The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) launched suicide operations outside of a courthouse in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and at a military cadet college in South Waziristan. Pakistan continues to blame Fitna al Khwarij, an India-supported terror group that does not exist, for attacks that the TTP is carrying out.
The Taliban, a monster Islamabad built but can’t control, is waging a war against Pakistan—and it shouldn’t surprise anyone. After decades of Islamabad playing both arsonist and firefighter—nurturing the Taliban, harboring al Qaeda, and weaponizing jihad against India—Bill Roggio and Tom Joscelyn reunite to dissect why the blaze is finally backfiring on Pakistan.
Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban have entered into a ceasefire after accusing each other of another round of deadly fighting along their shared border, this time at the Afghan border crossing at Spin Boldak in Kandahar province. The Afghan Taliban’s support for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) remains the main point of contention between the two otherwise longtime allies.
The Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani military each heralded their operations as a success and claimed to have inflicted high casualties on the other’s forces. The Afghan Taliban’s support for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) is creating fissures between the two allies.
Pakistan is thought to have carried out an airstrike in Kabul that targeted Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) emir Noor Wali Mehsud. If Mehsud’s death is confirmed, he would be the second high-level foreign terrorist leader killed in Kabul since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. On July 31, 2022, the US killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri in a strike on Kabul.
Pakistani officials blamed an attack in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers on the “Indian Proxy, Fitna al Khwarij.” However, the accusation is an attempt to redirect the responsibility for violence toward India and mask Pakistan’s role in the formation of and support for the Afghan Taliban and its spinoff, TTP.
The US State Department added the Resistance Front to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Resistance Front, a cover organization of the Pakistan-supported and Al Qaeda-allied Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, claimed credit for the April 22 attack in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.
Abdul Rauf Azhar is said to have been killed in a strike on the Jaish-e-Mohammad compound in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur. Azhar is listed by the US government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Jaish-e-Mohammad has been implicated in numerous terror attacks in the region, including the kidnapping, murder, and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
India targeted nine terrorist training camps at six different locations in Pakistan overnight. Afterward, the two countries exchanged artillery fire along the disputed Line of Control. While the risk of nuclear escalation is real, the two countries have stood down after similar incidents in the past.
The “Resistance Front” claimed credit for the April 22 attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 people. The group is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Al Qaeda-allied and Pakistani military- and government-supported terror organization that is entrenched inside Pakistan.
Hamza al Ghamdi is a legacy Al Qaeda leader who fought alongside Osama bin Laden against the Soviets, led bin Laden’s bodyguard, organized terror attacks in Tajikistan in the 1990s, and fought at the battle of Tora Bora. He is currently a member of Al Qaeda’s shura, or executive leadership council. Ghamdi is likely based in Afghanistan or Iran.
Leveraging its stronghold in Afghanistan and networks across Central and South Asia, ISKP is surging as a formidable transnational actor, posing a threat from Asia to Europe. The Taliban’s self-portrayal as a counterforce to ISKP raises concerns about their true motives and the perpetuation of regional instability.
Afghanistan has grappled with a surge in terrorism, deepening ethnic rifts, protests, and the devastating impact of natural calamities in recent weeks. Two years into their control of Afghanistan, the Taliban is struggling to govern as a state actor.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the former Special Repressive for Afghanistan Reconciliation and the key architect of the Doha Agreement, continues to maintain that the Taliban “dismantled” Al Qaeda, despite evidence to the contrary from the UN and CENTCOM.
Whatever disputes the Pakistani state has with the Taliban, it is unlikely that its strategic depth with respect to India and strategic relations with the Taliban will be discarded for the lives of hundreds of Pakistani citizens.
Al Qaeda continues to build its network and infrastructure in Afghanistan after the fall of the Afghan government. Al Qaeda opened eight new training camps, five madrasas, a weapons depot and safe houses in Afghanistan that are used to facilitate the movement of its members to and from Iran.
The attack is the latest by the Houthis against international shipping and U.S. Navy warships. The U.S. military has yet to respond to repeated attacks on U.S. warships and commercial vessels.
After nearly two decades of abysmal assessments from U.S. intelligence officials and policy makers on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the latest claims that the terror group is “at its historical nadir” should be taken with more than a grain of salt.
The Afghan Taliban continues to claim that there are no foreign terror groups operating inside their country, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has an extensive footprint in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban has vehemently objected to the lest UN report, as it punches gaping holes into the Taliban’s narrative that it does not shelter and support foreign terror groups. However, the presence of the TTP, Al Qaeda and a host of other terror groups in Afghanistan is undeniable.
The Taliban has made this false statement for decades, even prior to 9/11. After al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in Kabul, Taliban promises like this should be dismissed out of hand. Foreign terror groups continue to operate in Afghanistan to this day.
The U.S. captured al Qaeda key commander Abu Ikhlas al Masri in 2010. He was freed from Bagram prison after the Taliban takeover in 2021, and is thought to have reformed an Al Qaeda unit.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, claimed credit for the deadly attack. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan denied involvement, while it and the Afghan Taliban cynically claimed it would never strike a mosque.
One of the co-leaders of the deadly Kabul Attack Network bragged about his role in deadly attacks in the Afghan capital. The Taliban commander, known as Taj Mir Jawad, is the Taliban’s deputy minister of intelligence.
All four terrorists, including the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and the deputy emir of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, are based in Afghanistan.
The TTP claimed that it ended the ceasefire after “the army and intelligence agencies continue to raid and attack” its forces. “And now our revenge attacks will continue in the whole country.”
Friend of the show LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster joins Bill once again to discuss America’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — including an ongoing close relationship with al Qaeda, the United States designated the Taliban as “partners in peace” and handed the terrorist group keys to a state apparatus. Afghanistan fell and became the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. But it didn’t have to.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who at the time was the operational commander of the Haqqani Network, was joined by his brother Badruddin Haqqani, Qari Zakir, the Taliban’s chief of suicide bombers, Mullah Sangeen Zadran, a dangerous Haqqani leader, and Ghani Muhammad, an Al Qaeda-linked military commander based in Pakistan, in the video. They give a send off to the suicide assault team that attacked Forward Operating Base Fenty on Nov. 12, 2010.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leader Omar Khalid Khurasani, who is believed to have given sanctuary to Ayman al Zawahiri in the past, has called for global jihad, attacks on the US, and the establishment of the caliphate, and celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. He is reported to have been killed in a district in Afghansitan that has hosted an Al Qaeda training camp in the past.
Zawahiri’s death is being hailed as a counterterrorism success, but that masks the fact Afghanistan has become a safe haven for top Al Qaeda leaders.