Quetta shura

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

After the Afghan Taliban leadership council (shura) was driven from Kandahar in the Afghanistan War (2001-), major combat phase, it is widely accepted to have found sanctuary in Quetta, Pakistan.

It still led by Mullah Omar; leadership over native Pakistani Taliban is not clear. There have been statements by Pakistani Taliban that they accept Omar's overall guidance, but some, especially Baitullah Mehsud, seem to be taking an increasingly independent stance. Some of the Pakistani groups assist the Quetta shura in targeting Afghanistan, while others seem interested only in Pakistan. It may be even more active in the drug trade as a source of financing, given that it probably no longer receives funds from Saudi Arabia, Inter-Services Intelligence, and Osama bin Laden as it did in Afghanistan.^[1]

To varying extents, groups who have spoken of Omar as a spiritual leader include Radical Islamists, to whom the Taliban were allied, became an increasing problem for Pakistan. Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the pro-Taliban Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed [TNSM or the Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammed's Law], as well as TNSM/Taliban leaders Fariq Mohammed in Bajaur, Mullah Fazlullah in Swat Valley, and Omar Khalid in Mohmand.

The Harqqani Network, formed by Jalaluddin Harqqani, still seems relatively loyal to Omar and the Quetta shura, as it operates in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Operational direction of the network may have passed to his son, Sirajuddin (Siraj).

Mehsud heads Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), the most radical Pakistani Taliban faction, which wants to overthrow Pakistan's government. In contrast, the factions of Maulvi Nazir Ahmed (often called Maulvi Ahmed), in the plains and lower hills of South Waziristan, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, focus more on sending fighters into Afghanistan.^[2] Nazir's movement is primarily Arab, while Mehsud's forces include volunteers from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. ^[3]

A 2008 interview with a regional commander, in Afghanistan, Qari Bashir Haqqani in the Kunduz area, indicated that military decisionmaking has become decentralized, although this is in the context of guerilla warfare rather than the large-scale operations against the Northern Alliance. "Every local commander is responsible for his own areas. The area commander is accountable to the district commander who is in turn accountable to the provincial governor. The governor is then accountable to the provincial executive council, which deals with Taliban military shura." He denied any orders came from outside Afghanistan, such as from Mullah Omar's reported location in Quetta, Pakistan. ^[4]

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