Islamabad, Dec 5 (ANI): The Pakistani Taliban has splintered into over 100 smaller factions, weakened and running short of cash, over the country's military operations and US drone strikes, security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland have said.
The group, allied with al Qaeda and based in the northwest close to the Afghan border, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last four and a half years. Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban, or TTP, the Taliban reportedly want to oust the US-backed government and install a hard-line radical regime.
They also have reportedly international ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010.
"Today, the command structure of the TTP is splintered, weak and divided and they are running out of money," Mansur Mahsud, a senior researcher at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Center, said.
"In the bigger picture, this helps the army and the government because the Taliban are now divided," he added.
The first signs of cracks within the Pakistani Taliban appeared after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a drone strike in August 2009, Mahsud said. Since then, the group has steadily deteriorated.
The Pakistani Taliban, which was eet up in 2007, is an umbrella organisation created to represent roughly 40 insurgent groups in the tribal belt plus al Qaeda-linked groups headquartered in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province.
"In the different areas, leaders are making their own peace talks with the government. It could help the Pakistani government and military separate more leaders from the TTP and more foot soldiers from their commanders," Mahsud added. (ANI)
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