UN report:TTP 'benefitted most' from Taliban takeover of Kabul

An annual report by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has highlighted the relationship of the Afghan Taliban -- who came to power last year after the withdrawal of the United States forces and the subsequent fall of the Ashraf Ghani-led government in Afghanistan -- with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Al-Qaeda leadership. The report of the UNSC  also underscored the presence of other terror outfits, particularly the TTP, in the Taliban-led regime. According to the UN, the TTP “benefitted the most of all” due to the takeover of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban. "TTP has arguably benefitted the most of all the foreign extremist groups in Afghanistan from the Taliban takeover. It has conducted numerous attacks and operations in Pakistan. The TTP also continues to exist as a stand-alone force,” the report said as it estimated the number of TTP fighters to be “several thousand”. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), blamed for a string of attacks in northwest Pakistan in recent months, accounts for the largest component of foreign terrorist fighters in Afghanistan, with their number estimated at “several thousand”, said the latest report from the team monitoring the UN Security Council’s sanctions on the Taliban. This is the first report by the monitoring team, which assists the UN Security Council’s 1988 Sanctions Committee, since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August last year.

"The group [TTP] is estimated to consist of 3,000 to 4,000 armed fighters located along the east and south-east Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas," the report added. According to the report, Haqqani Network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani has reportedly been relied upon more than anyone else and to "act as an intermediary between TTP and Pakistan" given his group's control of the Afghan interior ministry and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations. These ministries give the HQN "further points of contact with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)". Other groups include the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jaish-i-Mohammed (JiM)..and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)."

LeT, which was formed in Afghanistan in 1990, has three training camps in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, and the group has maintained its close ties with the Afghan Taliban leadership. LeT leader Mawlawi Assadullah met the Taliban’s deputy interior minister Noor Jalil in October 2021, the report said. A Taliban delegation visited a training camp used by LeT in Haska Mena district of Nangarhar province in January this year. The report said JeM, a Deobandi group led by Masood Azhar, is “ideologically closer to the Taliban”. Qari Ramazan is the newly appointed head of the group in Afghanistan. JeM was formed in early 2000 by Azhar after he was freed along with two more terrorists in exchange for passengers on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked by Pakistani terrorists from Kathmandu to Kandahar.