Guwahati: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ordered fighters to launch attacks across the nation after calling off a shaky ceasefire with the government on Monday.
In a statement, the TTP claimed that they had broken the June cease-fire that had been arranged with the government.
“As military operations are ongoing against mujahideen in different areas […] so it is imperative for you to carry out attacks wherever you can in the entire country,” said the statement.
Since its emergence in 2007, TTP, a group distinct from the Taliban in Afghanistan but with a similar islamist ideology has been accountable for hundreds of attacks and thousands of fatalities.
According to the statement, the decision was made as a result of “a series of non-stop attacks by military organisations in Bannu’s Lakki Marwat district.”
According to Dawn, the outlawed group claimed it had constantly warned the Pakistani people and had “remained patient so that the negotiation process is not ruined at least by us.”
“But the army and intelligence agencies did not stop and continued the attacks […] now our retaliatory attacks will also start across the country,” the statement claimed.
Government and intelligence organisations have not yet commented on the situation.
Official negotiations between Pakistani authorities and the extremist group began in October of last year but ended in December.
They reached a ceasefire earlier this year after the new Taliban leadership in Afghanistan played a significant role in mediating peace negotiations. However, there was little progress achieved in the negotiations and there were many violations.
However, due to a standoff over the revocation of the merger of former tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the process collapsed once more.
As a result, since the TTP’s ceasefire with the army expired in September, their attacks have increased. According to Dawn, the majority of the strikes have taken place in and around the KP districts of Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, South Waziristan, and North Waziristan.
According to Dawn, the Ministry of Interior had sent a warning in October that the TTP’s ranks were becoming uneasy because more than a year-long peace talks with the Pakistani government “had come to a stop”.
It had been mentioned that the TTP blames the Pakistani government of not granting its key demand, the undoing of the merger of the erstwhile Fata with the KP and of keeping TTP members in detention while a cease-fire was still being negotiated.
When six policemen were ambushed less than two weeks ago in northwest Pakistan the TTP said they were preparing a “attack” on their stronghold there.
In an effort to find militants, the military has been scouring the region since Friday as helicopter gunships shell their hideouts.
After fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s, Pakistani jihadists who opposed Islamabad’s support for American action there after 9/11 created the TTP.
After TTP militants invaded a school for children of army officers in 2014 and massacred close to 150 individuals, the most of them students the Pakistani military retaliated strongly.
Although the majority of its fighters were diverted into the neighbouring country of Afghanistan, Islamabad asserts that the Taliban in Kabul are now giving the TTP a footing to launch attacks over the border.