AQIS enters Pakistan theatre, adds new dimension to Islamabad’s battle with TTP

New Delhi: Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have launched an all-out war against each other, but this time it is not on Afghan soil, but in Pakistan, with the former's entry into the Pakistan theatre putting Islamabad on the back foot and adding to the already existing miseries in the form of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).

Al Qaeda in the Subcontinent (AQIS) has watched the developments in Pakistan from the background. It has not carried out any operations in Afghanistan or Pakistan and only decided to be part of the battle in Pakistan when Islamabad decided to rope in the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) against the TTP and the BLA.

An official said that there are many AQIS operatives who are in Pakistan. They are scattered all over the place after they were driven out in large numbers from Afghanistan by the US forces. The AQIS has, all these years, only focused on digital propaganda and recruitment. After a long time, it has entered the field and has decided to challenge the Pakistan establishment by siding with the TTP, the official said.

An Intelligence Bureau official said that the AQIS puts out its communications through its media wing, the Al Sahab Media Foundation. Of late, the publication has been openly supporting the TTP’s operations against the Pakistan establishment. It has also been calling on its cadres to join the battle with the TTP against Pakistan in large numbers, the official said.

Another official said that Pakistan is already on the back foot.

The TTP has wreaked havoc on the Pakistani security forces. Groups such as the BLA and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) have caused significant damage to the Pakistan establishment. The BLF recently announced that its women’s squad had carried out its first attack on the Pakistan security forces. The BLA too has its women’s wing, and intelligence assessments suggest that it is a lethal unit, the official said.

After facing severe losses at the hands of the TTP, BLA, and the BLF, the Pakistani security forces decided to rope in the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the ISKP to battle alongside them. This added a new dimension to the already chaotic security situation in Pakistan. This move also went on to show Pakistan’s desperation and how it is ready to rope in banned terror groups for its own benefit.

Compared to the ISKP, the AQIS has been slower in terms of traction gained and growth in the region. The AQIS cadres were getting impatient and had conveyed to their top leadership that they could not wait any longer and did not want to remain mute spectators. The ISKP joining the battle is what led to the change in the minds of the top brass, following which the go-ahead was given.

Officials say that Al Qaeda’s propaganda magazines had all these months just given moral support to the TTP. Today that scenario has changed completely, and the AQIS cadres are actively taking part in operations by the TTP against the Pakistani security forces, the Lashkar, and the ISKP, officials say.

The TTP stands to gain from this move made by the AQIS. The AQIS, although weakened in the region, still has expertise when it comes to logistics and training. Al Qaeda, since the days of Osama Bin Laden, has prepared many manuals that offer training advice and the use of logistics. The TTP, on the other hand, gains from this expertise and the newer recruits are first trained by the AQIS before they are sent out to the battlefield.

For Pakistan, the situation has become further complex. The addition of the AQIS is something that Islamabad did not anticipate. Pakistan would have hoped that the AQIS would watch from the sidelines, and now that it has joined the fight against the security forces, the problem ahead has become far more complex for Islamabad, an official said.

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