Some Taliban getting disenchanted with Baitullah’s enterprise, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Some Taliban getting disenchanted with Baitullah’s enterprise

Editorial in the Daily Times, Lahore

June 10, 2009

As the chief of army staff (COAS), General Ashfaq Kayani, visited Mingora on Monday, there was random news about the state of Taliban aggression, leading one to believe that the chief of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Baitullah Mehsud is under pressure. The ongoing reaction of the people of Upper Dir against the Taliban interlopers has led to the elimination of 14 of them, including their Afghan commander, while the houses of 13 others were burned down. On Monday, too, another 21 Taliban were reportedly killed.

Disenchantment is setting in among the latter-day Taliban who joined Baitullah’s enterprise simply to fulfill their dreams of a “pure Islam” to transform society into some sort of imagined utopia. After perceiving that the Taliban were on the run, a Taliban chief in Peshawar has also denounced Baitullah’s policies: “Whatever Baitullah Mehsud and his associates are doing in the name of Islam is not a jihad, and in fact it is rioting and terrorism”. This “realisation” has come after the military operation in the Malakand-Swat region and, above all, after the formation of a national consensus against the TTP.

In Bajaur, where the Tehreek-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi (TNSM) of Sufi Muhammad was adopted as the guiding light of a local faction, the Taliban are treating it in a manner that differs from past practice. On Monday they took 100 members of the TNSM hostage, including the local chief, after “differences between the Taliban and the TNSM intensified”. But one must realistically assess the growth of TNSM influence in Bajaur. The TNSM movement had affected Bajaur in the 1990s but its appeal was greatly increased only after the success of warlord Fazlullah in the adjacent Malakand region. Now, with the retreat of the Taliban, however, TNSM influence is being rolled back. The linkage with the TTP is therefore coming under pressure. Inside TNSM, too, the transition from acquiescing in the savagery of the Taliban to non-acceptance of the “un-Islamic” practice of killing Muslims is being completed. Now TNSM is becoming a problem for Baitullah’s warriors as a non-military adjunct whose leader Sufi Mohammad has considerably lost his charisma as the saintly symbol of revolt against the state of Pakistan. There are reports also that factions of the Taliban are refusing to fight against the army.

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