcasting Company (MSNBC) political talk show ‘The Mehdi Hasan Show’, said, “1996 and 2021 Pakistan are very different…Please do not judge the Pakistan of 2021 by the role that Pakistan played in 1996.”
    

    Mehdi, referring to remarks of Prime Minister Imran Khan, said, “PM Khan is right, there is no military solution but do you [Hina Rabbani] think Pakistan is going to help broker the sort of political outcome he talked about. Given your country’s historical role in aiding the Afghan Taliban, providing a safe haven for them on Pakistani soil.”
    

    “Providing safe haven is very different than not doing kinetic action against a group which seek refuge like millions of other Afghans in Pakistan’s territory,” replied Khar.
    

    “For a country or a state to choose to go after those who were attacking our own children and policemen and our own soldiers which happened to be Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and many other extremist organisations. So please don’t forget that Pakistan has had an influx of extremist organisations within its own territory that Pakistan had to deal with,” said Khar.
    

    Khar further added, “For the world to expect to that we would leave all of that and concentrate and go for a full blast military action against the Afghan Taliban clearly did not happen, was not likely to happen. So as far as our responsibility is concerned and our ability to engineer a behavioral change in the Taliban is concerned, I think that is an exaggerated role and has been an exaggerated role — if not the last few decades, at least for the last few years.”
    

    

    


    

    

    

    “TTP, which has butchered our children continues to have links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA). Now if Pakistan had the type of leverage that the world expects of Pakistan, wouldn’t Pakistan first ensure that TTA and TTP were able to de-link. And TTP was to receive no support from TTA. Pakistan is unable to broker that for itself, do you think Pakistan was able to broker a solution when the United States (US) itself and of course Pakistan encourage whatever role it could possibly,” added Khar. 
    

    Mehdi questioned Khar that Pakistan has strategic geopolitical reasons and supported the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan. “Are you telling me that you as foreign minister had no knowledge of anyone in your defence establishment, your Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), nobody had contacts with the Afghan Taliban?”
    

    “For the 20 years that US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) partners were in Afghanistan, I don’t know a single year where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not have contact with the Afghan Taliban. This is what intelligence agencies do. They maintain those contacts to have intelligence and to protect their sovereign territorial boundaries,” said Khar.
    

    “The leverage that is expected of Pakistan, Pakistan never had,” added Khar talking about negotiations. “Once a date of exit has been given to the people what leverage can anyone have. What leverage can a country like Pakistan with eight billion dollars in defence spending as opposed to the United States, which has 778 billion dollars of defence spending? Do you expect too much?”
    

    The anchorperson reiterated that Pakistan needs to take some responsibility for its role in Afghanistan referring to the remarks made by Husain Haqqani for Ambassador to the US and no one was denying what the CIA and United States had done in the region. 
    

    “Pakistan has taken more than its share of the responsibility in the last many many years,” replied Khar.
    

    Replying to the comments of Haqqani, Khar said, ” If Mr Husain Haqqani was not living in the US and was living in Pakistan, he would know that the Pakistan of 1996 and 2021 are very different. Pakistan has made many mistakes but I am proud to say that Pakistan is perhaps one of the few countries left which has learnt the right lessons of history.”
    

    “I feel Pakistan is getting out the black and getting into to the white or grey area, many countries are actually receding right now. We are very willing to accept the mistakes we made in the past but what we are saying is please do not judge the Pakistan of 2021 by the role that Pakistan played in 1996,” stressed Khar.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    National security briefing: key takeaways
    
			
    National security briefing: key takeaways
    
			
    A meeting of the National Security Committee was held on Thursday.
    

    Speaker National Assembly (NA) Asad Qaiser had summoned a session of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on July 1 for an in-camera briefing on the latest regional situation in light of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed briefed the lawmakers. The army chief was also present at the briefing, which went on for about eight hours.
    

    According to senior journalist Fahd Husain, the major takeaway from the meeting was how the military and intelligence leadership emphasised that while ties with China were well built and thriving and could not be foregone, a strong relationship with the United States (US) would have to be maintained.
    

    A senior parliamentarian told Dawn that although there were clear indications of an impending “strategic reorientation” of the foreign policy because of the geo-political developments, it was also obvious that there was no desire for being seen “overtly pro-China”.
    

    Prime Minister Imran Khan’s absence too was a matter of varied significance. One member of the Opposition questioned the PM’s absence from the crucial juncture gathered, to which the army chief reportedly said that the Opposition did not want the PM to attend this briefing, hence his absence. Speaker Asad Qaiser said that his office had received a message that if PM came to the briefing, the Opposition would review its presence and involvement in the briefing. However, this claim was unequivocally denied by the Oppositon. 
    

    Senior Journalist Saleem Safi, tweeted about the major higlights of the briefing stating that the Afghan Taliban and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are one from within due to their ideological connection. 
    

    

    


    

    

    

    Around 6,500 TTP fighters, currently based in Afghanistan, may reconnect with the Afghan Taliban in the event of the fall of Kabul. This concern is said to be based on the Afghan Taliban’s past track record of not taking on the TTP.
    

    According to reports, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and later Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson Bilawal Bhutto raised the issue of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) lawmaker Ali Wazir’s release. They were told that any criticism against the army will not be tolerated and Ali Wazir will have to apologise.
    

    When lawmaker Mohsin Dawar was stopped from talking by Speaker Asad Qaiser, army chief asked him to speak openly.
    

    Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto also spoke at the briefing, apart from a few other participants.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    ‘Quetta blast was a suicide attack’: Sheikh Rasheed
    
			
    Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed said on Thursday that the blast at Serena Hotel in Quetta was a suicide attack. He said this was a foreign attempt to destabilise Pakistan. “Pakistan Army and the people of Pakistan will defeat such designs.” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the responsibility for the Quetta blast yesterday. Five people were killed and more than a dozen injured in the deadly attack.
    

    All law enforcement agencies are on high alert at the instructions of the Interior Ministry. Talking about the attack, Sheikh Rasheed said the suicide bomber stayed inside the car. “C4 explosives weighing between 60 to 70 kilogrammes were used in the attack”. Evidence has been sent for forensic analysis.
    

    

    


    

    

    

    The interior minister also said that social media was misused during the past few days by foreign elements who are behind efforts to destabilise Pakistan. “An estimated 250,000-300,000 social media accounts were created in India.” “These foreign forces cannot see Pakistan prosper and progress,” said the minister. 
    

    China strongly condemned the terrorist attack. A statement by the Chinese embassy in Pakistan said that Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong was leading a delegation on a visit to Quetta on the same day. “When the attack occurred, the Chinese delegation was not in the hotel. Till present, no reports of casualties of Chinese citizens in the attack have been received.”
    

    

    


    

    

    

    Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted that he is deeply saddened by the loss of innocent lives in the condemnable and cowardly terrorist attack in Quetta yesterday. “Our nation has made great sacrifices in defeating terrorism and we will not to allow this scourge to rise again. We remain alert to all internal and external threats.”
    

    

    


    

    

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Taliban threaten to go after Aurat March participants
    
			
    Taliban threaten to go after Aurat March participants
    
			
    The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened rights activists, who organised peaceful demonstrations to mark International Women’s Day in the country, accusing them of blasphemy and promoting obscenity.
    

    Read more – ‘Ek hee dafaa sari aurton ko ban ker do’: Meesha Shafi defends Aurat March
    

    The proscribed Afghanistan-based militant group’s statement followed a flurry of falsified images and doctored video clips on social media that suggested participants in the March 8 protests had insulted Islam, which they denied. 
    

    “We want to send a message to those organisations who are actively spreading obscenity and vulgarity,” the statement said, addressing the marchers. “Fix your ways, there are still many young Muslims here who know how to protect Islam and the boundaries set by Allah.”
    

    Conservative groups held demonstrations on Friday in several cities to demand that the government prosecute the march organisers for blasphemy, and they threatened vigilante action.
    

    Messages spread on social media, in some cases shared by journalists and politicians with millions of followers, included false allegations that the French flag was waved at the Women’s Day march, while doctored video and audio showed participants chanting slogans viewed as blasphemous against sacred religious figures.
    

    ‘MALICIOUS CAMPAIGN’
    

    “Each and every one of these allegations are completely false and part of a malicious campaign to silence women from speaking out about their rights,” the march organisers said in a statement.
    

    The Women’s Democratic Front, a leftist group founded in 2018 and one of the organisers of the march, said their flag — with red, white and purple stripes — had been misrepresented as the French flag, which has blue, white and red stripes.
    

    

    


    

    

    

    Pakistan has seen violent nationwide protests against France over issues such as the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons and restrictions on the veil there for Muslim women.
    

    Hassan Abbas, a security expert at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, told Reuters that the Taliban statement should be a “wake-up call” for authorities.
    

    “[It is aimed at] creating fear, gaining the sympathy of religious radicals and recruiting extremists in urban centres of Pakistan,” he said.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Malala calls out PM Imran, army over escape of ex-Taliban spokesperson
    
			
    Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has asked Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and the army as to how did former Pakistani Taliban spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan escaped Pakistan’s custody.
    

    “This is the ex-spokesperson of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who claims responsibility for the attack on me and many innocent people,” Malala tweeted after a Twitter handle “impersonating the former TTP spokesperson” threatened her.
    

    

    


    

    

    

    “He is now threatening people on social media,” Malala said further, after which she went on to ask the military’s media wing and PM Imran as to how did the Ehsan even escape.
    

    While the tweet by Ehsan, which Malala was responding to, has been deleted as a consequence of account suspension by Twitter, in it the ex-TTP mouthpiece had asked her father and her to return to Swat, saying they still “owe a massive debt”.
    

    Ehsan is infamous for issuing claims of carrying out TTP attacks and has been linked to some of the country’s most deadly incidents of terror. These include the massacre of children at Army Public School (APS) Peshawar, bombing at a park in Lahore on Easter in 2016, and the targeting of Malala. 
    

    He surrendered to authorities in 2017 and later gave interviews to a Pakistani TV channel, leading to criticism and controversy that a terrorist was given airtime. It angered many in the country who believed he was being pampered by authorities after years of helping lead a violent insurgency.
    

    Ehsan mysteriously escaped custody in February 2020, which, according to SAMAA, was also confirmed by the army.
    

    While the now-suspended Twitter handle bearing Ehsan’s name was rather active, it has been dubbed as a fake one by many, including PM Imran’s focal person on digital media, Dr Arslan Khalid, who reacted to Malala’s statement.
    

    

    


    

    

    

    “It’s a fake account @Malala and there is zero tolerance for extremism in Pakistan,” he tweeted.
    

    However, Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai responded to Dr Khalid, saying that they know for sure that the account belonged to Ehsanullah Ehsan.  
    

    

    


    

    

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    ‘Taliban poster’ outside women college tells them to quit education or get killed
    
			
    ‘Taliban poster’ outside women college tells them to quit education or get killed
    
			
    A poster allegedly by proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) outside a women degree college in Samarbagh area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Lower Dir district has warned the students to abandon education or face dire consequences.
    

    According to the principal of Government Ghazi Umara Khan Degree College, the poster was pasted outside the institution’s main entrance on Friday night.
    

    The principal has also sent a letter to the KP Higher Education Department director, asking for security measures for safeguarding the lives of the female students.
    

    The poster threatened the students with death if they did not stop coming to the college.
    

    The college management has also informed the Lower Dir administration and the police about the development.
    

    While the poster has left worried the parents who demand of the district administration to probe the matter and take appropriate preventive measures, the TTP, in a statement, has reportedly distanced itself from the same.
    

    It is pertinent to note that one of Pakistan’s only two Nobel laureates, Malala Yousafzai, was also shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for raising her voice for girl education.
    

    The attempt on Malala’s life was made while she was on a school bus in the Swat district that was back then under Taliban occupation.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Exclusive: Ehsanullah Ehsan speaks out for the first time after escaping from military custody
    
			
    Exclusive: Ehsanullah Ehsan speaks out for the first time after escaping from military custody
    
			
    “The Pakistani Taliban has suffered from American and Pakistani security operations in recent years, but its cells are still active in Pakistan’s cities and are still capable of carrying out attacks,” he told Al Jazeera in his first interview since escaping from Pakistani military custody in January.
    

    The groups are active in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, said Ehsanullah Ehsan.
    

    He further added, “We cannot say that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar or other anti-Pakistan [armed] groups are completely finished. They definitely have a set-up and perhaps they have gone silent as part of a plan. They are present in Pakistani cities and they have the ability to carry out attacks.”
    

    The interview was conducted from an undisclosed location through voice notes exchanged over an internet-based messaging service.
    

    As per the report, Pakistan’s military is provided with a detailed list of the allegations made by Ehsan in this interview, but they offered no comment. The Pakistani interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment.