The FATA Peace Agreements and Roles of the TTP and the Pakistani Army (Part one)

Chronology of Peace Agreements

The Pakistani military involvement in FATA began in 2004, after Musharraf reluctantly deployed the Pakistani army in FATA  on the United States’ constant demands. However, the FATA wars are dotted with periods of war that are only stopped by stages of mysterious peace deals that only seem to offer relief and breathing-space to the TTP. The following is a list of all the peace deals that the Pakistanis have struck with non-state terrorist actors in FATA:


• Shakai Agreement with Nek Mohammad in April, 2004.

• Sararogha Agreement with Baitullah Mehsud in February, 2005.

• The Waziristan Accords with Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in September, 2006.

• The promulgation of The Nizam-e-Adl Regulation (Order of Justice) in accordance with the demands of the TTP’s Fazlullah and the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM: Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) in April, 2009.

Of all of these agreements, only the accords with Maulvi Nazir and Hafiq Gul Bahadur still stand, mostly because of the sake of mutual benefit – both Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur have agreed to restrain from attacking Pakistan as long as Pakistan does not interfere with their current campaigns in Afghanistan. Additionally, Islamabad has also agreed to turn a blind eye towards the presence of the Haqqani Network and the Hekmatyar Group in North Waziristan as long as they don’t side with the TTP and attack Pakistan. This agreement is mutually beneficial for both parties involved as the militants will find a safe haven that is only threatened by the occasional US Predator drone while the Pakistanis will, as they hope, find an ally in Kabul when NATO withdraws from Afghanistan after 2014 and the militants currently seeking sanctuary in Pakistan return to Afghanistan.


The Shakai and Sararogha agreements

The Shakai and Sararogha agreements only ended up hurting Pakistan in the end. The Shakai agreement, short-lived as it was, created a feeling amongst the militant population that Nek Mohammad had somehow defeated the Pakistani army . It also gave legitimacy to his rule . What all of that translated into was more recruitment and fund-raising for the militants. Similarly, the Sararogha agreement only helped elevate the status of Baitullah Mehsud to some sort of a local hero, who had defied both Washington and Islamabad and lived to tell about it. In both cases, the TTP proved that they would always break their agreements.

The Shakai peace agreement’s main clauses :

• The government shall evacuate the area immediately after the announcement of the agreement.
• The government shall pay compensation for deaths and properties of the tribes destroyed during operation.
• The government shall do its best to minimize its interference in tribal areas.

• The government shall release all the innocent people arrested during the operation.

• The government shall give one-month deadline to foreign elements to voluntarily hand over themselves to the government or announce to start a peaceful social life. The tribal society shall give the guarantee of their peaceful conduct.

• The Peshawar Corps Commander shall visit Wana along with FATA secretary and ISI director as a goodwill gesture to local tribes.

• The tribesmen shall never conduct any violent activity in Pakistan.

• The tribes shall never allow use of their land against any other country.

(Note: “tribes” can be read as “militant groups” and “government” can be interpreted as “army”).

Not only does this agreement appear to be a capitulation from the government side but the conditions that were imposed on the militants and tribes were never followed .

The Sararogha peace deal had much of the same clauses. The JUI-F’s chief himself helped broker this accord . The Sararogha came under much scrutiny from various quarters, mostly because no clause forbade the militants from handing over men wanted by the US, including the ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee, Abdullah Mehsud. Within the span of a year, the TTP broke the Sararogha agreement after the Red Mosque operation in July, 2007 and began carrying out attacks on the Pakistani security forces . The peace deal was used by Baitullah Mehsud to increase his strength by almost 20 times .

The TTP's Relations with other Militant Groups

The TTP leadership has time and again taken its oath of loyalty to Mullah Omar  and has declared him its supreme leader during its foundation. However, the TTP does not share Mullah Omar’s views on Pakistan and, against his orders, attacks both government and civilian targets in Pakistan. Mullah Omar tried to install a peace agreement between the TTP and the Pakistanis through the Shura Ittehadul Mujahideen agreement in January, 2009 but that deal did not materialize into what was desired. However, it is important to note that two foreign organizations – al-Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan – are allies of the TTP.

The TTP’s relations with the other militant groups in FATA and Afghanistan are a mix of peaceful to being at war . For instance, although initially, the South Waziristan Abdullah Mehsud group of South Waziristan was a part of the TTP, Abdullah split from Baitullah with his 2,000 fighters on whether or not to engage the Pakistani army. However, the two groups never went to war. Another Mehsud group that the TTP were not at ease with was the Sheryar Mehsud group. Sheryar Mehsud claimed the leadership of the Mehsud tribe but only has 150 fighters. Although he, too, is anti-government, his differences with the TTP were never reconciled.

The TTP’s relations with the pro-Pakistan Maulvi Nazir group have also been tense. In April 2007, Maulvi Nazir, an Ahmedzai Wazir, drove more than 2,000 Uzbek fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan from North Waziristan. The fleeing fighters sought refuge with Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan and became his allies. In September 2009, Maulvi Nazir’s men came under attack from some Uzbek fighters in Salay Rogha, South Waziristan. 11 of them died in that incident. Thus far, the TTP has refused to hand over the perpetrators to Maulvi Nazir, thereby straining relations between the Mehsuds and the Ahmadzai Wazirs . The Haji Sharif and Noor Islam groups, two anti-Nazir groups in North Waziristan, on the other hand, share good relations with the TTP.

Another major player in the Waziristan region is the Turkistan Bhittani group. The Bhittanis are the smallest of the three main tribes of Waziristan and are pro-government. In 2008, the TTP overran Jandola, killing 30 members of a Bhittani peace committee. Ever since then, the two groups have been in a state of cold war with one another.

The Punjabi Taliban, namely Harkat-ul- Jihad-al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jamiat-ul-Ansar, Jamiat-ul-Furqan, and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, are all on friendly terms with the TTP. Many members of these aforementioned groups have been given refuge in South Waziristan, albeit against the wishes of the local populace .

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Where do they get their money from? How are they funded?

Much has been talked about the sources of the TTP’s seemingly limitless supplies of weapons and cash. The Pakistani media has often speculated that the TTP receives its funding from India and the United States so that it can create instability in Pakistan and give the US an excuse to invade and de-nuke the Islamic Republic. Supporting evidence for these claims, unfortunately, has never been given and thus, these claims are no mere than mere rhetoric and conspiracy theories . Holes in this theory also appear as virtually every TTP leader has been attacked by US drone strikes. Moreover, the claim that Indian weapons have been ceased from the TTP can be discounted on two grounds: one, the Pakistani military has never officially complained about this and two, even if India were to fund and arm the TTP, it would never do use using its own weapons. Even the US armed the Afghan mujahideen with Soviet-made weapons captured by Israel from Egypt in1973 instead of handing over US-made arms to the fighters  (although US made Stinger missiles were transferred to them towards the end of the war).

On the other hand, it has become clear over the years that the TTP funds itself through kidnapping, extortion, smuggling and donations (both foreign and local) . According to Maulvi Omar, a spokesman of the TTP, “Though we condemn kidnapping for ransom, if it’s meant for the promotion of the Islamic cause, then it’s very much fair ”. The Pakistani police claim that the Pakistani Taliban claim ransoms of up to US$250,000 and as many as 70 victims were kidnapped in 2010 alone . Prominent members of Pakistani society, such as businessmen and television personalities are often targeted by the TTP’s criminal wings. The Pakistani television actor, Arshad Hussain had to pay US$11,500 for his release. Other targets for kidnapping include aid workers, journalists and tourists. The British-Pakistani journalist Asad Qureshi was held by the Taliban in Waziristan for 6 months before he was rescued .

Apart from kidnapping, the TTP make the best possible use of the black market. For example, according to the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy in Peshawar, during their two years in power in Swat, the TTP stripped the surrounding pine forests of an up to US$100 million in timber . Other valuables from the regions, gems and antiquities included, provide further revenue to the TTP. Peshawar’s bazars are lush with smuggled goods, where they are purchased and taken to Lahore and Karachi.

Extorting local businesses is another way of raising funds. FATA is known for its fine, light-colored marble, which is in high demand in Karachi and Lahore. Instead of taking over these mining operations, the Taliban have begun imposing “protection taxes” on every truckload of these stones, charging US$10 per truck with up to 50 trucks crossing their checkpoints daily .

A smaller and more benign method of raising funds is through donations. The United Nations estimates that up to 15% of the Taliban’s funding comes through donations. According to Dr. Said Alam Mehsud of FATA, the local sources for the Taliban include small boxes in shops where sympathizers drop spare change to help finance “the Islamic cause”, collections in mosques and religious seminaries, women donating their jewelry or wealthy businessmen donating as much as US$100,000 at times .

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Indigenous movement or foreign mercenaries/agents?

The narrative in most Pakistani circles in Lahore and Rawalpindi is that the Pakistani Taliban are nothing more than agents of the Indian intelligence agency RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) and the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). It is believed that the aim of the TTP is to create instability inside Pakistan so that, one day, the state machinery becomes so weak that the US has to intervene militarily in order to 'remove' Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It is asserted that the Taliban do not attack Muslims whereas the TTP has made it a point to attack Muslim Pakistanis. It is very conveniently forgotten that most of the victims of the 'Afghan' Taliban have been Muslims. Furthermore, no evidence to this day has been provided by anyone that suggests that the TTP are mercenaries hired by foreign agencies. In fact, evidence to the contrary is abundant, the most glaring being the TTP's Camp Chapman attack of December 2009, in which 9 CIA agents lost their lives.


So can the TTP be considered foreign proxies or do they believe in the righteousness of the cause that they are fighting for? The evidence suggests that although the TTP leadership is indigenous and indoctrinated at home, there are many fighters within their ranks, especially Arabs (of al-Qaeda)  and Uzbeks (of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan), who are foreign to the region. There have even been Muslim nationals of Germany, France and the Netherlands, who have been killed or captured fighting alongside the TTP, but their numbers are limited . However, as a whole, the TTP is a homegrown movement with its leadership as well as fighting force consisting mostly of Ahmadzai Wazirs, the Mehsuds, and the Bhittanis tribes .

All the major TTP commanding figures - Nek Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain, Wali-ur-Rehman, Maulana Fazlullah and others are Pakistani nationals. Furthermore, they have all received education from religious seminaries in Pakistan. Their radicalization was also a part of the then join Pak-US venture to raise anti-Soviet militant-forces from FATA. In all the cases, the TTP commanders received practical training on the battlefield in Afghanistan with the blessing of the Pakistani security apparatus, which, itself, was involved in Afghanistan’s civil war (1992-2001) .

Around 85% of the TTP funding is also local , which comes by means of kidnapping, extortion, illegal checkpoints, the drug trade, seminaries and other means (details in the next blog). However, most of the military techniques and strategies employed by the TTP (especially the extensive use of IEDs) come from experienced al-Qaeda operatives who fought in Iraq .

Furthermore, the Arab and Uzbek fighters entered Waziristan at the behest of Nek Mohammad, who had led most of the fleeing al-Qaeda and Taliban members to his native Waziristan after October, 2001. Initially, Pakistan turned a blind eye towards these militants, who were now pouring in my the thousands, and decided to take no action against them as long as they were “registered” by the local Pashtun Taliban commanders and they did not attack the Pakistani state (Shakai peace agreement) . However, these peace agreements began to unravel as US drones began bombarding Waziristan and Musharraf launched the Red Mosque operation in Islamabad. All of these fighters, foreigners amongst them turned against the Pakistanis. During the 2008 operation Rah-e-Nijat, the Pakistani army estimated that there were between 500 and 5,000 Uzbek militants in South Waziristan, along with 10,000 to 20,000 indigenous Taliban fighters . Given the low casualty-count of the operation, nevertheless, it is believed that the lower estimate was correct instead of the higher figure of 5,000 as the military declared victory in South Waziristan after having killed and captured only 600 militants .

Another aspect of the TTP, which points towards it being a predominantly local organization, is the inclusion of Punjabis in the terror group. Terrorist groups such as the Sipa-Sahaba Pakistan (the soldiers of the Companions), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (the army of Jhangvi), Lashkar-e-Taiba (the army of the righteous) and other groups, that have traditionally been based in Punjab, have become allied with the TTP . In fact, the 10th October 2009 attack on the Pakistani army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi was launched by the Punjabi Taliban in support of their cousins in Waziristan.

Therefore, it may be concluded that although a small percentage of the TTP’s fighting force consists of foreign fighters, they are not mercenaries (guns for hire). Those sections of foreign fighters within the TTP’s ranks are hardened fundamentalists who have left their native homelands in Central Asia, Punjab and the Middle-East with the belief that their cause is justified and worth dying for. The core and rank and file of the TTP is predominantly indigenous. Furthermore, the origins and direction of the TTP continue to remain homegrown.