TTP Projecting Power Outside Pakistan’s Northwest

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Taliban poster commemorating Saifullah, the TTP's intelligence head in South Punjab, after being killed by Pakistani security forces. Source: X/@SamriBackup

Executive Summary:

  • The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has reactivated its networks in Punjab and Karachi, reviving the so-called “Punjabi Taliban” as part of its post-2021 resurgence and ambition to wage an Afghan-style insurgency nationwide.
  • Chaudhry Muneeb-ur-Rehman Jatt, called Muneeb—a veteran al-Qaeda operative and now TTP media chief—has spearheaded this expansion, rebuilding cells, merging defunct factions, and coordinating propaganda and operations in Punjab and Sindh.
  • High-profile attacks in Mianwali, Lahore, and Karachi, including assassinations of counterterrorism officials, reflect the TTP’s increasing urban reach outside of its traditional stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

 

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Urdu: تحریک طالبان پاکستان, TTP) is expanding its range of operations within Pakistan. TTP attacks have primarily targeted Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Urdu: خیبر پختونخوا), which borders Afghanistan (The News, September 8, 2024). Recently, the group has intensified its efforts to expand its operational network into the country’s largest province, Punjab (Urdu: پنجاب), and its largest city, Karachi (Urdu:  کراچی), in the Sindh (Urdu: سندھ) province. While the group has not yet established an operational presence in Punjab and Karachi comparable to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the TTP’s expanding operations nevertheless represent a critical development, as the TTP evolves from a threat in Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominated northwest frontier to threaten the entire country.

On June 16, 2023, the TTP first brought Punjab under its “shadow government” structure (referring to its government-like administrative body which allows it to interfere where state presence is weak) by dividing the province into North Punjab and South Punjab “shadow provinces” (X/@SaleemMehsud, June 15, 2023). In January 2024, the TTP announced the creation of a separate shadow province that also included Karachi in its shadow government (X/@abdsayedd, January 17, 2024). Around this time, between August 2023 and September 2024, the TTP announced the merger of five militant groups, including three from South Punjab and two from Karachi.

Non-Pashtun militants from the Punjab region as well as Karachi, known as the “Punjabi Taliban” (Urdu: طالبان پنجاب تحریک), played a foundational role in establishing the anti-state jihadist front in the country after the September 11 attacks. [1] However, the Punjabi Taliban disappeared from TTP leadership after 2014, which resulted in the TTP’s operations being limited to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal Pashtun areas. Now, the re-establishment of the TTP in non-Pashtun areas highlights the group’s aspirations of achieving an Afghan Taliban-style victory throughout Pakistan. Punjab can also provide greater leverage to the TTP in expanding its war against the Pakistani security forces to urban centers across the country.

Rise and Fall of the Punjabi Taliban

In 2002, militants from the Punjab region and Karachi launched attacks against the Pakistani state, which they blamed for aiding the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of the Taliban regime. Noteworthy among those militants was the group led by Amjad Farooqi (Urdu: امجد فاروقی) from Faisalabad (Urdu: فیصل آباد) in Punjab, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Alami (Urdu: عالمی حرکت المجاہدین, ”Global Movement of the Mujahideen”), and Jundullah (Urdu from Arabic: جند اللہ, “Troops of Allah”) from Karachi, which targeted Western diplomats, civilians, and Pakistani military and political leaders (Dawn, September 27, 2004; The Friday Times, November 14, 2014). These groups were linked to al-Qaeda or the anti-Shia Sunni sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Urdu: لشکر جھنگوی, “Jhangvi’s Army,” LeJ). [2] However, non-Pashtun militants eventually merged with the TTP or became allies of the TTP establishment in December 2007—extending the TTP’s attacks from tribal areas to urban centers. These non-Pashtun militants, mostly from the Punjab region, became known as the Punjabi Taliban.

During the height of militant activity in Pakistan in 2009, the Amjad Farooqi group executed devastating attacks in Punjab, including the October 2009 assaults on the Pakistan Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi (Urdu: راولپنڈی), the Manawan Police Center in Lahore (Urdu: لاہور), and the Sri Lankan cricket team.

The decline of the Punjabi Taliban within the TTP began in 2014, and the contingent gradually disappeared from TTP leadership roles in subsequent years. Several factors contributed to this decline:

  • First, with the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, many Punjabi Taliban defected because they were attracted to IS’s global agenda and anti-Shia ideology (The News[Pakistan], August 1, 2015).
  • Second, in September 2014, al-Qaeda formally announced the formation of its South Asian branch, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which led al-Qaeda’s Pakistani supporters, the majority of whom were from Punjab and Karachi, to fully come under the new AQIS structure and to cease joint operations with the TTP.
  • Third, internal conflicts following the death of the TTP’s second emir, Hakeemullah Mehsud (Urdu/Pashto: حکیم الله محسود), in November 2013 fragmented the TTP into several tribal factions, with each faction focused on its survival. This infighting led to the deaths or surrenders of several key Punjabi Taliban commanders, such as Qari Ismatullah Moavia (Urdu: عصمت الله معاويه), who surrendered to Pakistani security forces in September 2014, and Nadeem Abbas (Urdu: ندیم عباس), who was killed in intra-factional fighting in the same year (Dawn, September 5, 2014; September 13, 2014).
  • Fourth, after the December 2014 Army Public School attack in Peshawar, security forces intensified operations across Pakistan, resulting in high numbers of arrests and deaths of militants and their supporters in urban areas, severely damaging the Punjabi Taliban’s networks (The Express Tribune, January 30, 2017). After 2014, the TTP became predominantly a group of tribal, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based militants, with its operational network in Punjab and Karachi gradually dismantled.
  • Finally, Pakistani military operations in Waziristan and other tribal Pashtun areas forced militant bases to shift to Afghanistan, where many Punjabi Taliban were killed, captured by U.S. and Afghan forces, or went into hiding (Geo News, January 10, 2017; Salaam Times, April 28, 2017).

Commander Muneeb and the Punjabi Taliban’s Resurrection

Commander Chaudhry Muneeb-ur-Rehman Jatt (Urdu/Punjabi: چوہدری منیب الرحمان جٹ, alias Muneeb) from Punjab appears to be the primary mover behind the TTP’s expansion. Muneeb had previously led a Pakistani faction of AQIS that merged with the TTP in 2020 and was significant in reestablishing TTP networks in Punjab Province as well as Karachi (X/@IhsanTipu, July 29, 2020). He is currently the only known senior Punjabi Taliban commander in the TTP. He has been part of the al-Qaeda network in Pakistan since 2006, where he was involved in major al-Qaeda attacks in collaboration with the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Punjab. [3]Muneeb was a close associate of senior figures who helped found al-Qaeda in Pakistan after 9/11, including Engineer Ahsan Aziz, Hafiz Tayyab Nawaz, Ustad Ahmad Farooq, Ustad Umar Faiz Aqdas, and Dr. Arshad Waheed (names in Urdu: احسن عزیز; حافظ طیب نواز; احمد فاروق; عمر فیض اقدس; ارشد وحید), among others. [4] However, al-Qaeda’s activities ceased shortly after the establishment of AQIS, leading to Muneeb’s separation from al-Qaeda with several other associates.

Muneeb’s jihadist career began in 1998 and reached notoriety within ten years. He began his militancy in 1998 by joining a pro-Pakistani-state Kashmiri militant organization called al-Badr (Arabic: البدر, “The Full Moon”), which fought against Indian forces in Kashmir. He was among the hundreds of Pakistani jihadists who parted ways with state-aligned militant organizations and joined al-Qaeda camps in Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In 2006, Muneeb joined al-Qaeda’s Arshad Waheed group in Waziristan, which included educated youths from Punjab Province, Karachi, and the capital, Islamabad (The Friday Times, May 29, 2015). The Arshad Waheed group was involved in attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Muneeb’s focus was on operations within Pakistan. A lethal commander of the Amjad Farooqi group, Ustad Umar Faiz Aqdas, trained Muneeb in urban warfare. Together, they carried out major attacks in Punjab with the support of al-Qaeda. After Arshad Waheed’s death in a U.S. drone strike in March 2008, Ahmad Farooq became the group’s leader, and Muneeb was appointed the military chief of the Arshad Waheed Group (Dawn, June 12, 2012).

Following the 2014 military operation in North Waziristan, Muneeb and AQIS members relocated to Helmand, Zabul, and Kandahar (Dari: هلمند؛ زابل؛ قندهار) Provinces in southern Afghanistan (Tolo News, December 5, 2017). Soon after relocating, AQIS ceased its attacks in Pakistan. Muneeb aimed to resume attacks in Pakistan, but AQIS leadership reportedly did not permit this, resulting in Muneeb leaving AQIS along with several other cadres. Nevertheless, Muneeb and his associates continued to fight in southern Afghanistan in support of the Afghan Taliban.

TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud (Pashto/Urdu: نور ولي محسود) intensified efforts to unify militants in Pakistan to strengthen the anti-Pakistan jihadist front. It became clear that U.S. troops would soon withdraw from Afghanistan in February 2020 (Terrorism Monitor, August 21, 2023). The TTP initiated attempts to merge all Pakistani anti-state militant groups under its umbrella, resulting in a series of mergers beginning in July 2020. Muneeb was part of the initial group that joined the TTP and soon began playing a role in organizing the TTP outside of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Amjad Farooqi group’s remaining members joined the TTP under Commander Shani when Muneeb joined in July 2020 (X/@IhsanTipu, July 29, 2020). A year later, in August 2021, members of Ustad Aslam, another key faction of the Amjad Farooqi group, also aligned with the TTP (Terrorism Monitor, August 13, 2021).

Muneeb was assigned to the TTP’s media commission in 2021 and became the head of TTP’s Umar Media (Urdu: عمر میڈیا) in 2023 (X/@abdsayedd, January 3, 2023). By 2024, he was appointed as the information minister in the TTP’s “shadow cabinet,“ overseeing all media and propaganda operations, including Umar Media. He introduced significant changes to these operations, transforming them into a powerful component of the TTP’s offensive strategy (BBC Monitoring, January 13, 2023).

In addition to his media role, Muneeb has remained a key military commander in the TTP. He manages several militant cells across Punjab Province, Balochistan Province, and South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, comprising dozens of militants, who have recently engaged in combat with Pakistani security forces. A TTP communique in January identified Muneeb as the “shadow governor” for South Punjab, confirming his leading operational role in the province (X/@abdsayedd, January 5).

Muneeb is a former al-Qaeda commander and long-time collaborator with LeJ and the Amjad Farooqi group. These connections allow Muneeb to play a significant role in recruiting LeJ and al-Qaeda supporters to bolster the TTP’s operational network in Punjab Province and Karachi.

TTP’s Latest Attacks in Punjab and Karachi

The TTP has carried out increasingly ambitious operations outside of its usual regional reach. The TTP carried out notable attacks in Punjab’s Mianwali District (Urdu: ضلع ميانوالى) in February 2023 and a year later in February 2024, both of which Umar Media publicized (Dawn, November 4, 2023; Dawn, February 1, 2024; X/@IftikharFirdous, June 29, 2024).

 [5] The attack on the Pakistani Air Force M.M. Alam Base on November 4, 2023, was one of the most significant in Punjab in the past decade, involving 11 suicide bombers who seized control of the airbase and engaged security forces in a battle lasting over 13 hours (X/@FrontalForce, November 5, 2023).

The TTP has launched high-profile attacks in Karachi as well. In Karachi, much like in Punjab, the TTP launched its first major attack after eight years, with three suicide bombers targeting the police headquarters in February 2023 (The Express Tribune, February 17, 2023). Likewise, the assassination of senior Counter Terrorism Department officer Ali Raza (Urdu: علی رضا) in July 2024 marked another significant operation by the TTP (Dawn, July 7). Raza had played a crucial role in dismantling the networks of the TTP, al-Qaeda, LeJ, and other militant groups in Karachi—and had been on the TTP hit list for many years.

The TTP assassinated another senior counterterrorism official, Naveed Sadiq (Urdu: نوید صادق), in Punjab on January 3, 2023 (The Express Tribune, January 5, 2023). Like Raza, Sadiq played a crucial role in dismantling terrorist networks in Sindh, in and around Karachi. Sadiq had held the position of Deputy Regional Director at Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Beyond the attack on Sadiq, the TTP claimed 51 small-scale attacks in Punjab between January 2023 and August 2025, primarily targeting the police. These incidents occurred in Lahore, the provincial capital, as well as in the Mianwali and Dera Ghazi Khan (Urdu: ڈیرہ غازی خان)  Districts.

Conclusion

Since 2023, the TTP has sought to expand its operational network in Punjab, but these efforts have yielded limited results compared to the momentum the group maintains in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. High-profile incidents such as the Mianwali airbase attack and the assassination of senior intelligence officials raise concerns about a potential resurgence of large-scale violence in Punjab. However, subsequent setbacks—including the death of the local commander with the alias “Abu Basir al-Shami” (Arabic: أبو بصير الشامي) on June 1—significantly weakened its operational capacity (X/@SamriBackup, June 2) . [7] Despite attempts to expand through small-scale attacks and local outreach, the TTP has struggled to establish a durable presence in the Punjab. [8] Central to these initiatives is Chaudhry Muneeb-ur-Rehman Jatt, the group’s media chief and senior Punjabi Taliban commander, who plays a pivotal role in sustaining the TTP’s ambitions in Punjab.

Nevertheless, the re-emergence of the Punjabi Taliban represents a troubling shift in Pakistan’s security landscape. The group’s expanding footprint in Punjab Province and Karachi, coupled with its ability to reintegrate disbanded militant factions, underscores a growing level of organizational sophistication. Under the leadership of figures such as Muneeb, the TTP’s efforts to consolidate its presence in Punjab may be moving toward a more aggressive and coordinated phase of insurgency, with implications that extend well beyond the tribal districts.

Notes:

[1] For details, see, Mujahid Hussain, Punjabi Taliban: Driving Extremism in Pakistan, (Pentagon Press: New Delhi, India, 2012)

[2] For details, see Syed Salim Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, (Pluto Press: London, UK, 2011)

[3] The information presented in this section regarding Commander Chaudhry Muneeb-ur-Rehman Jatt derives from the author’s systematic monitoring of Pakistani Taliban-affiliated channels on social media platforms, complemented by a series of interviews with militant sources conducted at various points during 2023 and 2024.

[4] The involvement of these post-9/11 Pakistani al-Qaeda operatives in recruitment, offering shelter, and establishing a presence in Pakistan after militants fled Afghanistan following the 2001 U.S. invasion is evident from a detailed review of books, audio recordings, videos, and other materials released by al-Qaeda and AQIS-affiliated media.

[5] The elusive Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP) claimed responsibility for the Mianwali airbase attack, though evidence of its existence is limited to a few media statements. Some Pakistani analysts and disgruntled TTP commanders suggested TJP is a front for TTP to reduce Islamabad’s pressure on the Afghan Taliban after major attacks (Terrorism Monitor, August 21, 2023; X/AfghanAnalyst2, July 18, 2023). Following TJP’s emergence in February 2023, TTP suicide attacks abruptly stopped and were replaced by large-scale TJP operations, including the Mianwali attack, which involved 11 suicide bombers.

[6] See Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, Inqilab-i Mehsud (Urdu: انقلاب محسود.. “Mehsud’s Revolution”) [in Urdu], (Al-Shahab Publishers: Paktika, 2017).

[7] “al-Shami” in the commander’s alias translates to “the Levantine” or “the Damascan.” Given that jihadists often use toponymic names to identify their origin, this indicates a possible Syrian background of the TTP commander, further alluding to continued successful international recruitment for the TTP.

[8] A biography recounting the death of Abu Basir al-Shami in a CTD operation in Punjab offers insights into the TTP’s efforts to cultivate local support and expand its operational network in Dera Ghazi Khan and South Punjab. See “Series in Memory of the Martyrs (3): Man of the Battlefield, Martyr Saifullah Abu Basir al-Shami [may Allah have mercy on him]”, Taliban Magazine, Issue no. 39 (Urdu, August 2025), published September 18, 2025.