Pakistan: Falsehoods exposed again
New Delhi [India], February 9 (ANI): In an October 2020 interview to an Indian on-line platform,
Moeed Yusuf, Special Assistant to the
Pakistan Prime Minister had asserted that India was behind the Tehrik-e Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) merger with four other splinter organisations.
He further alleged that in August 2019, more than a million US dollars of Indian embassy funds were used to effect this merger.
In a press conference in November 2020 Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi went further and claimed that
Pakistan had prepared a dossier on Indian involvement in terrorism in
Pakistan.
According to him, investigations into the recent upsurge in violence in
Pakistan revealed that it was a direct consequences of India's intensified engagements with all brands of terrorists and that Indian Intelligence Agencies were endeavouring to resuscitate various banned terrorist outfits.
A press release issued at the conference alleged that after unification of the TTP with its breakaway factions (Jamaat-ul-Ahrar-JuA and Harkat-ul-Ahrar-HuA) in August 2020, India was endeavouring to establish a consortium of TTP with dissidents of Balochistan (BLA, BLF and BRA) which were already united under the banner of BRAS (Baloch Raaji Aajoie Sangar) constituted in 2018.
Further, RAW while using Indian Embassy in Afghanistan held a number of meetings with TTP Commanders and that RAW was supposedly providing weapons, ammunition and IEDs to them. The evidence contained in the dossier revealed that TTP leaders after collecting the weapons reached back their safe locations after crossing the border into
Pakistan.
Soon after Qureshi's press conference,
Pakistan's envoy to the UN Munir Akram had handed over the dossier to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stressing on the Indian sponsorship of two UN- designated terror groups - the TTP and JUA.
He said at a press conference 'We knew of India's hand in such attacks. We now have gathered irrefutable evidence that India is engaged in a systematic campaign to destabilise
Pakistan through terrorist attacks, promotion of secession and subversion.'
With such a crescendo, Pakistan's expectation was that in every future UN debate and document, India would be hauled over the coals for sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan since Paksitan had supposedly submitted 'irrefutable' proof to the UN.
However, to its shock, the twenty-seventh report of the UN's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team dated 03 February 2021 did no such thing. On the contrary, it was an anti-climax and a slap on the wrist for Pakistan. In para 68 the report mentioned: 'Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (QDe.132) was reported to have overseen a reunification of splinter groups that took place in Afghanistan and was moderated by Al-Qaida. [Emphasis added].
Bolstering the argument, the report held that, 'Member States report little evidence of significant changes in relations between Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Al-Qaida assesses that its future in Afghanistan depends upon its close ties to the Taliban, as well as the success of Taliban military operations in the country.' As is well known, the TTP has pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban a long time ago. Hence, the facilitation of the Al Qaida in moderating the differences in the TTP is perfectly understandable.
Commenting on the UN report,
Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in a press release on 07 February 2021 stated that 'the report vindicated
Pakistan's long standing position on threats posed to
Pakistan and the region by groups like the TTP, JuA, HuA and their affiliates based in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, in the past, has drawn attention of the international community to the support provided to TTP and its affiliates by the hostile intelligence agencies. One result of that support was the merger of JuA, HuA, and other splinter groups of LeJ with TTP in Afghanistan last year.
Pakistan acknowledges UNMT's efforts in exposing the hostile agencies' sponsored collusion of anti-
Pakistan elements in Afghanistan.'
What the press release did not realise was that it actually contradicted the November 2020 assertion of the Foreign Minister that TTP cadres, after receiving weapons, crossed back into Pakistan.
In other words they were based in
Pakistan and not in Afghanistan. Moreover, the government of Afghanistan in a statement on 15 November 2020 had also rejected as baseless such allegations when it stated 'We are committed to the policy of combating all forms of terrorism in the world without any discrimination. We will never allow Afghan soil to be used for disruptive activities against other countries.'
Pakistan's complex links with the TTP have been well-documented. For one thing, Pakistan had recently sought to have Aamir Ali Chaudhury, a TTP operative specializing as an electronics and explosives expert de-listed from the UN's Al Qaida Sanctions Committee. Chaudhury was incidentally associated with the bomb used in the failed May 2010 attack in Times Square, New York City.
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(ANI)
New Delhi [India], February 9 (ANI): In an October 2020 interview to an Indian on-line platform, Moeed Yusuf, Special Assistant to the Pakistan Prime Minister had asserted that India was behind the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) merger with four other splinter organisations.
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