TTP bases in Afghanistan: Evidence mounts on Afghan origin of Badhaber attack

Afghan journalists say Pakistani militants have been given free reign

ISLAMABAD:

Shortly after over a dozen heavily armed militants, disguised as security officials, had stormed the air force base near Peshawar in a pre-dawn raid, the head of a local chapter of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan called reporters in Pakistan and Afghanistan from an ‘Afghan phone number’ to claim responsibility for the attack.

Military spokesperson Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa had in his press briefing on Friday said that they had recordings of the call which was controlling the Badhaber attack, adding that the call originated from Afghanistan.

Apart from TTP chapter chief Umar Mansoor – who had made the call to the media, members of several militant groups in the region routinely call reporters on both sides of the Durand Line from Afghan numbers to claim responsibility for attacks. This shows terrorists have been planning and launching attacks in Pakistan from Afghan soil.

Why Taliban terrorists are free to attack Pakistan?

After the military launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb in June 2014, a large number of local and foreign militants slipped into Afghanistan and set up bases in Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces.

They have since launched major attacks in Pakistan, including the Army Public School attack which left 140 children dead. Islamabad has repeatedly asked Kabul to take action against these militant sanctuaries, especially against TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah, but little has been done thus far.

Afghan journalists in the border provinces say Pakistani militants have been given free reign.

“Afghan intelligence and other security officials do not touch Pakistani militants even if they pass security check posts,” an Afghan journalist told The Express Tribune by phone on the condition of anonymity.

The role of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency has been called into question with the National Directorate of Security (NDS) recently confirming that it was a US drone strike that killed several Pakistani militants affiliated with Da’esh in Nangarhar. And on Friday, a former NDS chief Asadullah Khalid tweeted a link to Mansoor’s video on the Badhaber attack, describing the slain attackers as ‘martyrs’. Interestingly, he later disowned and deleted the tweet from his handle saying his account had been hacked.

The link between the TTP and NDS is not new, with the relationship being exposed when spokesperson for former Afghan president Hamid Karzai described senior TTP leader Latif Mehsud as a ‘major asset’ of the Afghan government. The statement had been issued after American forces in October 2013 recovered Mehsud from a car full of Afghan intelligence agents. An angry Karzai had condemned the arrest as “a challenge to Afghan sovereignty”.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2015.