By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Islamabad, Dec 9 (IANS/AKI) Taliban militants have used a ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur to remobilise and expand their operations.

As the military began its offensive against militants in South Waziristan in mid-October, those aligned with Pakistan’s Tehrik-e-Taliban began launching terror attacks in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province.

But this week’s suicide attacks in the heart of eastern Punjab province are the latest wave in a daring campaign driven by Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud to destabilise the government and outmanoeuvre the military.

Working with the Islamist militant group Laskhar-i-Jhangvi, the Taliban has launched several recent attacks.

On Tuesday, militants targeted Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence services in a car bomb attack in Multan area that killed 12 people, including security personnel. Several houses collapsed because of the high intensity of the blast.

Late Monday, militants targeted the busy Moon Market in Lahore and at least 49 civilians were killed, while last Friday, armed militants bombed a high profile target, a military mosque situated in the garrison town of Rawalpindi where senior military officials gathered for Friday prayers.

A major general, brigadier and many other officers, as well as their family members including 17 children died.

The Taliban was quick to accept responsibility for the Rawalpindi massacre.

Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud, chief of the Taliban in South Waziristan, told the media that military officers in the mosque were the “primary targets” of the bombing.

Waliur Rahman warned that the Taliban would continue to target the army and his grim prediction has been realised in the past 24 hours.

According to militant sources, they claimed to have outmanoeuvred the armed forces when they struck the peace deal with two Taliban groups including commander Gul Bahadur and commander Mullah Nazir from the Shakai region of South Waziristan.

Before he was killed in a drone attack in August, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud had urged Gul Bahadur to retain the long running agreement with the military as he believed it would help militants escape through the region in the case of a military operation.

Baitullah Mehsud was killed but his strategy worked when the Pakistan army came with full force to destroy the sanctuaries of the Taliban.

Most of the militants had already left the area and settled in North Waziristan.

From there they regrouped and made their base in the Orakzai tribal region from where they carried out attacks in Peshawar.

Once they had consolidated their positions around Peshawar, the TTP gave the green light to its Punjab cells who carried out the attacks in Rawalpindi, Lahore and now in Multan.

The Taliban’s increasingly violent strategy has been executed as President Asif Zardari is facing fresh scrutiny over the amnesty granted to him by former president Pervez Musharraf in relation to alleged corruption and embezzlement.

In such a turbulent period, the amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, could jeopardise the rule of Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party and the coalition government.

Frequent high profile attacks by the militants have placed Pakistan in a quagmire without any sign of a solution.

–IANS/AKI

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