The “Pakistani Taliban”, which forms the core of Daesh-K today, nominally pledged loyalty to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but were happy to ignore Taliban directives and organisation Opinion | SyedIbrahim1137
Note: This is the first of a two-part publication examining the rise of Daesh-K and the extent of its relationship with the Taliban.
These operations often bore an uncanny resemblance to the neighbouring insurgency that had dogged Pakistan for years, and this was not a coincidence; much of Daesh’s Khorasan wing overlapped with the The “Pakistani Taliban”, unlike its Afghan namesake, was nonetheless a coalition of militias that often competed or diverged. They nominally pledged loyalty to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but were happy to ignore Taliban directives and organisation. Quite simply, statements of solidarity and loyalty could not disguise the basically different background and only passingly intersecting agenda of the Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani namesakes.
Daesh’s Khorasan wing was led by Saeed Khan, formerly Orakzai commander for the Pakistani insurgency; he was joined by at least six members of the Pakistani insurgency’sThe shrunken “Pakistani Taliban” group, who had suffered other splinters even apart from Daesh, now surrendered, or went underground, as in the case of its current leader, Nur Wali, or else were finished off in Afghanistan by American strikes, as in the case of its competing leaders Fazlullah Hayat and Khalid Sajna, both killed...