Umar Mansoor: The Mastermind of the Peshawar School Attack
Umar Mansoor: The Mastermind of the Peshawar School Attack
The targeting of children at the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014 by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has heralded a new era of terrorism in Pakistan. The brutal and coldblooded murder of 141 people, most of them students in the ninth grade, is unmatched by any terrorist attack conducted by al-Qaeda or the TTP during the Islamist insurgency in Pakistan since 2001 (BBC, December 24, 2014). The Peshawar terrorist attack, which was primarily in retaliation to the Pakistani military’s ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb against these militant groups, also introduced a new generation of TTP leaders. Umar Mansoor, the 36-year-old mastermind of the Peshawar School attack, is one of them.
Previously a third tier leader in the TTP’s hierarchy, Mansoor first rose to prominence after the death of former amir Hakimullah Mahsud in a U.S. drone strike in December 2013 (Dawn [Islamabad], November 2, 2013). [1] Fazlullah was selected as the new amir by the TTP shura, but the selection of Fazlullah was controversial because his tribal background was neither Mahsud nor Wazir, the two predominant tribes filling the ranks of the TTP. [2] Traditionally, all amirs were from these two tribes in North and South Waziristan. Fazlullah instead hails from Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province of Pakistan. Despite his impressive terrorist credentials, Fazlullah was not able to get all TTP commanders operating in tribal and settled districts of Pakistan to pledge allegiance to him. A major chunk of TTP commanders chose to side with Omar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP’s commander of the Mohmand district. Khorasani formed his own faction Jamaat ul-Ahrar in September 2014 (AFP, September 4, 2014). Recently, another group of TTP commanders pledged allegiance to Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and parted ways with the Fazlullah-led faction of the TTP (The News International [Karachi], October 15, 2014). The sudden departure of key leaders from the ranks of the TTP has enabled junior commanders to move up and occupy the senior leadership slots, as is the case with Umar Mansoor.
The case of Umar Mansoor is interesting to analyze as a study of the group dynamics of al-Qaeda linked, violent non-state actors in Pakistan and their new emerging leadership. Mansoor, a lower ranked commander in the TTP, rose to the position of commander of Darra Adam Khel, a suburb of Peshawar, after the then commander of that region, mufti Ahsan Swati, decided to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State’s Pakistan chapter (The News International [Karachi], December 18, 2014). Mansoor, meanwhile, became close to Fazlullah and was given the additional responsibility of conducting terrorist attacks in Peshawar. It was after assuming the role of commander over Peshawar that Mansoor planned and executed the Army Public School attack on December 16.
Little is known about Mansoor except that he rose from the lower ranks mainly because of his adherence to “strict jihadi principles,” according to other TTP members (Express Tribune [Karachi], December 19, 2014). He was born a member of the Adenzai tribe of the Lower Dir district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa Province. Umar is known by the noms de guerre Umar Khalifa and Umar Darra (The News International [Karachi], December 18, 2014). A career jihadist, Mansoor was a member of the Tariq Geedar Group, also part of the TTP conglomerate and operating in Darra Adam Khel region of the tribal areas (adjacent to Peshawar City). The Geedar Group was involved in the attempted targeting of a Pakistan International Airlines flight at Peshawar International Airport in June 2014 (Dawn [Karachi], June 27, 2014).
Known among his close friends and fellows by the nickname Nary (“Slim” in Pashto), Mansoor attended high school in Islamabad, at least 200 miles away from his home district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa Province, but later received a madrassa education. He also lived in Karachi for some years and worked there as a laborer before joining the TTP after its formation in August 2007 (The Hindu [Chennai], December 19, 2014). His colleagues in the TTP describe Mansoor as “strict in principles, but very kind to his juniors. He is popular among the juniors because of his bravery and boldness… Umar Mansoor had a tough mind from a very young age. He was always in fights with other boys” (Express Tribune [Karachi], December 19, 2014; International Business Times, December 20, 2014). He also, evidently, has a fondness for playing volleyball.
Mansoor in his own statement addressing the Pakistani military officers in tribal areas against the TTP and al-Qaeda after the attack, said: “If our women and children die as martyrs, your children will not escape… We will fight against you in such a style that you attack us and we will take revenge on innocents” (Pakistan Today [Lahore], December 20, 2014).
As a result of the brutal Peshawar school attack, Umar Mansoor has become the most hated man in Pakistan. The hunt for Mansoor was launched by the Pakistani military and police in both tribal areas and settled districts of Pakistan. One of Mansoor’s facilitators in perpetrating the Peshawar school carnage, known only as Saddam, was killed by Pakistani military forces in a Peshawar suburb on December 26 (Pakistan Today [Lahore], December 27, 2014). Afghan security forces also managed to capture five suspects in connection with the Peshawar attack (Daily Times [Lahore], January 14).
Conclusion
The ferocity of Peshawar attack and the immense number of children killed may turn out to be the decisive moment for policymakers in Pakistan to tackle the Islamist insurgency. The question is whether the Peshawar attack was also a sign of frustration in the ranks of the TTP, or if it indicates a new trend as far as the new breed of TTP commanders is concerned. Mansoor belongs to this new generation. The TTP-F in particular and other factions of the TTP in general are facing a severe leadership crisis after the deaths and arrests of first and second tier TTP leaders. There appears to be no shortage of young commanders like Mansoor, who are more ruthless and brutal, to fill these open leadership positions. Umar Mansoor’s actions may lead to the ultimate demise of the TTP, as the Peshawar massacre has provided an impetus to government and security forces to employ unprecedented measures against Islamist terrorists.
Farhan Zahid writes on counter-terrorism, al-Qaeda, Pakistani al-Qaeda-linked groups, Islamist violent non-state actors in Pakistan, militant landscapes in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.
Notes
1. The first tier was comprised of the original leadership of the TTP. Baitullah Mahsud was killed in a drone strike in 2009, Hakimullah Mahsud was killed in a drone strike in 2013, Faqir Muhammad was arrested in Afghanistan in 2013 and Qari Hussain was killed in a drone strike in 2012. The second tier surfaced after the death of Hakimullah Mahsud in November 2013, after which the TTP started to fragment. The new amir of the TTP, Fazlullah, could not hold together already decentralized TTP, paving the way for many commanders to join newly Jamaat ul-Ahrar led by Omar Khalid Khorasani, a former TTP stalwart. Some commanders also left the TTP to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to establish Islamic State’s Pakistan chapter.
2. Fazlullah heads the TTP Swat and Malakand Division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa Province of Pakistan and simultaneously leads Tehrik-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Mohammadi (TNSM), one of the 27 groups within the TTP. The TNSM was founded by Fazlullah’s father-in-law Sufi Muhammad, who is the former district president of Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami and the same radical cleric from Swat who led an Islamist insurgency in 1994 and then, in 2001, led the people to fight against the U.S. forces in Afghanistan on the side of Afghan Taliban.
