Leader of Pakistani Taliban inherits cash-strapped terror group in chaos
Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud’s appointment follows TTP confirmation Mullah Fazlullah was killed
The militant commander and scholar appointed chief of Pakistan’s Taliban movement has inherited an organisation that analysts say has become increasingly fragmented and will need rebuilding.
Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud immediately became Pakistan’s most wanted man when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan announced on Saturday that he would succeed Mullah Fazlullah, who was killed by a US drone strike this month.
The appointment of Mehsud, 39, known for his religious education and his squint, returns control of the movement to the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan, where their campaign of terror started more than a decade ago.
Militant sources last night said his leadership would have to overcome competing internal factions, and the likely prospect of defections to the patchwork of other extremist groups straddling the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The cash-strapped Taliban are also struggling to mount operations in Pakistan after fleeing across the border to escape army campaigns against them.
The group finally announced the killing of Fazlullah more than a week after the first reports of his death in an American drone strike on June 13 in Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
The group said its former emir had been “a person of strong and high determinations and religious beliefs and a headache for the slaves of the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
Fazlullah became the third consecutive head of the Pakistani Taliban to be killed by a US drone strike, but the group said it was proud that its leadership “is being martyred by the head of the infidels”.
While Fazlullah rose to power on the back of fiery radio diatribes in his native Swat Valley, Mehsud rose through the ranks in South Waziristan after fighting for the Afghan Taliban and studying in seminaries.
Considered better educated than his predecessors, he has acted as a Taliban judge and written books, last year publishing a 700-page history of Mehsud militants.
A biography included in that book disclosed he had spent months fighting with the Afghan Taliban, firstly against the Northern Alliance north of Kabul in 1996 and then again after the September 11 attacks on the US, in 2001.
After climbing the ranks of the Mehsud Taliban faction and then the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, he took charge of operations in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, where his militants ran a kidnapping campaign to raise funds.
His book also contained the first claim by the Pakistani Taliban that it had killed former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto at an election rally in December 2007.
A source in the Pakistani Taliban described Mehsud as “a religious scholar and also the most brave military commander among the leaders”.
The Mehsud tribe makes up most of the group’s foot soldiers, the leadership had returned to the tribe after four and a half years, the source said. Mehsud’s job will be to reconcile tribal splinter factions.
But a member of one of those factions said an immediate announcement to replace Fazlullah had not been made because the movement was “facing much internal rivalry”.
The winners of any further disputes are likely to be other militant groups, particularly the regional franchise of ISIS.
Saifullah Mahsud, president of the Fata Research Centre in Islamabad, said: “The TTP is a fragmented group.
“There’s no central command as such. Most of the factions that go to make up the TTP operate independently of each other.
“There’s been a steady stream of TTP abandoning it and joining ISIS. That’s what ISIS is made of, largely, former TTP members.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people from Fazlullah’s group switched to ISIS, rather than accept the leadership of Noor Wali.”
Mehsud’s years fighting with the Afghan Taliban mean he apparently enjoys good relations with the groups, several sources said. That in itself could pose problems, a member of another militant group with close ties to the TTP predicted.
“The TTP will further split into minor groups because the newly nominated emir is close to the Afghan Taliban, while many of the fighters have sympathies with ISIS. The TTP is very weak financially, another reason for the splits.”
The winners of any further disputes are likely to be other militant groups, particularly the regional franchise of ISIS