Terrorism & Extremism
Reports
Vanda Felbab-Brown
Director - Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors
Co-Director - Africa Security Initiative
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Director - The Intelligence Project
[The emergence of state-backed armed groups and the Taliban's influence] are dangerous developments, and portend a return to the way things were a decade ago in that area. Foot soldiers from the ‘surrendered’ Taliban can easily cross back over to the [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan] TTP – or facilitate them, provide them logistical support and assistance. [On whether the Afghan Taliban would act in any concrete way against the TTP], I don’t see it happening, The Taliban care greatly about maintaining unity in their ranks – action against the TTP would undermine that and threaten to send defectors over to Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIL’s affiliate in the region), something the Taliban really don’t want. That motivation trumps any desire to appease Pakistan.
[Pakistan's blasphemy laws] have become fully internalised by and ingrained in the population; that is the sentiment that the TLP [Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party] uses to draw support.
Once the Pakistani military decided to take action against [extremist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP], it was able to, to a great degree, at least drive it out of the tribal areas.
[Over the next few years the number of attacks fell, but the TTP was not gone. Its foot soldiers and commanders had melted away or slipped across the notoriously porous border.] Many of them, turns out, were in prison in Afghanistan.
Since the TLP’s inception, the Pakistani state has dithered in front of the group and has appeased it, never countering it ideologically. Given that blasphemy is such a hot-button issue and is instituted in Pakistan’s laws, the state seems to be fearful of taking on the TLP. And the TLP understands this and the fact that it has street power, and uses it ruthlessly to its advantage to gain ground each time it protests.
The Pakistani state defeated the group militarily in 2015, and while the TTP [Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] has been resurgent in recent months, the Pakistani army clearly has the ability to tackle them again. The terms of negotiations would have the terrorists granted amnesty in exchange for laying down arms. This means they will not be held accountable for killing tens of thousands of Pakistanis and for terrorizing a nation for the better part of a decade. It would also set a terrible precedent for other militant and terrorist groups in the country, as well as would-be terrorists.
In some ways, the takeover of the Taliban makes it even more vulnerable to defections away from it to ISIS-K. [She also noted that over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations can only do so much saying,] killing a target doesn’t do anything to the ideology of the group. It doesn’t target extremism.