TTP revamping, form five groups for separate tasks

Security officials warn TTP groups capable of carrying out IED

attacks focusing particularly on Karachi

Karachi

Revamping their organisational structure, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has formed five groups for performing different tasks, all of them operating across the country, particularly focusing on Karachi.

A senior police official told The News that the first one was the Taliban intelligence group, assigned the task of gathering information and passing it on to the other groups for further action.

The second group is the special task force which is tasked with attacking army and law-enforcement agencies personnel. The Taliban’s special task force is active throughout the country, especially in Karachi, and capable of preparing small improvised explosive device.

The third one, the Mujahideen Special Group, specifically targets army personnel mostly using explosive devices.

The Taliban special group, the fourth one, recruits suicide bombers and uses them.

The fifth one is the Taliban engineering commission which is working on explosives technology.

The information about these groups has been gathered by the counter-terrorism department and other intelligence agencies.

In Karachi, these groups are operating on the outskirts of the city, mostly in the West district.  

Attacks this month

Police investigators believe that these groups are responsible for the attacks on law-enforcement agencies’ personnel this month.

These cases include the murder of police constable Sher Mohammed in Police Lines, Mardan, on May 2, the bomb attack on five policemen in Eastern Bypass, Quetta on May 3 in which they suffered injuries, and the killing of two policemen and five others suffering injuries in an explosion in Quetta on May 10.

Then on May 12, these groups gunned down sub-inspector Aftab Khan of the traffic police in Peshawar, targeted constable Fazal Subhan in Peshawar on May 14, and carried out two blasts in Peshawar on May 18 killing a policeman and injuring nine others. The policemen were accompanying a team of polio vaccinators.

Then on May 20, they killed a policeman and injured seven others in an IED blast in Quetta and then on May 21 gunned down two traffic policemen in Karachi.

Intelligence network

The CTD found that the TTP has a vast intelligence network and was sending their men to work in security companies and banks.

A senior officer said most of the information about the TTP and their groups was retrieved while interrogating arrested terrorists affiliated with the Fazlullah group, the recently formed Al-Qaeda Indian in the Subcontinent (AQIS), and other militant outfits including the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami.

In Karachi, the terrorists of the Taliban Fazlullah group extort money from traders who have arrived from Waziristan, threatening them that they will kill their relatives in their hometowns if they did not pay.

The officer said the Taliban took shelter at houses in Karachi’s Sohrab Goth, Afghan Basti and other areas on the city’s outskirts. They also hid weapons there and provide refuge to the terrorists fleeing from Waziristan.

CTD additional IG Sanaullah Abbasi told The News that his department was working on dismantling the five-group network formed by the Taliban.

He added that last Friday, his team had raided a Taliban hideout in Manghopir and gunned down two terrorists, Amjad alias Mota and Taj Khan, who were involved in killing several policemen and members of the Shia community in Karachi.  

AQIS network

Abbasi said earlier, his department had dismantled the network of the AQIS and many of its commanders and militants were arrested. The CTD had also raided explosives factories constructed by AQIS in slum areas.

A CTD team, in a recent raid in Barfat Goth, Gulshan-e-Maymar, had gunned down two AQIS terrorists and arrested another.

The police had also found an explosives factory there and seized several weapons and explosive material. They had also found a laptop, memory cards, USBs, jihadist literature, target lists, two motorcycles equipped with improvised explosive devices, two Kalashnikovs, a 9mm pistol, bullets and grenades there.

The men killed in the raid were identified as Abdul Saboor alias Hamad alias Hassan alias Younus and Mohammad Mujtaba alias Rehan alias Aslam alias Kashif alias Abdul Rehman. Their arrested associate was identified as Mohammad Murtaza alias Abu Hurairah.

During interrogation, Murtaza told the police that he and his accomplices were operating in Karachi since 2013 and carried out attacks on the vehicles of police and Rangers and important installations.

Murtaza disclosed that presently the AQIS leader in Karachi was Zarrar alias Naseem Bhai. Zarrar was formerly associated with the Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami and was earlier arrested by police but granted bail. After his release, he joined AQIS. The operatives of AQIS share information with each other via internet calling, memory cards and USBs.

Presently the central command of AQIS is based in Afghanistan and because of the security forces operation in the northern areas, it had become hard for its operatives active in Pakistan to coordinate with their commanders.