TTP’s Karachi Connection

From the day Pak­istan mil­i­tary launched Zar-e-Azb against the TTP in North Waziris­tan, Sindh Gov­ern­ment in gen­er­al and MQM in par­tic­u­lar start­ed to raise their con­cerns that the mil­i­tants might try to flee from FATA and KPK to Karachi in the guise of IDPs. One may ques­tion the con­cerns shown by Karachi­ites about the inflow of IDPs from the north­ern areas into the metrop­o­lis? I have tried to answer this impor­tant ques­tion below on the basis of TTP’s long exist­ing and well orga­nized net­work in Karachi.

Karachi attracts TTP because it is Pakistan’s largest city, with approx­i­mate­ly 20 mil­lion peo­ple and is home to many dif­fer­ent eth­nic and lin­guis­tic groups, mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to oper­ate clan­des­tine­ly. More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, approx­i­mate­ly five mil­lion Pash­tuns, the eth­nic group to which most of the Tal­iban belong, live in Karachi, and trib­al mil­i­tants can find sanc­tu­ar­ies in Pash­tun neigh­bor­hoods. A num­ber of oth­er mil­i­tant groups also oper­ate in the city, such as Sipah-e-Saha­ba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Isla­mi, and Jun­dul­lah — some of which are sec­tar­i­an in nature and broad­ly share the TTP’s more rad­i­cal out­look.

In the ear­ly stages of the mass move­ment to Karachi, TTP’s pri­ma­ry pur­pose was fundrais­ing, as well as rest and recu­per­a­tion. Begin­ning in June 2012, how­ev­er, the group esca­lat­ed its vio­lent fundrais­ing tac­tics and increased attacks on the lib­er­al politi­cians and law enforce­ment per­son­nel.

As TTP mil­i­tants moved into Karachi, they orga­nized into three fac­tions: the Mehsud fac­tion, the Swat fac­tion and the Mohmand fac­tion. Accord­ing to the intel­li­gence agen­cies these three fac­tions still oper­ate from Pash­tun neigh­bor­hoods in Karachi. These areas include Itte­had Town, Min­gophir, Kun­wari Colony, Pash­tun­abad, Pipri, Gul­shen-e-Buner, Metro­v­ele, Pathan Colony, Fron­tier Colony and Pash­tun set­tle­ments in the Sohrab Goth area, where they could defend them­selves as well as dis­turb law enforce­ment agen­cies (LEAs).

Accord­ing to the intel­li­gence agen­cies, the TTP fac­tions in Karachi have become more brazen and vio­lent since Jan 2013. Dozens of truck­ers in Karachi whose fam­i­lies live in South Waziris­tan, Mohmand and Khy­ber trib­al agen­cies have paid tens of thou­sands of dol­lars dur­ing the last year to free their fam­i­ly mem­bers from TTP mil­i­tants. As part of these extor­tion rack­ets, TTP mil­i­tants often threat­en a Karachi-based work­er, say­ing that their fel­low mil­i­tants in FATA will kid­nap or kill the worker’s fam­i­ly unless “pro­tec­tion” or ran­som mon­ey is paid. Demands range from $10,000 to $50,000. Many of these inci­dents go unre­port­ed due to threats from TTP mil­i­tants. In addi­tion to these extor­tion rack­ets and kid­nap-for-ran­som schemes, Pash­tun truck­ers who car­ry sup­plies from the Karachi port to Afghanistan have also been forced to pay thou­sands of dol­lars in pro­tec­tion mon­ey to avoid being tar­get­ed by the TTP.

Some argue that the TTP esca­lat­ed its fundrais­ing efforts due to a short­age of mon­ey in the wake of anti-ter­ror­ism fund­ing mea­sures tak­en by Pak­istani author­i­ties, which have restrict­ed the TTP’s source of income from abroad. In response, TTP lead­ers in the trib­al regions report­ed­ly direct­ed their Karachi-based oper­a­tives to col­lect funds through extor­tion, kid­nap-for-ran­som, as well as bank heists. In the first six months of 2014, for exam­ple, 19 bank rob­beries net­ted approx­i­mate­ly $1100,000, and author­i­ties believe that most of the rob­beries were aimed at help­ing the TTP as well as oth­er banned out­fits such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

In recent times TTP has also increased oper­a­tions tar­get­ing lib­er­al polit­i­cal par­ties and LEAs. In addi­tion to tar­get­ing the law enforce­ment agen­cies, the TTP has also threat­ened polit­i­cal par­ties such as Awa­mi Nation­al Par­ty (ANP) and Mut­tahi­da Qau­mi Move­ment (MQM), a polit­i­cal par­ty that large­ly rep­re­sents the Urdu-speak­ing com­mu­ni­ty. The TTP has not, how­ev­er, tar­get­ed Karachi’s reli­gious par­ties and those par­ties which are soft towards Tal­iban, such as Jamaat-e-Isla­mi (JI), Pak­istan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Jami­at Ule­ma-e-Islam-Fazlur Rehman (JUI‑F).

TTP’s esca­lat­ing vio­lence in Karachi has major secu­ri­ty and polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions for Pak­istan. Media reports sug­gest that of the 20 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in Karachi, rough­ly one mil­lion live in neigh­bor­hoods where the TTP has a strong pres­ence. Police sus­pect that Tal­iban mil­i­tants in Karachi oper­ate in small cells, each con­sist­ing of 10–15 mil­i­tants. If the group’s attacks on sec­u­lar soci­ety and law enforce­ment con­tin­ue, it could threat­en sta­bil­i­ty in a city that earns 60–70% of Pakistan’s nation­al rev­enue. On the polit­i­cal front, Taliban’s grow­ing strength in Karachi will weak­en Pakistan’s more sec­u­lar polit­i­cal par­ties, espe­cial­ly the anti-Tal­iban MQM and ANP. There­fore, if the TTP’s Karachi net­work grows, it could weak­en the local econ­o­my, con­strain Karachi’s sec­u­lar par­ties, and threat­en the city’s over­all secu­ri­ty.

Pak­istani secu­ri­ty experts, politi­cians, and law enforce­ment all agree that the TTP wants to tight­en its grip on Karachi. The gov­ern­ment is still in the posi­tion to roll-back TTP’s spread­ing Karachi net­work, yet Karachi’s police force con­tin­ues to down­play the TTP threat to the city, insist­ing that the num­ber of trib­al mil­i­tants oper­at­ing in Karachi is low. Ana­lysts sus­pect that the police want to avoid the per­cep­tion that they have failed to main­tain law-and-order in the city. If the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan and our secu­ri­ty agen­cies fail to con­front these devel­op­ments soon, the TTP’s grow­ing Karachi net­work will not only weak­en the city’s over­all secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty but this will have a dis­as­trous impact on the already ail­ing econ­o­my of Pak­istan.