ISLAMABAD: Ehsanullah Ehsan, former spokesperson for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and a senior leader of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has surrendered before Pakistan’s security agencies.
Addressing a press conference on the progress made under Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor on Monday said, “I want to take this opportunity to announce that Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesperson of the TTP and a leader of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has turned himself in…”
“The people, the state and the institutions of Pakistan have made considerable progress in the betterment of the country’s security situation. We have progressed to the point that the people who’ve been planning attacks on Pakistan’s soil from across the border have started to see that the situation has changed.”
The military spokesman said, “The state is re-establishing its writ… No element can challenge the state if the state has the will to weed out dangerous elements.”
In 2014, after a split in the TTP, Ehsan had become a spokesperson for the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar – what was then a newly formed splinter group of the TTP.
He said at the time that 70 to 80 percent of the TTP commanders and fighters had also joined the splinter group. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was behind the horrific attack on Lahore’s The Mall earlier this year, which sent shockwaves through the country.
During the media briefing, Maj Gen Ghafoor also showed the recorded confession of Noreen Laghari, a medical student from Hyderabad who allegedly fled home to join the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.
Laghari was arrested on Friday after her husband, whom she had married after leaving her home and joining the militants, was killed in an encounter in Punjab Housing Society.
“The girl went missing from Hyderabad. Later, a message appeared on Facebook in which she said that she had joined the military group,” the director general said before he showed the video.
In the video, Noreen Laghari denied that she had been kidnapped, saying she made the decision of travelling to Lahore on her own.
“I am a second-year student at the Liaquat Medical University,” she said in the video. “I went to Lahore on my own, no one kidnapped me,” she said.
“Our main plan was to carry out terrorist activities,” she said. “These included suicide attacks and kidnapping intelligence officials.”
She said that a young man named Fauji was involved in these activities. “On April 1, our organisation gave us four suicide jackets, some hand grenades and bullets. These were to be used in a suicide attack on a church in Lahore. I was supposed to be the suicide bomber,” she said.
A private news channel reported that Noreen had allegedly visited Syria to join the IS after leaving her home in February. She had also received training in using weapons during her stay there. She returned to Lahore three weeks ago and was being tracked by security personnel. Law enforcement agencies are interrogating her as well.
After playing Noreen’s confessional statement, Maj Gen Ghafoor said Pakistan’s youth bulge — a term for the large percentage of the country’s population that comprises young men and women — was becoming a target of terrorist outfits.
“The youth bulge is our strength,” Ghafoor said. “When the terrorists target our youth, you can imagine the impact it will have on Pakistan.”
“Noreen made the claim that she is going to Syria to join ISIS via Facebook while still residing in Lahore, showing us how technology is misused. It is our responsibility as a nation to make sure that our children are not misguided and lured into such activities,” Ghafoor said.
Whatever the circumstances that led to Ehsan surrender, it could be seen as a serious blow to the TTP JA, which had been behind many of the terrorist attacks in recent months.
The security forces had mounted pressure on the Taliban groups, which Gen Ghafoor insisted operate from the Afghan soil, after the series of attacks in February. Nearly 100 people were killed only in five days that led to shelling of the hideouts of the Pakistani militants in Afghan border regions. Pakistani militants are mostly believed to be based in eastern Kunar, Nangarhar and Nuristan province.
Daily Times has learnt that Ehsan had “voluntarily struck a deal with the government” and that he has told his friends that he “has returned to Pakistan and surrendered with the message of peace.”
Despite being media friendly Ehsan had always been controversial since he had joined the TTP in January 2008, about year after Baitullah Mehsud, launched the TTP in South Waziristan.
He belongs to Sagi Bala village in Sapai tehsil in Mohmand agency, who had done his metric in High School Lakaro and FA from Bajaur
Degree College. He was initially served as the TTP spokesman in Mohmand agency but had been using the name of Sajjad Mohmand.
He later shifted to Waziristan and was made the TTP’s central spokesman and would operate from North Waziristan until the military launched major operation in June 2014. Majority of the TTP and other militants fled to Afghanistan. The TTP leadership had sacked him in July 2013 over his remarks against the Afghan Taliban.
In August 2014, Ehsan joined some other senior commanders from Mohmand agency to launch the TTP splinter group Jamaatul Ahrar over “frustration at internal fighting, lack of coordination and mistrust among the leaders.” TTP that time was in disarray as another powerful faction of the Mehsud faction of the TTP had also parted ways with the main group. Ehsan was also removed as the TTP JA spokesman in February for unknown reason.
The group appointed Asad Mansoor as new spokesman. Ehsan was given another position, but he had been in contact with the media until last month.
The TTP Mohmand chapter had worked as “state within a state” during their association with the TTP. When the TTP leadership agreed to start peace dialogue with the PML-N gov’t in early 2014, the Mohmand faction brutally slaughtered 23 FC men in Feb 2014, who taken captive earlier from the Shongrai check post in June 2010. It was the same faction which attacked the Islamabad courts attack On 3 March 2014, killing eleven people and injuring over 20 others.
A little known “Ahrar-ul-Hind” had claimed responsibility but it was in fact TTP JA which was behind the attack.
Enhan’s surrender could encourage other Pakistani militants to lay down arms in the wake of increasing pressure on them on the Afghan side of the border.
Recent remarks by Afghan ambassador in Islamabad Omar Zakhilwal that Pakistan and Afghanistan could launch joint operation against the TTP chief Maulvi Fazalullah could be a message to the Pakistani militants, who are blamed for attacks on the border posts and villages.
Sources have told Daily Times that Pakistani and Afghan advisers in their London talks last month had reached some understanding to act on the lists of the wanted militants both sides have exchanged.
