THE Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is currently in a better position than ever to settle scores with Pakistan and prevent Afghanistan and Pakistan from working out their trust deficit.

After a couple of years in hibernation, the second tier of the TTP command has increased its contact with the media. Confidently, they refer to a new phase of the fight in the form of organised border incursions against security forces.

In a recent telephonic conversation with journalists, in response to the APC proposal to involve the Taliban in dialogue, TTP deputy chief Faqir Mohammad ruled out the possibility, saying: “Pakistan is not a trustworthy country.”

Why do the militants not listen to Pakistan anymore and what are the factors in play behind the recent surge in cross-border attacks? The problem began a couple of years ago when intensified military operations left the TTP leadership little room in which to organise inland attacks from their bases in Fata.

Following in the footprints of the Swat Taliban, militants from the Bajaur Agency were joined by hundreds of others from Waziristan; they grouped together to occupy the new strategic location in the bordering Afghan provinces of Nuristan and Kunar.

Since their relocation, the Taliban have worked hard to organise their network in both provinces. Realising that the timber mafia and the local anti-Taliban elites would not let them establish themselves in Kunar, they eliminated the powerful former governor Malik Zareen Khan along with at least 10 others in April. Resultantly, about 850km of the border from Shahi in Lower Dir to Arundu in Chitral was exposed before the militants.

In fact, the TTP got what military strategists in Pakistan had dreamed of in the form of strategic depth.

Regrouping and fresh networking put the TTP in the driving seat. They started exporting terror into Pakistan's north-western areas to discourage civilians from becoming part of any future security formation. The kidnapping of a Greek charity worker was the first incident of its kind a couple of years ago. In another incident last year, six labourers were abducted from Bamborait valley; three were subsequently beheaded.

The abductees originally hailed from Upper Dir where a lashkar in Dhog Dara had, in 2009, driven out the Afghan Taliban after weeks of fighting. This personalised-revenge pattern was followed by a series of organised cross-border infiltrations in which about 180 people, mostly belonging to security forces, were killed in different localities of Dir and Chitral.

These unchecked interventions invited barely an effective official response, even though the local administration in Chitral admitted to having had prior information about the militants' activities. “We sent regular reports about militants' contacts but officials here were too timid to take action,” said an intelligence official in Darosh.

Public representatives were equally worried. “The more we see militants getting stronger, the more we disbelieve the effectiveness of intelligence-sharing, consultative meetings and the exchange of military visits between Pakistan and the US,” said the ANP Chitral chief Muzaffar Ali.

Of late, though, security forces have been called in. Observers say it is too late to expect a quick end to the issue but some analysts disagree. They believe that the militants' new strategy is primarily designed to lure troops to a more threatening front. According to one terrorism expert, for a terror organisation dependent on ransom and selling services to regional stakeholders, the strategically important and terror-hardened demography of Nuristan is ideal for long-term cross-border engagement.

Unsurprisingly, the new deployment has hardly stung the militants. Within a week of it, a clash erupted in Lower Dir. This was followed by a couple of more incidents in which the officials claimed to have killed 15 terrorists. More alarmingly, such attacks have added to civilians' concern on the Afghan side.

Border clashes have, in the past, triggered serious street protests in Kabul which subsequently strained relations between the two countries. Going by the trajectory of terror in the Pakhtun belt, the TTP has always got the benefit of public reaction. In this case too, the reactionary culture in the bordering areas will help the TTP take full advantage of official vulnerabilities. This time, Pakistan will be on the receiving end.

The threat emerging from the TTP's relocation grows out of proportion if the militants' capacity is analysed in the backdrop of their one-point-agenda — to hit Pakistan exclusively.

In their recent media release, TTP commanders don't mince their words: “Before attacking the allied force in Afghanistan, we will first settle scores with the security forces inside Pakistan,” said Sirajuddin, former spokesman of the TTP's Swat chapter.

While it is too early to predict how effectively the deployment of over 10,000 men will be in stopping militants from destabilising the north-western borders of Pakistan, things are more serious than what they seem.

Surprisingly, Pakistan blamed Nato for supporting the TTP in launching the Aug 27 attack in Chitral in which 31 of its troops were killed. It is hard to believe that one ally would provide succour to a deadly militant organisation against another. Yet eyewitness accounts are revealing.

When I recently visited the scene of the attack, hardly anyone disputed the Nato air cover for the TTP incursion. When I cast doubt on their judgment by calling air reconnaissance a routine affair, a man called Azizullah — standing a stone's throw away from the Afghan border — said angrily: “We live here and can differentiate between routine Nato flights and extraordinary air movement.”

Soon afterwards, when two successive attacks rocked Kabul city and a suicide bomber killed the ex-Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, it helped some to figure out the who's who in the deadly 'ghost war'. Top US officials, in particular, translated the Kabul attacks into a tit-for-tat response from the allegedly Pakistan-backed Haqqani network.

Given this backdrop, the unending blame game is making one thing clear: the clash of interests is so deep that it will not let Pakistan and Afghanistan agree on peacefully resolving the Afghan conundrum. “You accommodate my enemy and I will accommodate yours”, is how one security analyst put it.

The writer teaches journalism at the University of Peshawar.

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