What options does Pakistan have to deal with the TTP?

Back-to-back violent attacks by militants in various Pakistani cities have put a spotlight on the country’s deteriorating security situation and raised calls for its political and military leaderships to deal with the rising threat. 

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the proscribed militant group also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has been behind many of the attacks including the siege of a prison in which 28 people were killed, most of them terrorists. 

“TTP have created havoc across the country. They are attacking us left, right and centre. We still do not seem to have any cohesive policy. It’s time to have a national consensus where all the political actors come together to decide what we have to do,” says Amina Khan, a director at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI). 

TTP has ramped up the attacks after unilaterally abandoning a five-month-long ceasefire in November. Since then, the group has been on the offensive. 

On December 16, TTP militants being held at a prison in Bannu city in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which borders Afghanistan, overpowered guards, snatched their weapons and took over the facility. They released videos from the jail threatening to kill the prisoners including an army officer. The Pakistan military took back the facility after an intense day-long battle in which more than two dozen people were killed, most of them TTP members. 

READ MORE: Pakistani forces retake anti-terrorism centre seized by TTP militants

TTP then claimed responsibility for a car explosion carried out by a suicide bomber in Islamabad on December 23, in which two people including a police officer were killed. 

Following the attack in Islamabad - the first in years - embassies from the United States and other countries issued warnings to their citizens, asking them to limit their movement. 

“We are so scared. This is exactly what happened in 2009 and afterwards,” says Khan, referring to a period when tens of thousands of soldiers had to be deployed to crush a wave of insurgency in the northern tribal region. 

The inevitable fallout 

Since at least last year, residents of the tribal agencies and nearby areas, which includes cities like North Waziristan, Bajaur and Bannu, have complained about the growing presence of TTP fighters who have set up checkposts and began taking ransom from traders. 

Emboldened by the 2021 victory of the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, the TTP has stepped up its activity to force Islamabad to accept its terms at the negotiating table, analysts say. 

One of the TTP’s core demands is that the government restore the autonomous status of the tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The tribal agencies - once a hotbed of the Taliban militancy - were merged with the KP province. TTP also wants Pakistan's security forces to withdraw from the region. 

In the 12 months following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, terrorist attacks in Pakistan jumped 50 percent in which around 433 people were killed, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS). 

TTP militants are using weapons including thermal imaging devices left behind by NATO forces in Afghanistan, police officials say. 

Even though the TTP and the Afghan Taliban are separate entities, they share a close ideological link and both have supported each other with manpower over the years.

READ MORE: Who are the anti-Pakistan terrorists the US just blacklisted?

“Neither the TTP nor the Afghan Taliban have said they are different from each other. However, Afghan Taliban say that the TTP has its own issues with Islamabad,” says Amir Rana, a security analyst and director of PIPS. 

Pakistani leadership must reach out to the Afghan Taliban in Kabul to deal with the threat posed by the TTP, he says.  

“We are still treating the Afghan Taliban as a non-state actor. The thinking was that ‘let them settle down’. But this allowed the TTP to regroup, restructure and encroach into Pakistan’s territory. All this happened during the so-called peace talks.” 

TTP and Islamabad began negotiations in October last year and the process proceeded with hiccups until June when the militants announced a ceasefire, which was scrapped last month.

Can there be a negotiated settlement? 

The negotiations which centred on the Afghan Taliban as a mediator didn’t work because Pakistan relied on informal channels such as religious leaders and tribal elders to achieve its goals, says Rana. 

Instead, Rana argues that Pakistan’s foreign office must play a proactive role in engaging with the Afghan Taliban. “We don’t necessarily have to recognise the Taliban government to hold such talks.” 

Deputy foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited Afghanistan on November 29 - a day after TTP ended the ceasefire - to meet the Afghan Taliban. But it might have been too little, too late.

READ MORE: Fear and despair grip Pakistan’s Swat as TTP foothold increases

Rana says a military operation like the 2014 Operation Zarb-e-Azb, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people, would be disastrous. “I think that would be a mistake.” 

The rise in militancy has coincided with Pakistan’s mounting financial troubles as its central bank recently announced that foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $6 billion, barely enough to cover a few weeks of imports. 

But ISSI’s Khan says Islamabad must not attach too much hope with the Afghan Taliban, which relied on TTP's logistical support for more than a decade to fight the US-led forces. 

“What incentives do the Afghan Taliban have? Why would they try to pressure the TTP and put their own future at stake. It has been only a year since the Afghan Taliban came to power and they are trying to consolidate their hold over Kabul.” 

Khan says political leaders must put aside their petty differences and decide on a future course of action, which could involve a military operation, an option that’s actively being considered as per reports. 

“Yes, a lot of people were displaced in the previous operation. But we have learned our lesson and things could be done differently this time.”