The state department last Thursday slapped the terrorist designation on the deputy head of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an outlawed Pakistani jihadist group, and three senior leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (Aqis), the terrorist outfit’s regional branch.
The state department’s statement also said the US is “committed to using its full set of counterterrorism tools to counter the threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan”, including Aqis and the TTP, to keep militants from using Afghanistan as “a platform for international terrorism”.
The US’ announcement came days after the TTP in late November called off a months-long ceasefire with Islamabad and ordered its commanders to conduct attacks across the country.
Since then, the TTP have claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a police truck in Balochistan province’s city of Quetta on Nov 30, which killed four people and wounded a dozen others, amid a spate of other attacks targeted at law enforcement.
The TTP’s decision to rip up the ceasefire was a major blow to the Pakistani government, which can ill-afford further instability as it wrestles with an economic crisis that has raised fears of a debt default and intense political pressure from ousted prime minister Imran Khan.
For Washington’s part, experts said the US announcements show its displeasure with the Taliban regime in Kabul.
Washington and the Afghan Taliban had signed a deal in 2020 in Doha, paving the way for the withdrawal of American-led foreign forces in return for a guarantee that international terrorist groups would not be allowed to operate from Afghanistan.
The presence of global Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Kabul was an awkward look for the Taliban.
And his death in a US drone strike there in July showed that Washington was ready to keep its promise from mid-2021 to conduct “over-the-horizon” operations in Afghanistan if necessary to eliminate terrorists.
Just what kind of tangible support the US will offer Pakistan remains unclear.
“The wording of the state department’s statement gives a strong message to the Taliban leadership in Kabul that it may use further air strikes to target the TTP and Al-Qaeda leaders, and even Isis-K members, inside Afghanistan,” Abdul Jabbar, a former Afghan security official who is currently in Paris, told Nikkei.
Isis-K, the Islamic State’s regional affiliate, have claimed responsibility for an attack last Friday on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, and in a video message released by their mouthpiece Al-Azaim on Sunday, vowed to increase their attacks inside Pakistan.
Islamabad was hopeful that the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul last August would restrain TTP militants from attacking inside Pakistan from their hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, but to no avail.
Instead, the Taliban asked Islamabad to address the TTP’s “grievances” and brokered talks between them.
The United Nations Security Council in July said the TTP now have the largest composition of foreign militants in Afghanistan, with 3,000 to 4,000 fighters who are now “more cohesive, presenting a greater threat in the region”.
Aqis are reported to have 180 to 400 fighters, primarily from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Pakistan.
The individuals placed on the terrorist list include two well-known regional jihadist figures: Qari Amjad, the TTP’s deputy head, and Osama Mehmood, the Aqis chief.
Amjad “oversees operations and militants” in the northwestern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, which has borne the brunt of TTP attacks in recent months.
Mehmood took control of Aqis after the group’s former chief, Asim Umar, was killed in a joint US and Afghan raid in Helmand province in September 2019.
Following the US announcement about the jihadist leaders, a press readout from the US central command said that its commander, general Michael Kurilla, had a teleconference with Pakistan’s new army chief, general Syed Asim Munir.
The two “discussed US-Pakistan security cooperation efforts and strengthening the bilateral relationship”, it said.
Jabbar, the former security official, said that Pakistan’s apparent assistance in allowing airspace access for the killing of al-Zawahri – which Islamabad denied – had initiated a new phase of counterterrorism cooperation with Washington.
Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the US Institute of Peace think tank, sees deeper roots underpinning Washington’s move than the post-al-Zawahri dynamics.
“If anything, (the terrorist designations) reflect an enduring US government concern about the TTP and Al-Qaeda,” he said.
“Both groups have the protection and support of the Taliban – and the designations really emphasised that point, amounting to an implicit demarche of the Taliban.”
Mir added that since the designated four terrorists threaten Pakistan as well as India, the US has an “interest in alleviating Afghanistan-based regional terror threats”.