Bajwa realizes mistake as truce talks with outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan fail

Islamabad [Pakistan], August 14 : Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has realised his mistake of pressing peace talks with the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group as the killing of Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahari, who advised the TTP has made it quite clear that the talks had no future.
Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahari had links with TTP and he often advised senior TTP leader Omar Khalid Khorasani. It must be noted that Zawahiri's presence must be known to TTP, an organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating in Pakistan.
The failed talks with TTP, also known commonly as Pakistani Taliban, is also one of the reasons why Lt. General Faiz Hameed was transferred from Peshawar to Bahawalpur. It is a move which clearly underlined failure on the part of the army to bring around TTP for a ceasefire.
Apparently, General Hameed has boastfully claimed to have helped the Taliban oust the Americans last August and Americans suspect Hameed's role in supporting former Prime Minister Imran Khan's foreign conspiracy claims against the US for his ouster.
As Pakistan is hit by an economic catastrophe, Bajwa wants to keep Pakistan in Washington's good books.
Pakistan had helped the Taliban to take over Afghanistan however, both now both are at loggerheads with the threat of a bloody skirmish along the Durand Line looming large, reported Afghan Diaspora.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) enjoys clear patronage of the Afghan Taliban. Dealing with TTP was one of the first few conditions set by the Pakistan Army for helping the Taliban to negotiate the pitfalls of governance. But the Afghan Taliban had not shown any inclination to keep its promise.
Although the army had projected the talks with militants as `national interest`, people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and scores of others, civilians and security personnel, were deeply sceptical of the militant group. In fact, people in the tribal province had been protesting publicly against any truce with TTP responsible for killings of several thousand citizens in the past.
According to various Pakistan data sources, the TTP, since its inception in 2007, had carried out over 3000 terrorist attacks in Pakistan, killing about 7500 persons, including over 2500 security personnel, of which 815 were from the army. The most horrendous was the attack on an Army school in Peshawar in which TTP militants killed over 132 students and 17 others in December 2014. The most strong opponents to the present round of talks with the TTP were the family members of the slain children.
Bajwa's should have heard the clear rumbling of fear and anger among the Pashtuns of the tribal areas who were increasingly raising their voice against the free movement of TTP militants in their homeland.
It, however, took several months for the government in Islamabad to recognise the growing anti-Taliban sentiments in khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and other areas abutting the border with Afghanistan, as per the media portal.
Pakistan Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, early this month admitted that the law and order situation in KP was worsening and people were holding protest demonstrations in various parts of the province against the Taliban presence in their area.
These fears are strengthened by targeted attacks on local leaders and police in the province. The most recent attacks were on Malik Liaqat Ali, a member of KP Assembly and on police in Matta and other parts of Swat. Such attacks have been witnessed in southern districts and some towns in central districts in the past many months.
Attacks on police in Swat and the abduction of an army officer and police officer underlined the growing influence of the Taliban militants. According to local residents, as many as 186 incidents were reported in North Waziristan from 2019 to June 2022. If compared with any other merged district, the number of such incidents was 56 in South Waziristan, nine each in Orakzai and Kurram, 16 in Mohmand, 12 in Khyber and 61 in Bajaur since 2019.