After a deadly campaign of attacks, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are weakened and exploring peace talks with authorities perceived as increasingly at odds with the United States, observers say.
Taliban commanders now say they have started initial talks with Islamabad, mediated by former army officials, in a move that could end years of “holy war” that saw 500 attacks killing more than 4,700 people, according to an AFP tally.
The army and the spokesman for the main umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban faction, allied to al Qaeda, strongly denied the claims and low-level violence continues on a near daily basis, as do clashes between troops and militants.
Any negotiations underway need to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Rebel factions are eclectic and nebulous and it remains unclear whether they are united enough to clinch a deal or how long any such deal would last.
Nevertheless, the rhythm of attacks has changed dramatically in Pakistan, with the death toll steadily diminishing in a pattern that continued after US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2.
Significantly, there has been no major militant attack in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 46 people at a funeral in Lower Dir on September 15.
According to an AFP tally, around 800 people have been killed in bomb attacks so far this year, significantly fewer than the 1,360 killed in 2010.
About 556 people died in attacks in the six months before bin Laden was killed and 412 in the six months afterwards.
“TTP was at its peak in 2007-2008. But it has since been weakened and is divided,” said Saifullah Khan Mehsud, an analyst at the FATA Research Centre, a think tank dedicated to the Afghan border areas where Taliban are based.
In 2009, the Taliban marched to within 100 kilometres of Islamabad, sending Western allies into a tailspin of panic, worried that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into rebel hands.
The army went on the offensive, local anti-Taliban militias proliferated and the rebels were pushed back into the mountains on the Afghan border. TTP founder Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August 2009.
Militants’ main base, North Waziristan, has been targeted for three years by US drone strikes which “kill TTP militants for the most part”, according to one frequent visitor to the district.
The army has also stepped up searches and checkpoints on the roads linking the semi-autonomous tribal zone to the rest of the country. More and more rebels are also reported to have fled into Afghanistan.