The article analyses the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s threat of use of chemical weapons inside Pakistan. It looks at the recent such instance of possible low scale use of chemical agents and argues that the recent threat is more of tactical nature.
For India’s military, the Taliban is a threat looming large on the horizon. The perception of the Taliban making inroads to India has increased since December 2008, when Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mahsud vowed to fight alongside the Pakistan army if a conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. The verbal threat has since been underlined by the Taliban’s eastward movement inside Pakistan, from its bases in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the city of Lahore, close to the Indian border in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The Taliban resurgence in Pakistan’s lawless provinces and its unhindered march towards the heartland of the restive country is fueled by an ever increasing economic life-line. Unlike Afghanistan’s Taliban, which depends on the poppy trade for revenues, the robustness of the Pakistan Taliban’s financial strength depends on a variety of sources, ranging from the timber trade, precious stone mining and now, the imposition of a religious/protection tax collected from minority religious communities.
The fall of Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) has certainly heralded a new era in Pakistan marked by conflict between moderate and fundamentalist forces.
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