NEFA Foundation Report (Part 3 of 3): "Militant Groups Active in the Bajaur Region"
By Evan Kohlmann
The NEFA Foundation has released the final installment of a three part report by NEFA Senior Investigator Claudio Franco titled "Militant Groups Active in the Bajaur Region." The NEFA Foundation has closely followed the evolution of the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s west and recent developments in the region, and the result is a series of reports aimed at covering the situation in the field. The third part of this ongoing series examines the militants operating in the Bajaur region. Although the area in question is traditionally dominated by commanders who by and large hail from the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed (TNSM) rank and file, the militants in Bajaur are not thehomogenous entity we may expect on the basis of media reports. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is surely dominated by the figure of Faqir Mohammed and his senior role within the overall movement guarantees effective representation to the agency within the TTP. Working together with the TTP insurgents, however, there are other significant groups based in one or the other of the area’s tehsils, or districts. These groups are often Taliban inspired and linked to former TNSM cadres, to the Afghan Taliban, and/or to foreign militants. Nevertheless, there are examples of Taliban-like entities having emerged purely to ‘protect’ the interests of a specific tribal group or potentate. In these cases, the emphasis on the Taliban brand of Deobandi ideology is clearly less marked and, at times, there appears to be a dangerous proximity to criminal elements, a proximity that has surely affected the Taliban’s credibility as a quasi-institutional actor.
The third and final segment of Claudio's report can now be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.
