Afghan-Pakistani Cross-Border Terrorism Cuts Both Ways

KABUL — Reports about Afghan Taliban safe havens on Pakistani soil are abundant and such refuges are seen as crucial for the militants’ ability to sustain their insurgency inside Afghanistan. What is often overlooked is that some extremist groups, like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), do the same, but in reverse – seeking shelter on the Afghan side of the border (which Kabul does not officially recognize) to launch assaults on the Pakistani side.

While Pakistani officials have been making such accusations for years, they – unlike the allegations from Afghan and U.S. officials regarding Afghan insurgents hiding out on Pakistani soil – never really gained much traction or attention.

That these Pakistani assertions are not smoke and mirrors was recently confirmed though. On March 7 a U.S. drone struck a TTP camp in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, close to the Pakistani border. The attack killed at least 20 TTP fighters, among them Abdullah, the son of the movement’s leader, Mullah Fazlullah, as a TTP statement sent to Pakistani media acknowledged.

Prior to that, an Afghan militant, who cooperates with TTP elements and goes by the nom de guerre of Qari Saifullah, stated in an exclusive interview that the later targeted TTP group consisting of Pakistani (many from the Swat valley) and Afghan fighters was residing in the remote Chawgam area in Kunar’s Shigal Wa Sheltan district. He also confirmed that the drone strike took place in the said area and had caused considerable casualties. The group is led by Ustod Fateh, and, before the drone strike, had staged cross-border incursions at least every month or so, in particular into the Pakistani tribal agency of Bajaur, Saifullah added. While such incidents are not always picked up by media, one attack on a Pakistani Army outpost in Bajaur, that was, according to Saifullah, conducted by this group, was reported by Reuters in mid-November 2017.

The presence of a TTP group led by Fateh in Kunar was also separately confirmed by two other sources. One – a local, who until recently served in the Afghan Border Police in Kunar – indicated there are about 200 to 300 TTP fighters in Chawgam. In the whole province of Kunar, there are about 2,000 TTP militants, he alleged. Given that locals often inflate numbers, though, these figures should be taken with a salt of grain.

The second very knowledgeable source, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter, identified Fateh (which is an alias) as Umer Rehman, the TTP’s military commander for the Malakand Division (a now-abolished administrative division of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, including Swat district) – the exact same position that Saifullah attributed to Fateh, who hails from Swat. The source also confirmed Fateh’s whereabouts in Kunar. The fact that Fateh is a rather obscure mid-level commander lends all the more weight to the detailed identifications and localizations of Fateh by two separate sources.

The same source also provided information that linked Fateh to a suicide bomber, who on February 3 blew himself up in the Swat valley, claiming the lives of at least 11 Pakistani Army soldiers.