How Pakistan Fights an Ideological War with the Taliban (TTP)

Today, I am going to talk about a war that isn’t fought with weapons, but with words, ideologies, and history. So, let’s try to understand this whole story in a little more depth.

Isn’t it something to think about? A war where there are drones and rifles, but your enemy claims that God is with them. So how does one fight such an enemy? When someone uses religion itself as their shield, conventional weapons become useless, don’t they?

And Pakistan’s answer is a 1400-year-old insult. Yes, an insult. It sounds a bit strange to hear, doesn’t it? After all, what is this ancient weapon that a state is using against its biggest enemy in today’s age?

Before we can understand the state’s strategy, it’s important to know who the enemy is. I am talking about the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP is actually an alliance of several jihadi groups that was formed in 2007. And they all share a single objective: to wage war against the Pakistani state. Their goals are also very clear: to overthrow the Pakistani government, enforce their own version of Sharia law, drive the state out of the tribal areas, and wage what they call a “defensive jihad” against the Pakistan Army.

So, it’s clear. This isn’t just violence; there is a whole political and religious ideology at work behind it. And how do they justify their violence? They claim that their jihad is, in fact, self-defense against an apostate government that is a puppet of the United…