ISLAMABAD: The recent reunification of the militant Pakistani Taliban poses a threat to the whole region, the United Nations has warned in a recent report.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is an umbrella of militant groups fighting to overthrow the Pakistan government and responsible for attacking military and civilian targets especially in the country's borderlands with Afghanistan.
It has been designated a terrorist group by the United States but been in disarray in recent years, especially after several of its top leaders were killed by US drone strikes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border, forcing its members into shelter in Afghanistan or to flee to urban Pakistan.
Bolstering their bid to re-establish themselves northwestern Pakistan, the group struck an alliance in July last year with half a dozen small militant factions. Since then, the TTP has stepped up attacks on security forces in the region, raising fears of a revival of their insurgency with support from the Afghan Taliban, especially as US forces continue to pull out of war-torn Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban capture more territory.
While the Afghan Taliban have on several occasions said they would not allow the militant Pakistan Taliban — which they say are a separate entity —to use Afghanistan’s soil against Pakistan, according to the UN the group's cross-border activity has been on the rise.
"Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) continues to pose a threat to the region with the unification of splinter groups and increasing cross-border attacks. TTP has increased its financial resources from extortion, smuggling and taxes," the UN Monitoring Team said in the report released on earlier this week.
A United Nations report in July last year said more than 6,000 Pakistani militants were hiding in Afghanistan, most belonging to the TTP.
The report said the group had linked up with the Afghan-based affiliate of the Islamic State group or Daesh, which had its headquarters in eastern Afghanistan.
The TTP has claimed responsibility for many high-profile assaults in Pakistan, including an armed attack on a school in Peshawar in 2014 in which 134 children and 19 adults were killed. The TTP also claimed the 2012 shooting of then teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, targeted for her campaign against Taliban efforts to deny girls education.
Pakistan began fencing its 2,600 km porous border with Afghanistan in 2017 to prevent militants crossing into the country and says it has completed nearly 90 percent of the work.
