(NewsInsights.org) – Pro-Taliban insurgents have plagued Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan even before the US withdrawal in August 2021. However, support from Afghanistan’s Taliban government has emboldened Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TPP) and similar groups. A January attack on a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, killed more than 100, most of them police officers. On December 12, a suicide bomber in a vehicle laden with explosives detonated the car bomb at a police station, killing at least 23, wounding 32, and collapsing part of the building.
In addition to the bomb, six insurgents opened fire on police in a sustained gun battle that lasted hours before authorities gunned down the forces they called “terrorists.” Supporting police troops hunted and killed 27 additional insurgents in the same region, according to a separate statement issued later on December 12.
A newly formed group, Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), claimed responsibility for the attack on the Daraban police station in the small town of Dera Ismail Khan. The Daraban station has become a centralized hub for security forces throughout Pakistan. Military and law enforcement agencies were conducting intelligence-gathering operations against militants and insurgents.
Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi told grieving families that the losses they felt over their “martyred” relatives would strengthen the resolve of the nation’s security forces. Sarfraz Bugti, Pakistan’s interior minister, called the attack terrorism.
Despite assurances from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban that they wouldn’t allow anyone, including insurgent groups like TPP or TJP, to stage attacks on other countries, including Pakistan, Taliban officials have failed to curb attacks like the one on Daraban station yesterday or the Mosque in January.
Insurgent groups are also seeking land grabs in more remote areas of Pakistan, hoping to gain a toehold within the country to make more effective attacks on the government while still maintaining support from the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. If they can manage this, they provide the Afghan Taliban leadership with plausible deniability.
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