Which TTP and al-Qaeda faction kidnapped Owais Shah?

PESHAWAR: Was the splinter group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that kidnapped Barrister Owais Shah the one led by Khan Said Sajna or some other faction? This is the question being asked now that Owais Shah has been recovered in an intelligence-based operation by the security agencies from near Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), had told the media on Monday that a splinter group of the TTP and some al-Qaeda elements were involved in Owais Shah’s kidnapping from Karachi on June 20.

He didn’t specify the TTP splinter group or the al-Qaeda elements responsible for the kidnapping, but the Sajna group of TTP would be the prime suspect due to its relatively stronger and more widespread network from Karachi to Tank and South Waziristan and its involvement in previous high-profile kidnappings. The fact that Owais Shah was being driven on the Tank bypass road towards the semi-tribal Frontier Region Tank on the way to South Waziristan shows that the Sajna faction could be involved in the kidnapping. As the Sajna group is now largely based in Afghanistan after losing its strongholds due to the Zarb-e-Azb military operation in North Waziristan, it is widely believed the kidnappers were planning to take Owais Shah across the Pak-Afghan border.

As for the al-Qaeda elements who could be involved in Owais Shah’s kidnapping, it may be either the mainstream al-Qaeda headed by Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri who succeeded Osama bin Laden after the latter’s death in the US Special Forces raid in Abbottabad in May 2011, or the al-Qaeda in the Sub-Continentheaded by an Indian national Maulana Asim Umar. The mainstream al-Qaeda has been keen to kidnap someone important in Pakistan to exchange him for Zawahiri’s wife and children who are reportedly in custody of Pakistani authorities. Former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider Gilani was kidnapped from Multan in May 2013 for achieving the same objective of getting Zawahiri’s family members freed. The militants-turned-kidnappers failed to achieve this goal as the younger Gilani was recovered by chance in a US forces raid in Afghanistan.

Sources said the 2:00am ambush that resulted in Owais Shah’s recovery and the killing of the three kidnappers took place on the Tank bypass road. Though earlier sources in the area told The News that the ambush was planned on the Dera Ismail Khan-Daraban road, the subsequent ISPR statement mentioned Tank as the place of Owais Shah’s recovery. The Tank bypass road leads directly to the Frontier Region Tank before entering South Waziristan. This was the best route the kidnappers could have possibly taken to reach their hideouts in the Pak-Afghan border area and then put up their demands. It didn’t work because the security agencies were keeping a close watch on any suspicious movement, particularly in the Dera Ismail Khan-Tank region, and were able to act just in time to prevent Owais Shah’s shifting to Afghanistan. Also, Owais Shah was lucky that he was recovered within a month of his kidnapping unlike Shahbaz Taseer whose recovery took five years and Ali Haider Gilani who was freed after three years.