http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/world/asia/how-the-pakistani-taliban-became-a-deadly-force.html 2014-12-16 17:59:04 How the Pakistani Taliban Became a Deadly Force Formally founded in 2007, a group traces its roots to cross-border radicalization spread by the Afghan Taliban and fighters from Al Qaeda. === Q. A. Many Pakistani Taliban commanders had fought in Afghanistan as part of the movement that swept to power in Kabul. When American forces ousted that movement in 2001, many of its leaders fled across the border into Pakistan. The Pakistanis among them played host to their Afghan counterparts — as well as hundreds of fighters from Al Qaeda — providing them with shelter, logistical support and recruits. The Afghan Taliban and Qaeda fighters steadily radicalized the tribal regions, encouraging the Pakistani Taliban to spread their influence across the mountainous region and beyond into Pakistan’s settled areas and main cities. The militant groups resisted the Pakistani military’s efforts to impose control. They sometimes cooperated in cease-fire agreements with the Pakistani military and then reneged months later. After Mr. Mehsud created Tehrik-i-Taliban, he led the group in attacks against the Pakistani state, striking military and civilian targets in various cities. The group accused the Pakistani government of siding with the United States after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and vowed revenge for the killing of Pakistani civilians in the 2006 bombing of a madrassa in North-West Frontier Province, which was renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2010, and in the The United States designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist organization in September 2010. Q. What relationship do the Pakistani Taliban have to the Afghan Taliban A. Q. A. Baitullah Mehsud is also thought to have been behind the Under Hakimullah Mehsud, the group demonstrated a close alliance with Al Qaeda. He claimed a role in the suicide bombing by a Jordanian double agent that killed seven C.I.A. officials and a Jordanian intelligence official at Camp Chapman in eastern Afghanistan in December 2009, mounted in revenge for the killing of Beitullah Mehsud. The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence and was being used to try to undermine Al Qaeda’s leadership based in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Taliban disseminated video footage showing Mr. Mehsud beside the Jordanian before the bomber traveled from North Waziristan to Afghanistan to carry out the attack. Mr. Mehsud later trained Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in New York City in 2010. In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai Q. A. Mr. Mehsud proved a wayward, vicious leader. He appeared at the execution of a former Pakistani intelligence officer, Sultan Amir, known as Colonel Imam, in 2011. Colonel Imam had long been a trainer and mentor to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, yet Mr. Mehsud ignored efforts to intercede on his behalf by senior Taliban figures, including Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the powerful Haqqani network. Hunted by American drones, Mr. Mehsud adopted a low profile in recent months and was rarely seen in the news media. But in a BBC interview that was broadcast in October, he vowed to continue his campaign of violence. He was aware that the C.I.A. was seeking to kill him, he said, adding: “Don’t be afraid. We all have to die someday.” Mr. Mehsud’s deputy, Abdullah Behar, was among the four people who were killed with him, according to a Pakistani official, and it was not clear who might succeed him. Mr. Behar had just assumed the deputy post from Latif Mehsud, a militant commander whom American forces in Afghanistan detained in 2013.