The report acknowledges that splinter groups have joined forces in Afghanistan under the watch of the banned TTP
The United Nations in a recent report validated Pakistan’s longstanding stance regarding threats posed to the country and region by terror outfits like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), Hizbul-Ahrar (HuA), and their affiliates based in Afghanistan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).
Pakistan over the years has been drawing the attention of the international community to the support provided to TTP and its affiliates by the hostile intelligence agencies. According to the 27th Report of the UN Analytical and Monitoring Team believes that the outlawed TTP oversaw a reunification of splinter groups in Afghanistan. The reports also confirm that Pakistan arrested individuals engaged in terrorism financing and the freezing of the assets of designated individuals and entities.
The report names a total of five groups including five entities that pledged allegiance to TTP in July and August (2020), including the Shehryar Mehsud group, Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA), Hizbul Ahrar, the Amjad Farooqi group, and the Usman Saifullah group (formerly known as Lashkar-e- Jhangvi).
Another report from the bipartisan Afghan Study Group for the US Congress notes calls Afghanistan a symbolic geographical location where they can combine and attack the U.S. and its allies. The report also indicated that groups in South Asia can push a war between Pakistan and India.
“Beyond al-Qaeda and ISKP, two groups are of particular interest in South Asia today, among the several dozen said to be operating in the theater: Tehreek-i-Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Both have demonstrated the capacity to act as major threats to the region,” the report read. “Afghanistan remains symbolically and geographically an attractive space for jihadi groups that aspire to attack the United States, its allies, its interests, and the international order it has done so much to create.”