Peshawar: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has said the recent report by UNSC’s Committee for Monitoring Terrorism has made “false claims” about the Islamist outfit having alliance with Al-Qaeda and receiving support from Afghan Taliban.
“We want to make it clear that we reject these false accusations, and we consider them to be based upon hearsay and falsehood,” TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement.
“Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has repeatedly made it clear that we do not have any foreign agenda whatsoever, and neither do we have any relations to foreign militant organizations,” he emphasised.
He said TTP’s “holy Jihad” is confined to “our own country based on the sermons of the skilled Ulema” and directed against the “oppressive Pakistani regime”.
Claiming “complete support of our nation and the respectable Ulema”, the spokesman said, “Through the very same cooperation of the nation and the Ulema, we are fighting for the freedom of our blessed land, and whatever power and control we gain will be used in establishing the Sharia.”
He said, the UNSC Committee’s “claim that TTP receives ideological training from Al Qaeda is completely based on lies and false reports.”
Insisting that TTP is a “local Jihadi Movement”, the spokesman said the Islamist organisation broadly “follows the Hanafi Mazhab and the Deobandi creed.”
“Within us, there are a vast number of skilled and learned scholars who have acquired education from the most prestigious religious institutes in Pakistan. Hence, we do not have any need to seek ideological guidance from any foreign organizations, nor is there any probability of us doing so,” Khurasani said.
“Furthermore, similarly, we do not have any need to seek military training from foreign jihadi organizations, since Muslims here have been very experienced in warfare for the past 40 years,” he said.
“Our organization is full of experts on warfare, and thousands of youngsters who are also experts in this field, and our holy Jihad is based in our own lands through the sacrifices of our own Mujahideen,” the spokesman added.
“We do not have any need for any foreign mujahideen to help us, and neither does the Pakistani State have any proof of a Mujahid from a foreign organization being martyred or being present within us,” he underlined.
The spokesman also termed as “laughable” the UNSC Committee’s claim that TTP’s chief Mufti Abu Mansur Asim Mehsud alias Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud receives 35 lakh Pakistani Rupees from the Afghan Taliban on a monthly basis.
“This is a ridiculous and rather laughable claim, which we fully deny,” Khurasani said.
He said the amount of 35 lakh Pakistani Rupees was too little “considering the vastness of the land we operate on” and asked, “Why would the Afghan Taliban take blame upon itself for such a minute amount?”
He went on to add, “We fulfill the expenses of our Jihad through the cooperation of the nation and through other Shar’i means from within our own country.”
The report also consists of other such flimsy claims, the TTP spokesman said.
