Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud
Outlawed Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) formally released video footage on Saturday of Taliban’s godfather and former Pakistani spymaster Amir Sultan Tarar (alias Colonel Imam) showing his killing. In the video TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud is also sited ordering a masked teenager to execute Imam. The logo of TTP run “Umar Studio” can also be seen in the video.
Colonel Imam was abducted along with his fellow ISI officer Khalid Khawaja and a British journalist Asad Qureshi in March, last year. Soon after, a previously less-known group of Punjabi Taliban, calling itself the “Asian tigers” claimed to be holding the men in a video delivered to local and foreign media outlets. The group was active in the area under the umbrella of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. But later on it fell apart after its leader, Imran alias Usman Punjabi was killed in intra-militants clash in Mirali.
Initially there were rumors of Imam’s death whilst in militants’ captivity but now the footage finally confirms it. His death might provoke intra-Pakistani Taliban rivalry, especially, in North Waziristan where TTP was given a refuge in the wake of Operation Rahe-e-Nejat by Hafiz Gul Bahidar. Apart from TTP other Pakistani Taliban factions, Hafiz Gul Bahidar and Molvi Nazeer Ahmad who are believed to have close ties with Pakistani establishment always condemned Imam’s abduction privately. Just a week earlier, Molvi Nazeer Ahmad, a militant commander, whose group has substantial presence in Ahmadzai Wazir inhabited part of South Waziristan, pledged to avenge his death. But latterly he personally contacted local media persons and termed the news as hearsay in an attempt to sever his group relations with other Taliban factions.
More importantly, Colonel Imam was widely respected among Afghan Taliban for his career-long unwavering support in the creation of Taliban movement in mid 90s. In an interview with a leading private Pakistani news channel, he once claimed that his team had trained approximately 90000 Afghan Mujahideen in the early 70s in order to use them as proxies against pro-Soviet Sardar Daud regime and latter in a decade long national resistance movement against Soviet’s occupation. These include almost all of top echelon Ahmad Shah Masood, Gulbadeen Hikmatyar, Burhadundin Rabbani and Mullah Muhammad Omar. He was also believed to be the first person who paved the way for establishing links between Taliban and Pakistan’s elite intelligence agency ISI in the mid 90s on the basis of his personal relation with Mullah Omar.
History shows that militants can go to any extent if their demands are not accepted. So far, they have slain a number of people including a polish geologist Piotr Stanczak, who was kidnapped on September 28, 2008 when the government failed to meet their demands of paying ransom and releasing their arrested comrades. ?Meanwhile, TTP has also issued a fourth video of Dr. Ajmal Khan, Vice-chancellor of Islamia College University Peshawar in which the latter once again appealed to the government to take immediate steps for his release. With the demise of Colonel Imam, the fate of Dr. Ajmal Khan seems in jeopardy. He has been in the Taliban’s custody for the last six months somewhere in restive North Waziristan. Militants have issued a number of videos demanding the government either accept their demands or he will be executed.
The Writer is Asiadesptach.com analyst on Islamic Militancy.
