US punctures Pakistan army chief’s mission TTP
Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP) that has crippled all efforts to revive the sinking economy. The demand was raised by Pakistan army chief Asim Munir with the US leadership during his recent visit there.
What Munir expected from the US was continuation of the kind of support that his country had received in the past during the “war on terror” to counter the rising TTP violence.
General Munir was trying to convince the US officials that the TTP posed a real threat not only to Pakistan but also to the US. He recalled the involvement of TTP-trained terrorists in a failed bomb attack in Times Square in Manhattan, New York, in 2010.
Besides, Pakistani officials also reminded the Americans that the suicide attack that had killed Central Intelligence Agency officers in Afghanistan in 2009 was claimed by TTP.
Pakistan is aware of the fact that in the drone strikes carried out at its behest, the US had decapitated the top leadership of TTP beginning with Baitullah Mehsud in August 2009. Pakistan army would like to see the US once again doing the same on both sides of the Durand line.
What hurts the Pakistani security establishment the most is the fact that the US is directly dealing with the Taliban regime, leaving Pakistan in lurch.
However, there was divergence of perception between the US and Pakistan about the threat of violence emanating from Afghanistan. While Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) remained the common threat, the focus of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism effort was to counter resurgent TTP, which it believed was having safe sanctuaries in Afghanistan.
From the American point of view, Al Qaeda and ISKP were the two major threats against its interests in the region. According to the US estimates, after the killing
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