THIS IS A MUST READ ARTICLE ABOUT TTP ACTIVITY IN KARACHI AND THEIR TACTICS!!!!
Pakistani Taliban changing tactics
By Amir Mir
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MI21Df02.html
ISLAMABAD - The attack on Monday by a suicide bomber who rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the residence of a senior police official spearheading a campaign against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the commercial capital Karachi makes it abundantly clear that the shock waves from the 9/11 terror attacks a decade ago show few signs of abating.
Pakistan has suffered 305 suicide bombings, the death of 4,847 people and injury of 10,227 others at the hands of al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked extremists in the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, main seaport and key financial center, which is also the capital of Sindh province, is one of the biggest sources of the
Pakistani Taliban's funds through criminal activities like kidnappings and bank robberies.
Karachi has not seen as many TTP-sponsored suicide bombings as other major cities, but it is home to thousands of the group's militants who have fled army operations in the tribal areas. The first vehicle-borne suicide bombing in Pakistan was carried out in Karachi on May 8, 2002, when a human bomb drove his car into the side of a bus outside the Sheraton Hotel, killing 14 people including 11 French naval technicians.
Aslam Khan, the police senior superintendent who heads the anti-extremist cell of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Karachi, survived the September 19 attack after a double-cabin vehicle packed with C4 explosives was rammed into the main gate at his residence in the heavily guarded Defence Housing Area at 7.30 am. Eight people including six policemen, a woman and a child, were killed. The proscribed
TTP quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Aslam had been responsible for the arrest of many of its key operatives.
"We will continue targeting all such police officers who are involved in the killing of our jihadi comrades," TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said when claiming responsibility for the attack.
The Karachi suicide attack was in keeping with the change in TTP tactics as the group has apparently decided to target top policemen and military officials involved in counterterrorism efforts. The change in tactic shows increasingly desperation because the TTP is now attacking soft targets, such as homes of law-enforcement officials in large cities, which are bound to be relatively unsecured, as opposed to government or military installations. The deaths of family members and neighbors would seem of little consequence to the attackers.
The attack came less than two weeks after another human bomb on September 7 rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the Quetta residence of the deputy inspector general of the Baluchistan Frontier Corps, killing his wife and 24 others in a high-security zone in the city.
The Frontier Corps deputy inspector was targeted bomb because he was involved in the capture of Younis al-Mauritani, a senior member of al-Qaeda's external operations council, and his two aides, Abdul Ghaffar Al-Shami and Messara al-Shami. The three al-Qaeda operatives were arrested in a suburb of Quetta during a joint operation between the Baluchistan Frontier Corps and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.
The bombing was the TTP's second attempt in 10 months to assassinate Aslam Khan, who has repeatedly vowed to break the back of the TTP and crush its strong network in the port city, where it works in tandem with sectarian and militant groups. Monday's attack, which destroyed or damaged neighboring houses and killed many innocents in the posh area of Karachi, has once again highlighted that the war against al-Qaeda-linked Taliban extremists is no longer confined to the tribal belt of Pakistan but has reached the urban centers - be it Quetta, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi.
The previous attempt to assassinate Aslam Khan was also made by a human bomber, who rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the Karachi headquarters of the CID on November 11, 2010. Aslam and other officers of the CID - Fayyaz Khan, Omar Shahid and Mazhar Mashwani - who oversee the anti-extremism cell and run counter-terrorism operations in the port city, escaped unhurt. The attack began as an armed assault and ended with a truck bomb that killed at least 20 people and injured over 100 others. The CID building was being used to interrogate suspects belonging to TTP and other banned militant groups.
The attack was carried out a day after Aslam had arrested six activists of the TTP-linked sectarian-cum jihadi group - Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
Aslam and his team members largely succeeded in breaking the TTP network in Karachi by arresting three successive ameers of the Karachi chapter of the group in recent months - Akhtar Zaman Mehsud and his successors Bahadur Khan Momand and Maulvi Saeed Anwer. This invited the wrath of the Karachi chapter of the TTP, which has links with militants in the country's tribal areas and with al-Qaeda and several banned militant and sectarian outfits. Therefore, the TTP's claim of responsibility soon after the September 19 attack came as little surprise.
Aslam told reporters he had been receiving threats from the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban.
"I was sleeping when they carried out this cowardly act and rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into my house," Aslam told the media outside his ruined residence. "But let me tell you, I will not be cowed. I will teach a lesson to generations of these militants. I did not know that these terrorists were such cowards that they would attack sleeping children."
Due to the nature of his work, the enemies of Aslam in the jihadi circles of Karachi are as countless and varied as the techniques he himself has used to arrest them. They range from the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) to drug-runners and target killers belonging to several major political parties, especially the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
Well-informed circles in the security agencies said the Karachi suicide attack was an attempt to demoralize law enforcement agencies, especially the Sindh Police CID, which in recent days has identified more than two dozen extremist militant and sectarian outfits in Karachi for a possible crackdown once the hunt for politically-backed target killers is over. Prominent alongside the TTP and LeJ among these sectarian and jihadi groups are also: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, Sunni Tehrik, Daawat-e-Islami, Harkatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen Al Alami, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jamaatul Furqaan, Harkatul Jehadul Islami, Jundallah, Tehrik-e-Islami , Lashkar-e-Muhammadi, Lashkar-e-Islami, Mehdi Militia, Hezbollah, and Tawheed Brigade.
Security sources said some TTP-linked elements had distributed a leaflet in various outskirts of Karachi in the first week of July, carrying a "hit list" of anti-jihadi personalities, threatening that they would be killed along with family members. The pamphlet justified jihad and urged "pure Muslims" to rise up against elements creating problems for jihadis who were described as the defenders of Islam and Pakistan.
According to the leaflet, the definition of a criminal had been changed in recent times. "Previously, it was used for robbers and dacoits, but after 9/11 the term is being used for those who are sincere with the religion of Islam and want to wage jihad against the forces of the infidel."
Those declared "liable to be killed" in the TTP pamphlet, along with the CID's Aslam Khan, included: Capital City Police Officer Karachi Saud Mirza; CID superintendent Fayyaz Khan; Anti-Violent Crime Unit Chief Farooq Awam; Special Investigation Unit chief Raja Omar Khattab; former Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Wasim Ahmed; Sunni Deobandi scholar Mufti Mohammad Naeem, Shia scholar Mirza Yousuf Baig; and Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Haider Abbas Rizvi. Television artists and anchors and some Karachi-based journalists were also on the list.
The TTP spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, while claiming responsibility for the Karachi suicide bombing, stated, "Aslam Khan was on our hit list and his name will only be removed after he is killed. But let me tell you frankly, he is not the only one on our hit list. There are many other officers of the Karachi Police on our hit list who will be targeted and killed soon for having sided with the forces of the infidel".
Amir Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the author of several books on the subject of militant Islam and terrorism, the latest being The Bhutto murder trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.
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