Prospects for an IS-TTP alliance
Any operational and tactical relationship with the IS can pit the Pakistani Taliban against the Afghan Taliban
The Islamic State’s (IS) interest and rhetoric in expanding to Pakistan is an indication of there being a few fighters in its ranks from Pakistan. This is corroborated by the IS’s demand for the release of Aafia Siddiqui that patently suggests that the group has Pakistani members fighting for it in the Middle East. Unconfirmed reports suggested that a top IS leader killed in an Iraqi air strike in August 2014 was from Pakistan. According to a report by intelligence agencies, at least five commanders of the IS entered Pakistan from Australia. Hundreds of fighters are present in Pakistan and some are in Karachi.
There is a strong chance that the nexus between the IS and the Pakistani Taliban groups will likely metamorphose from ideological to operational or tactical. Any operational and tactical relationship with the IS can pit the Pakistani Taliban against the Afghan Taliban. Two different arguments could be given when one analyses the future of the IS in Pakistan. The first argument is that the IS could easily gain a foothold in Pakistan, which is facing a rebellion or insurgency in its peripheral tribal belt and is a relatively safe sanctuary for dozens of international and local militant and terrorist groups. Currently, the TTP are fighting a battle for survival and stand fractured and fragmented after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike last year. Internecine infighting and fragmentation within the TTP is rife.
Conversely, this very weakening will give impetus to different factions of the TTP to latch onto the IS to remain relevant. The Pakistan Army launched a military offensive against the TTP and the militant infrastructure in North Waziristan when they were still pulverising under the weight of fragmentation. The TTP’s middle and top-tier leadership has fled to Afghanistan. All these factors nudged its six commanders to realign with the IS, which has a surfeit supply of funds and resources. On the other hand, the relentless and expanded military offensive has also changed the dynamics of the tribal areas, making it difficult for the IS to gain any foothold there. Military operations and drone strikes have done to the TTP what they had done to al Qaeda after 2004; the Taliban have infiltrated into settled areas and urban centres just like al Qaeda.
IS flags have also been seen at street rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir in the last two months. Chances are rife that the IS could find an alliance with Pakistan-based Kashmiri jihadi groups in future. This will not only have a direct dire bearing on Pakistan’s relations with India but will also have ruinous repercussions for the sectarian fissures and conflict within Pakistan. The IS is a rabid organisation that survived because of the sectarian divide in Iraq and it might make sectarian fissures in the country more virulent in conjunction with groups which are ubiquitous in urban Pakistan.
The second argument solely factors in the Afghan Taliban establishing any kind of alliance between the IS and the TTP. The former getting a foothold here depends on its victories in the Middle East and concomitant rise or ebb of the Afghan Taliban’s influence and control in the aftermath of the 2014 US drawdown in Afghanistan. The IS presence in the region means a battle over resources and recruits. The IS and the Afghan Taliban would be vying for funds and fresh fighters and recruits in the region. The IS’s alliance with the Afghan Taliban is a remote possibility and depends largely on the former’s success and victories in the Middle East and the Afghan Taliban’s ascendency to power after the US drawdown. The IS and the Afghan Taliban have divergent strategic goals. The IS is a transnational terrorist expansionist organisation like al Qaeda with transcontinental pursuits and aims to establish an Islamic caliphate. Competing jihadi factions within Pakistan are facing internal frictions in the battle of relevance and survival and multiple claims after the Wagah bombing alluded to this internecine strife for survival.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2014.
There is a strong chance that the nexus between the IS and the Pakistani Taliban groups will likely metamorphose from ideological to operational or tactical. Any operational and tactical relationship with the IS can pit the Pakistani Taliban against the Afghan Taliban. Two different arguments could be given when one analyses the future of the IS in Pakistan. The first argument is that the IS could easily gain a foothold in Pakistan, which is facing a rebellion or insurgency in its peripheral tribal belt and is a relatively safe sanctuary for dozens of international and local militant and terrorist groups. Currently, the TTP are fighting a battle for survival and stand fractured and fragmented after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike last year. Internecine infighting and fragmentation within the TTP is rife.
Conversely, this very weakening will give impetus to different factions of the TTP to latch onto the IS to remain relevant. The Pakistan Army launched a military offensive against the TTP and the militant infrastructure in North Waziristan when they were still pulverising under the weight of fragmentation. The TTP’s middle and top-tier leadership has fled to Afghanistan. All these factors nudged its six commanders to realign with the IS, which has a surfeit supply of funds and resources. On the other hand, the relentless and expanded military offensive has also changed the dynamics of the tribal areas, making it difficult for the IS to gain any foothold there. Military operations and drone strikes have done to the TTP what they had done to al Qaeda after 2004; the Taliban have infiltrated into settled areas and urban centres just like al Qaeda.
IS flags have also been seen at street rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir in the last two months. Chances are rife that the IS could find an alliance with Pakistan-based Kashmiri jihadi groups in future. This will not only have a direct dire bearing on Pakistan’s relations with India but will also have ruinous repercussions for the sectarian fissures and conflict within Pakistan. The IS is a rabid organisation that survived because of the sectarian divide in Iraq and it might make sectarian fissures in the country more virulent in conjunction with groups which are ubiquitous in urban Pakistan.
The second argument solely factors in the Afghan Taliban establishing any kind of alliance between the IS and the TTP. The former getting a foothold here depends on its victories in the Middle East and concomitant rise or ebb of the Afghan Taliban’s influence and control in the aftermath of the 2014 US drawdown in Afghanistan. The IS presence in the region means a battle over resources and recruits. The IS and the Afghan Taliban would be vying for funds and fresh fighters and recruits in the region. The IS’s alliance with the Afghan Taliban is a remote possibility and depends largely on the former’s success and victories in the Middle East and the Afghan Taliban’s ascendency to power after the US drawdown. The IS and the Afghan Taliban have divergent strategic goals. The IS is a transnational terrorist expansionist organisation like al Qaeda with transcontinental pursuits and aims to establish an Islamic caliphate. Competing jihadi factions within Pakistan are facing internal frictions in the battle of relevance and survival and multiple claims after the Wagah bombing alluded to this internecine strife for survival.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2014.