A not-so-silent storm in brewing in Pakistan. Rattled by India’s Operation Sindoor strikes that stunned Islamabad and decimated terror hubs in heart of the country, Rawalpindi is deploying the new playback to revive Lashkar-e-Taiba.
This time, the focus is on restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Dir. Reports emerging from across the border suggest that Lashkar is coming up with a huge terror facility in Lower Dir.
This would house a training camp as well as residential complex. Markaz Jihad-e-Aqsa, the facility is likely to become operational in December this year. The sprawling 4,643 square feet campus is located in Kumban Maidan of Lower Dir, intel inputs say.
Interestingly, Lower Dir, which is roughly 50 km away from the border of Afghanistan has been a pocket borough of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. This makes the mega construction a sign of how things are shifting towards Lashkar, quickly rather slowly.
The reason why Lashkar is going big on this region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is tacit support from the Pakistan Army. Officially, the military maintains that the recent crackdown in the Khyber region is against the terrorists. However, the ground reality is that Pakistan Army is singling out TTP men. Recently, as many as 17 TTP fighters were gunned down in raids across the Khyber region.
The KP operations, which were launched in June this year, have seen both Pakistan Army and Air Force hit at the hideout of TTP men. A Times of India report citing the sources in Pakistan said that this is Pakistan’s playbook of good vs bad terrorists at play.
The idea is simple. Anyone, who is hostile to the state is bad terrorist and those who work for the state are good terrorists. The ‘anti-terror’ ops in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are creating space for Lashkar men. Apart from Lashkar, Rawalpindi and ISI are also trying to create space for anyone who can align with their anti-India agenda.
Lashkar-e-Taiba vs Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan: The ideological divide
Taliban, which came into existence with support from Pakistan, is largely made up of fundamentalists that have been trained in Deobandi madrasas. The terror organization with radical ideology helped Islamabad defeat Russians in 1980s, Africanis 2000s and also helped the Pakistan Army in wiping out various Tajik groups. On contrary, TPP refuses to play second fiddle to Rawalpindi or ISI. There have been various instances when TTP has asserted its autonomy, which can be a huge issue for ISI. After all the spy agency has been scouting a place for Lashkar in Khyber region. Before the June operations, ISI tried to recruit fighters from the Lower Dir region but with little success.
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