Resurgence of Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after Taliban’s Return to Power and Islamabad’s Policy: An Analysis

Abstract

Pakistan was hopeful that the Taliban, after the takeover of Kabul, would facilitate a reconciliation between Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamabad, as they had an upper hand over TTP, but it proved worthless. In the post-Taliban takeover period, a tremendous increase has been observed in militant attacks inside Pakistan, along with more than 3000 fatalities. TTP has proven to be the deadliest group under the regime’s patronage. Pakistan has been employing both soft and hard approaches to tackle the issue. The soft approach worked on stressing the Taliban regime to push the militants towards table talks. But the soft approach has proved to be unproductive in the face of intensifying militancy by TTP. Islamabad, after failure of ‘soft approach,’ launched intelligence-based air strikes on TTP hideouts in Afghanistan, moving from a ‘soft’ to a ‘hard’ policy approach’. This paper focuses on the credibility of Pakistan’s approaches and their drawbacks. The major research questions this study tries to address is: what is the impact of Taliban’s comeback to power on growing TTP resilience and how effective are Pakistan’s policy responses? Both exploratory and analytical research methods have been employed, relying mostly on printed and electronic sources.