Deadly infighting: Warring Taliban factions cease fire

TTP intermediary says jirga brokered truce .

SHABQADAR/ ISLAMABAD:

Infighting in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has claimed dozens of lives over the week, has come to an end, Taliban intermediary Maulana Yousaf Shah said on Saturday. 

Bloody clashes erupted between Waliur Rahman Group, led by Khan Said alias Sajna, and Hakimullah Group, led by Shehryar Mehsud, on Monday in South Waziristan Agency and quickly escalated to neighbouring North Waziristan and Tank district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. According to independent sources, 43 fighters from both sides have been killed so far.

“A jirga has brokered peace between the two groups. The two sides have settled their differences and ended hostilities,” Maulana Yousaf Shah, the coordinator of the TTP intermediary committee, told reporters in Shabqadar.



However, sources told Daily Express that the two groups have only agreed on a one-month ceasefire and that the Haqqani Network played a key role in brokering the truce. On the other hand, senior Taliban leader Azam Tariq blamed the media for ‘exaggerating the Taliban infighting’.

Sources also told Daily Express that the warring groups have serious differences on the peace talks with the government and it would take some time to bring them on the same page vis-à-vis peace dialogue.

But Maulana Yousaf Shah denied any such split. “There are no differences among the Taliban groups over peace talks with the government,” he said. “All of them want the peace dialogue to be successful.”

Sources said the Taliban infighting was the main reason for the delay in the TTP Shura meeting. However, a government negotiator said that there were other reasons as well.



“The Taliban are calling for the release of their non-combatant prisoners – but the process has stopped following the release of some prisoners,” the government negotiator told Daily Express on the condition of anonymity. “Similarly, the demand for a ‘peace zone’ is also not acceptable to the government.” This, he said, might have put the TTP in a quandary.

Another government negotiator, Rustam Shah Mohmand, confirmed that there was a deadlock in the peace process. “There is very little hope this deepening impasse will break anytime soon,” he told Daily Express.

Taliban intermediary Maulana Yousaf Shah, however, insisted that the talks were on track. “There is no deadlock in the peace talks,” he said. “The negotiations are a time consuming process,” he said and called upon observers to show ‘patience’ in this regard.

About the second face-to-face meeting between the TTP Political Shura and the government negotiators, Shah said it was delayed for other reasons.

“I’m in close contact with members of both the Taliban and government negotiators… both [government officials and the TTP Shura members] have been busy,” he said, adding that the time and place for the second meeting would be finalised in the next two days. However, he urged both sides to prepare their agenda before the face-to-face meeting.

He expressed hope that the ceasefire announced by the Taliban – which officially expired recently – would remain in place till the conclusion of the peace process.

Maulana Yousaf Shah dismissed reports of a rift between the government and the military over the Taliban talks as ‘baseless’. “Like the Taliban, the government and the military are on the same page, and want peace talks to succeed,” he added.


Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2014.