US drone attacks: Pakistani Taliban vow to continue attacks on allied troops

The banned outfit of Pakistani militants, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), on Wednesday threatened that if the US drone attacks in the tribal areas of the country continued, it would continue targeting the convoys carrying supplies for the US and Nato forces stationed in the neighboring Afghanistan.

Talking to a group of journalists from Peshawar, Hakimullah Mahsud, a TTP commander who earlier also worked as deputy to TTP chief Baitullah Mahsud and spokesman of the banned outfit, said that they would also step up attacks on the US and Nato troops inside Afghanistan as well as the convoys carrying supplies for the allied troops through Pakistan’s tribal region.

Quoting a news agency, the bbcurdu.com reported that Hakimullah Mahsud, who is commander of the TTP for Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal agencies, warned that if the drone attacks continued, the 9/11-type attacks recur in the United States. He vowed that they would cease every opportunity of attacking the convoys carrying supplies for the allied troops.

Urging Jamaat-e-Islamic chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf Chairman Imran, two bitter critics of the Pakistani government’s inability to stop the US drone strikes inside Pakistan, to press the government for stoppage of the drone attacks, the TTP commander accused the Awami National Party and Pakistan People’s Party of toeing the US policies and vowed to continue attacks on leaders of the two parties.

The Awami National Party and Pakistan People’s Party are the ruling coalition partners in the federal as well as the North West Frontier Province government.

Denying the TTP involvement in the growing incidents of kidnapping in the region, Hakimullah Mahsud said if the TTP was involved in any kidnapping, it would formally announce it. He also denied involvement of his outfit in the kidnapping of the Afghanistan’s ambassador-designate to Pakistan and Iranian commercial attaché in Peshawar.

The TTP commander also denied presence of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman Al-Zwahiri in Pakistan’s tribal region but said that the al-Qaeda leaders sought refuge, they would be provided it. He also showed some vehicles to the journalists, claiming that these were snatched from the Americans in the Khyber Agency recently.