Peshawar: Therik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a close ally of al Qaeda, has planned to attack American targets abroad to retaliate the death of Osama bin Laden, said one of its senior leaders.
The TTP has delivered on threats to take revenge of the killing of former al Qaeda commander bin Laden by the US special forces in a garrison town of Pakistani on May 2.
It bombed an American consulate convoy, laid siege to a naval base and blew up paramilitary cadets in Pakistan, which the Taliban sees as a US puppet and Washington regards as vital in its war on militancy.
Omar Khalid Khorasani, the top Taliban commander in Mohmand Agency, one of Pakistan’s unruly agencies, agreed to answer questions posed by Reuters and record them on a DVD.
Recent TTP attacks in Pakistan were only the start of bloody reprisals after bin Laden’s death.
“These attacks were just a part of our revenge. God willing, the world will see how we avenge Osama bin Laden’s martyrdom,” said Khorasani. “We have networks in several countries outside Pakistan.”
The TTP has not demonstrated the ability to stage sophisticated attacks in the West. Its one apparent bid to carnage in the US failed.
It claimed responsibility for the spoiled car bomb attack in New York’s Times Square last year. But American intelligence agencies take it seriously. It was later added to the US’s list of foreign terrorist organisations.
Hakimullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader, appeared in a video with the Jordanian double agent who blew himself up in a well-fortified US base in Afghanistan last year, in the second most deadly attack in CIA history. Seven CIA officials were killed.
“Our war against America is continuing inside and outside of Pakistan. When we launch attacks, it will prove that we can hit American targets outside Pakistan,” said Khorasani, a tall man with a beard and shoulder-length hair common among the ethnic Pashtun warriors of tribal areas along the Afghan border.
The TTP has built up a long C.V. of bloodshed, carrying out suicide bombings which often kill dozens. The organisation got most of its experience waging militancy inside Pakistan.
A loose alliance of a dozen groups, the TTP intensified its fight against the state in 2007, after a bloody army raid on Islamabad’s Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), which was controlled by its allies.
Khorasani said the death of bin Laden would not demoralise the Taliban.It had in fact, injected a “new courage” into its fighters, said Khorasani, the top Taliban commander in Mohmand agency.
“The ideology given to us by Osama bin Laden and the spirit and courage that he gave to us to fight infidels of the world is alive,” said Khorasani, wearing a brown shalwar kameez, traditional baggy trousers and tunics, and a round top hat.
He described Ayman al-Zawahri, the former Egyptian physician who is the likely successor to bin Laden, as the Pakistani Taliban’s “chief and supreme leader”.
Pakistani Taliban are closely linked with the Afghan Taliban. They move back and forth through the porous border and exchange intelligence and provide shelter for each other in a region US President Barack Obama has described as “the most dangerous place in the world”.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday there could be political talks with the Afghan Taliban by the end of this year if NATO made more military advances.
“Even if some rapprochement is reached in Afghanistan, our ideology, aim and objective is to change the system in Pakistan,” said Khorasani.
“Whether there is war or peace throughout the world, our struggle for the implementation of Islamic system in Pakistan will continue,” The TTP leader concluded.
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