JuA and TTP operate from Afghanistan

At least 131 people including an election candidate Nawabzada Siraj Raisani of Balochistan Awami Party were killed in Darengarh area of Mastung, while more than 150 others injured in a suicide bombing. This was the third terrorist attack on a candidate ahead of general polls. Earlier on Friday, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s leader Akram Khan Durrani’s convoy was attacked in Bannu, resulting in the death of four people and injuries to around a dozen others. On July 10, a suicide blast had killed Awami National Party (ANP) leader Haroon Bilour and 19 others in Peshawar’s Yaktoot area. The attack was claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which had also claimed responsibility for 2012 attack that killed Haroon’s father, Bashir Bilour. It is worth mentioning that Siraj Raisani and Haroon Bilour were patriots; they always vowed to give sacrifice for integrity of Pakistan. They lauded the efforts of armed forces in decimating the terror networks.
BBC correspondent and renowned journalist, in his article published on 9th July 2018, stated that banned Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of TTP, and TTP are operating from Afghanistan and are behind the terror attacks in Pakistan. “Al-Qaeda and Taliban managed to attract fighters from different countries and ethnicities while the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) went a step further and used the social media to radicalize and recruit men and women from all over the world. The Al-Qaeda and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) earlier and the ISIL, commonly known as Daesh of IS, more recently have also inducted members from different countries and cultures in their ranks”, he wrote. Omar Khalid Khorasani JuA had claimed responsibility for the May 17 attack on a Frontier Corps convoy in Nowshera in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in which 14 persons, including 7 soldiers and 7 civilians were injured.
The Jamaatul Ahrar and TTP leadership shifted to Afghanistan around 2009 after major operations by the Pakistan military against the local and foreign militants in Swat, South Waziristan, Mohmand, Bajaur and other tribal regions of FATA, but the focus of their attacks has always been Pakistan. Rahimullah Yousafzai wrote: “Islamabad’s campaign to have its leader Omar Khalid Khorasani declared as a wanted global terrorist has yet to succeed due to opposition by the United States of America. Maulana Fazlullah, who belonged to Swat, has finally been eliminated in the US drone strike in the eastern Kunar province, but the threat posed by his group primarily to Pakistan would not end until the TTP cadres find it difficult to operate from their safe havens in Afghanistan. His successor Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud is apparently an even more radical and committed militant because he is both a fighter and an ideologue.”
It appears that Indian RAW and Afghan intelligence agency National Directorate of Security (NDS) have made inroads in proscribed terrorist organizations that are funded by India. Of course, they have blessings of the CIA, as their interests and objectives of weakening Pakistan and its military converge. There is a strong perception that India wants to disrupt rather sabotage elections that are only a week away. Awami National Party president Asfandyar Wali Khan has said that the recent wave of terrorism is an attempt to sabotage general elections in the country. Talking to mediapersons at Wali Bagh in Charsadda on Sunday, he said that terrorists’ only agenda was to get the elections postponed. “The difference between 2013 and 2018 elections is that only ANP was the target in the previous polls while in this election all parties are under attack,” he said.
India had been flabbergasted and frustrated over the first-ever UN report on human rights in Indian Occupied Kashmir focuses mainly on serious human rights violations in the region from July 2016 to April 2018. The report said: “In responding to demonstrations that started in 2016, Indian security forces used excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, in a statement called for a commission of inquiry by the Human Rights Council into all violations before opening a three-week session in Geneva last month. He added that alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu should be investigated. This goes to prove that Kashmir is very much on UN agenda, as the report calls for finding a final solution to Jammu and Kashmir dispute through meaningful dialogue that includes also the people of Kashmir.