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Experts: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Merger with Splinter Groups 'Bad News'
for Pakistan

Niala Mohammad

   WASHINGTON - While reconciliation efforts between the government and
   the Taliban are still underway in Afghanistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban
   Pakistan (TTP) has announced a reunification with Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA)
   and Hizbul Ahrar -- a move that experts warn could be the beginning
   increasingly hostile activities against Pakistan.

   The TTP is a banned Pakistani militant organization that draws its
   ideological views from al-Qaida. The group was founded in 2007 in North
   Waziristan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. With alleged
   bases in both Kunar and Nangarhar provinces in eastern Afghanistan, it
   has been able to sustain a militant presence along the border between
   Pakistan and Afghanistan.

   "The merger is bad news for Pakistan," Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia
   expert and fellow at Stanford University's Center for International
   Security and Cooperation, told VOA.

   "In the short term, the TTP is likely to improve its presence in
   Pakistan's tribal regions and expand its extortion activity, which has
   picked up in the last few months. Over the medium term, it is possible
   the TTP will try to create a buffer zone on the border of Afghanistan
   and Pakistan to, once again, declare a state of the Pakistani Taliban,
   which hosts Islamist foreign fighters," Mir said.

   Mir said in the coming months, the TTP will likely increase its attacks
   against Pakistani government targets in the tribal areas of the border.
   He said the group's relationship with the Afghan Taliban means it can
   use Afghan territory to maintain pressure on the Pakistani government.

   The United States in 2010 designated the TTP a foreign terrorist
   organization (FTO).