Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The dreaded Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (TTP JuA) faces a rift as a senior leader and his supporters mull over launching their own group.

Mukarram alias Omar Khorasani, who was one of the close confidants of the JuA chief Omar Khalid Khorasani, recently parted ways with the group and is expected to announce his own group that will be a serious setback for the group.

Spokesman for the banned JuA, Asad Mansoor, announced on Wednesday that Mukaram and his followers had been “banished from the Jamaat”.

He said a detailed policy statement would be issued later, asking supporters not to take any sort of step, which could hurt their activities.

Mukarram, who belongs to Pandeyali tehsil in Mohmand Agency, was the main character behind the JuA’s activities with his position as head of the group’s intelligence unit. He was member of the group’s central ‘shura’ or council, Ahrar sources told Daily Times.

Some militant sources say several commanders are likely to join the rebel leader. They include Jehad Yar Mehsud, commander Muslim Yar Momand, commander Rashid Mama, Saad alias Wuraf Khan, commander Imran and Salman. Some other people also support Mukarram, the sources said.

Mukarram appeared in a video last month after he was reportedly injured in a firing incident. He told his supporters that a “plot against him has failed”.

Ahrar, blamed for many deadliest terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years that killed many people including security personnel, has been in trouble because of internal differences.

In April, Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesman for the JuA, who surrendered to the security forces, had claimed in a video that Khorasani “had contacts with the Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies”.

In June, the group expelled four leaders over their “activities against Islamic sharia and violating the group’s principles”, according to the JuA spokesman.

Militant sources had earlier told Daily Times that nearly 50 Ahrar supporters had joined Daesh or the Islamic State Khorasan, whose leaders are believed to be based in Afghanistan. Omar Khitab, one of the TTP JuA senior commanders, Dr Islam Abid, who headed the group’s medical unit, and senior commander Sajid are among those who switched loyalties to Abu Bakar Baghdadi’s Islamic State.

The group spokesman, however, rejected the reports of JuA’s links with Daesh.

In February, the Islamabad Lal Masjid or Red Mosque described JuA as and anti-Islam and anti-state entity, a day after it claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Lahore, killing 13 people and injuring nearly 70 others. Ahrar said in late September that its seven fighters were killed in an operation on the Afghan side of the border by the foreigners and Afghan Special Forces.

In July, the Security Council’s Sanctions Committee approved the addition of JuA in the list of entities and individuals subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.

Published in Daily Times, November 9^th 2017.