The Pakistani Taliban (), formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (, TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan). The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
Most Taliban groups in Pakistan coalesce under the TTP. Among the stated objectives of TTP is resistance against the Pakistani state. The TTP's aim is to overthrow the government of Pakistan by waging a terrorist campaign against the Pakistan armed forces and the state. The TTP depends on the tribal belt along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, from which it draws its recruits. The TTP receives ideological guidance from and maintains ties with al-Qaeda. After the Pakistani military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, some of the TTP militants escaped from Pakistan to Afghanistan, where some of them joined Islamic State – Khorasan Province, while others remained part of the TTP. , there are around 3,000 to 4,000 TTP militants in Afghanistan, according to a United States Department of Defense report. Between July and November 2020, the Amjad Farouqi group, one faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Musa Shaheed Karwan group, Mehsud factions of the TTP, Mohmand Taliban, Bajaur Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and Hizb-ul-Ahrar merged with TTP. This reorganization made TTP more deadly and led to increased attacks.
In 2020, after years of factionalism and infighting, the TTP under the leadership of Noor Wali Mehsud underwent reorganization and reunification. Mehsud has essentially steered the TTP in a new direction, sparing civilians and ordering assaults only on security and law enforcement personnel, in an attempt to rehabilitate the group's image and distance them from the Islamic State militant group's extremism.
After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan was unable to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crack down on the TTP. The Afghan Taliban instead mediated talks between Pakistan and the TTP, leading to the release of dozens of TTP prisoners in Pakistan and a temporary ceasefire between the Pakistani government and the TTP. After the ceasefire expired on 10 December 2021, the TTP increased attacks on Pakistani security forces from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. The Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan's Khost and Kunar provinces on 16 April 2022 appeared to have been conducted in retaliation to the surge in terror attacks in Pakistan.
History
Roots and development
The roots of the TTP as an organization began in 2002 when the Pakistani military conducted incursions into the tribal areas to originally combat foreign (Afghan, Arab and Central Asian) militants fleeing from the war in Afghanistan into the neighboring tribal areas of Pakistan. A 2004 article by the BBC explains:
The military offensive had been part of the overall war against al-Qaeda. ... Since the start of the operation, the [Pakistani] military authorities have firmly established that a large number of Uzbek, Chechen and Arab militants were in the area. ... It was in July 2002 that Pakistani troops, for the first time in 55 years, entered the Tirah Valley (Orakzai Agency) in Khyber tribal agency. Soon they were in Shawal valley of North Waziristan, and later in South Waziristan. ... This was made possible after long negotiations with various tribes, who reluctantly agreed to allow the military's presence on the assurance that it would bring in funds and development work. But once the military action started in South Waziristan a number of Waziri sub-tribes took it as an attempt to subjugate them. Attempts to persuade them into handing over the foreign militants failed, and with an apparently mishandling by the authorities, the security campaign against suspected al-Qaeda militants turned into an undeclared war between the Pakistani military and the rebel tribesmen.