Splitting Off: The Ever-Shrinking Pakistani Taliban

It seems Pakistan's main network of militants, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, is in crisis. 



More than two months of Pakistani military operations have forced it to abandon strongholds in the northwestern North Waziristan tribal region and now, perhaps more critically, it appears to be internally disintegrating. On Tuesday, some of its most powerful, and ruthless, commanders announced the formation of Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a group, they said, will revive the "real" Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.



The fresh announcement echoes a major blow the network suffered at the end of May, when the influential Mehsud tribe broke away under the leadership of the renegade commander Khan Syed Sajna, stripping the network of almost half of its trained fighters. Like Jamat-ul-Ahrar, Sajna's group claimed that the existing Taliban leadership had deviated from the Taliban's real aims, accusing it of extortion, kidnapping and attacks on public places. 



The split was hardly surprising. A dispute over the leadership of the Taliban had already caused months of infighting. Sajna, part of the network's founding Mehsud tribe, was angered that the Taliban's hierarchy had appointed Mullah Fazlullah, a non-Mehsud, as the network's chief.



According to Daud Khattak, a senior editor for Radio Mashaal -- a station that broadcasts in Pakistan's tribal areas to counter militancy, these tribal differences had always existed but have resurfaced amidst a scramble for power.



"Most of the TTP leadership has almost disintegrated since the killing of [leader] Hakeemullah Mehsud and [his deputy] Waliur Rehman Mehsud," says Khattak. He added that, apart from the leadership battle, the killing of the leader Hakeemullah in a U.S. drone strike in November 2013, disputes emerged over peace talks with the government -- which failed after two months in April -- and competition over protection money different factions extort from businesses, causing the network's fragmentation. 



The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan was formed in 2007 when prominent militant Baitullah Mehsud led a merger of five militant groups. Baitullah was himself a glue for the alliance, having been handed authority as leader for the Pakistani Taliban by the Afghan Taliban's Supreme Leader Mullah Omar, after training under during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan between 1994 and 2001. 



Since then they have been targeted by major military operations every year until 2009, and have now faced more than two months of a military onslaught in North Waziristan that the army claims has killed more than 600 militants. Khattak believes, however, that the divisions emerging in the network go further to defeating it than the army. 



"Army operations just dislodge them from one area to another. This fragmentation, at least for the time being, is weakening their support base and strength," he says. "If the army is really serious [in getting rid of the Taliban], it easier for them to tackle them now."



Though up to 60 of the Tehrik-e-Taliban's commanders, including the controversial chief of the Mohmand tribal region Omar Khalid Khurusani, have sided with the Jamat-ul-Ahrar, Peshawar-based security analyst Ishtiaq Mehsud believes that the new split will not be a major blow to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. 



He believes the groups are still loyal to the main network but have been angered by Fazlullah's recent attempts for reconciliation with Sajna. 



"The [Jamat-ul-Ahrar] has been formed just to pressurize Mullah Fazlullah, who is getting closer to Sajna," says Mehsud. "The group has not severed its ties with the main TTP leadership. They just want to show their anger."



Mehsud also emphasized that Jamat-ul-Ahrar could not reasonably rival the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the same way that Sajna's faction does; they have no more than 1,000 trained militants while Sajna commands 5,000 fighters and the loyalty of Uzbek, Chechen, Arab and Uyghur foreign fighters in the region.



The Khurusani factor



Mullah Fazlullah's authority was also undermined by Jamat-ul-Ahrar intelligence chief Omar Khalid Khurusani, who played a major role in the widening divisions within the Taliban network since Hakeemullah Mehsud's death, in a U.S. drone strike, in November 2013.



As a senior non-Mehsud commander and having fought in Fazlullah's home region, the Swat valley, Khurusani had initially appeared to be an ally for the Taliban leader. When the infighting between Sajna and other Taliban factions was reaching its peak in May, Khurusani was assigned by Fazlullah to mediate and temporarily control disputed territories. His key role however, came during the peace talks between the government and Taliban, which he bitterly opposed and eagerly announced the failure of, after only two months, in April. 



"He was pretending that they were taking part in peace talks but it was actually his acts against the soldiers that caused a deadly blow to the talks," said Khattak, referring to the Khurusani's execution of 23 soldiers in February, who had been held since 2010. "It was really a big and serious drop to the authority of Fazlullah." 



www.aa.com.tr/en - İslamabad