TTP mediates between Afghan Taliban-Daesh

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is trying to mediate between Afghan Taliban and Daesh for a cease-fire.

Some of Pakistani media outlets have reported that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan opens an office regarding the mediation between the two sides.

The two groups have clashed in the Afghan provinces of Nangarhar, Helmand and Farah throughout the year.

Having already captured 22 districts of the Nangarhar province, the Islamic State currently controls a quarter of the strategically important Afghan province bordering Pakistan which was a stronghold of the Afghan Taliban only a few months ago.

As the Afghan Taliban sat face to face with some high ranking officials of the Kabul government in Murree, the CIA launched a series of drone strikes in Nangarhar over the past two weeks, targeting the IS leadership and killing several of them, including their central spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.

The TTP’s act was described as a counter attack as Baghdadi had first severely criticised Mullah Omar.

The tug of war to clinch the so-called title of Ameerul Momineen or the leader of the faithful was actually initiated by Baghdadi in June 2014 when he had appointed himself as the Caliph of the Islamic State, a few months after he was expelled by Zawahiri as the chief of the Iraqi chapter of al-Qaeda, for disobeying him and refusing to stop the killing of innocent civilians.

Baghdadi further insisted that pledging allegiance to his caliphate was a religious obligation of all the Muslims across the globe. His announcement had created ripples in the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban circles which viewed it as an attempt to clinch the position of the Ameerul Momineen from Mullah Omar.

Dr Zawahiri had subsequently thrown his weight behind the ameer of the Afghan Taliban by renewing al-Qaeda’s oath of allegiance to Mullah Omar and recognizing him as the ameer, while reminding that Osama bin Laden too had pledged allegiance to Omar.

Afghan analysts are said to believe that TTP is seeking that Taliban fighters fight alongside Daesh group against Afghan government.

The TTP Jamaatul Ahraar is the same Taliban group which had created havoc in Lahore by carrying out some deadly suicide bombings in the provincial metropolis of Punjab in the recent past with the help of its covert support system, killing 85 innocent people.

JuA had claimed responsibility for the March 15, 2015 twin suicide bombings, targeting two churches which killed 15 people in the Yuhanna Abad area of Lahore, the November 5, 2014 suicide bombing at the Wagah border post that killed 65 and the February 17, 2015 suicide attack outside the main gate of the Police Lines in Lahore which killed five people.