Taliban commanders are locked in talks, trying to heal a damaging rift that has inflamed tensions over whether to pursue peace efforts with the government, insiders say. After months of relative calm, bomb and suicide attacks are again hitting Pakistan’s northwest, raising fears that militants are again on the offensive despite reports late last year that commanders were exploring peace contacts. “The one-point agenda is how to adopt a uniform policy,” a Taliban commander told AFP from an undisclosed location on condition of anonymity. The umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a loose confederation of rival commanders. Divisions first came to the fore after founder Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August 2009.
The young and radical Hakimullah Mehsud – a clan relation to Baitullah – ultimately won a leadership battle, pushing the TTP closer to al Qaeda and overseeing some of Pakistan’s bloodiest gun and suicide attacks yet. Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taliban supreme leader, reportedly asked TTP commanders to stop attacks as his movement explores confidence-building talks with the Americans at the start of a nascent peace process in Afghanistan. The only TTP commander who refused to comply was Hakimullah Mehsud, putting him at odds with his archrival, the older and more measured Wali-ur-Rehman, sources say.
