A jirga is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who are influenced by them in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Terrorism in Pakistan, according to the Ministry of Interior, poses a significant threat to the people of Pakistan. The wave of terrorism in Pakistan is believed to have started in 2000. Attacks and fatalities in Pakistan were on a "declining trend" between 2015 and 2019, but has gone back up from 2020-2022, with 971 fatalities in 2022.
Maulvi Faqir Mohammed is an Islamist militant and, until March 2012, a deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He was reported as killed on 5 March 2010 during a helicopter gunship attack on militants by the Pakistani military although he denied the reports as false. In July 2011, he resurfaced on the air broadcasting radio shows out of Afghanistan. He was captured in Afghanistan on 17 February 2013, and released by the Afghan Taliban in 2021.
A series of occasional armed skirmishes and firefights have occurred along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border between the Afghan Armed Forces and the Pakistan Armed Forces since 1949. The latest round of hostilities between the two countries began in April 2007. Militants belonging to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar also use Afghanistan's territory to target Pakistani security personnel deployed along the border. The Diplomat says that the presence of terrorists belonging to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan on Taliban Afghanistan and Pakistan soil is the reason for sporadic shelling of Afghanistan's territory by Pakistani security forces.
The insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in North-West Pakistan or Pakistan's war on terror, is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan and Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), TNSM, al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the ISIL–Khorasan (ISIL), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime. Formerly a war, it is now a low-level insurgency as of 2017.
Mir Ali or Mirali is a town in North Waziristan District, in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Mirali is located in the Tochi Valley, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) east of Miramshah, 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of the city of Khost, Afghanistan. Mirali is at an altitude of 674 metres (2,211 ft).
Fazal Hayat, more commonly known by his pseudonym Mullah Fazlullah, was an Islamist jihadist militant who was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Swat Valley. He became the emir of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in 2013, and presided over the descent of the group into factions who are often at war with each other. Fazlullah was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2015, and was added to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice wanted list on 7 March 2018.
Lashkar-e-Islam, also written as Laskhar-i-Islam, is a Deobandi jihadist terrorist group operating in Khyber District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan and the neighboring Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
The Nizam-e-Adl Regulation was a controversial act, passed on April 13, 2009 by Government of Pakistan that formally established Sharia law in the Malakand division. PPP-led central government passed the bill after a coalition partner ANP government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa negotiated the peace deal with outlawed Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi.
The Second Battle of Swat also known as Operation Rah-e-Rast, was Sub-Operation of OperationBlack Thunderstorm,began in May 2009 and involved the Pakistan Army and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants in a fight for control of the Swat district of Pakistan. The first Battle of Swat had ended with a peace agreement, that the government had signed with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in February 2009.
Turkistan Bhittani or Turkestan Bettani was the militant leader of a pro-government Taliban faction based in the town of Tank in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. He is notable for his opposition to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Turkistan belongs to Bettani tribe.
Omar Khalid Khorasani was a Pakistani militant and one of the founding members of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In 2014, he formed his own splinter militant group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) and was ousted by the Mullah Fazlullah-led Taliban. The same year, JuA swore allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS), however, a year later JuA rejoined TTP.
Ahrar ul Hind was a militant Islamist group in Pakistan that split from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in February 2014. During peace talks between the Pakistani government and TTP, Ahrar-ul-Hind issued a statement to the media rejecting the talks, and announcing that they would not accept any peace agreement. Following its initial announcement, the group claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in Pakistan, including the Islamabad court attack, before merging into the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group in August 2014.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was a terrorist organization that split away from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in August 2014. The group came to prominence after it claimed responsibility for the 2014 Wagah border suicide attack. In August 2020, it merged back to TTP.
On 16 December 2014, six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The terrorists, all of whom were foreign nationals, comprising one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans, entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 149 people including 132 schoolchildren ranging between eight and eighteen years of age, making it the world's fifth deadliest school massacre. Pakistan launched a rescue operation undertaken by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group (SSG) special forces, who killed all six terrorists and rescued 960 people. In the long term, Pakistan established the National Action Plan to crack down on terrorism.
Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen is a Pashtun human rights activist against enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights abuses against Pashtun population in Pakistan. Pashteen leads the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a social movement focused on advocacy of rights of Pashtuns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. From 11 to 14 October 2024, he was part of the Pashtun National Jirga, held in Khyber District to discuss the critical issues faced by the Pashtuns.
On 16 April 2022, the Pakistani military conducted predawn airstrikes on multiple targets in Afghanistan's Khost and Kunar provinces. Afghan officials said the attacks killed at least 47 civilians and injured 23 others. Initial reports described the attacks as either rocket strikes or aerial strikes carried out by a number of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force, and Afghan officials claimed the operation was carried out by Pakistani military helicopters and jets. Pakistani officials initially denied Pakistan carried out the airstrikes, but Pakistani security officials later claimed the airstrikes involved drone strikes from inside Pakistani airspace, and that no aircraft were deployed. Some reports said the Pakistani airstrikes also targeted parts of Paktika Province.
On 30 January 2023, at around 1:30 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+5), a suicide bomber set off an explosion within the Police Lines mosque of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, killing 84 people and injuring 217. The mosque, located within a high-security compound containing several government offices, including the headquarters of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, was infiltrated by the perpetrator after he had disguised himself as a police officer, allowing him to pass through several security checkpoints and join the congregational Zuhr prayers. The bombing destroyed a wall and the roof of the mosque, burying hundreds of people in rubble.
Hafiz Gul Bahadur group or HGB is a faction of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) based in North Waziristan and surrounding districts of the former FATA region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The group is led by tribal leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is affiliated with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Though the group had previously directed most of its attacks against the Afghan government and NATO forces during the war in Afghanistan, it has since targeted the Pakistani government after the fall of Kabul in 2021. Militants affiliated with HGB have been linked to several high-profile attacks on Pakistani security forces in the ongoing insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
