Name of Organization |
Tariq Geedar Group |
Formation |
The Tariq Geedar Group is a faction of the
outlawed
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan
(TTP). Exact information about the date of its
formation is not known. |
Leadership |
Leader: Umar Mansoor
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC
1: Umar Mansoor
The Tariq Geedar Group is being led by a Taliban
militant commander named Umar Mansoor, who is
also the alleged master-mind of the brutal
Peshawar
Army Public School (APS) massacre
in December 2014. His various aliases include
‘Umar Khalifa’, ‘Umar Naray’ and ‘Umar Adinzai’.
He is the ‘amir’, or the leader of the
Peshawar and Darra Adam Khel chapters of the TTP.
Mansoor was initially educated in Islamabad,
where he later joined a madrassa (religious
seminary). Details about these institutions
where he gained his early education are unknown.
One of three brothers, Mansoor spent time in
Karachi before joining the Taliban in the year
2007.
In Karachi, he briefly worked as a labourer.
|
School of thought/ Classification |
Islamist/ Sharia Law |
Ideology |
The Tariq Geedar Group has been involved in
violent acts that seek to implement Sharia Law
in Pakistan and oppose the Pakistani military’s
ongoing operation
‘Zarb-e-Azb’
in North Waziristan that was launched on June 15th
2014. Since the group is a faction of the
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),
its ideology is in-line with the TTP’s. |
Framework |
Not available. |
Financial resources
|
The group has
allegedly been involved in kidnappings and
ransom cases. |
Recruitment tools & demographics |
Not available. |
Connections & linkages |
The Tariq
Geedar group is a faction of the
Tehreek-e-Talibaan Pakistan (TTP). This link
has been ascertained by leading commanders of
the Pakistani Taliban themselves. |
Areas of Operation |
Tariq Geedar Group’s area of operation is from
Peshawar and the nearby Darra Adam Khel.
However, according to a statement by the
Director General of the Inter-Services Public
Relations (DG-ISPR), the group’s leader Umar
Mansoor is currently operating from Afghanistan.
|
Tools |
Not available. |
Name Variations |
Tariq Geedar Afridi Group |
Status |
The Tariq Geedar Group was proscribed on the 15th
of March 2013 by the Government of Pakistan’s
Ministry of Interior. Corresponding notification
number
F.1/3/2013-Poll-I(1)
|
Who
they are
The Tariq Geedar Group is a faction of the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
that is being led by Umar ‘Naray’ Mansoor. Mansoor is a
senior lieutenant who served under the Pakistani Taliban
leader Mullah Fazlullah. The group is based in Darra
Adam Khel and Peshawar, and has been involved in a
number of deadly and violent attacks against the
Pakistani state, civilians and minorities.
Prior to Mansoor’s leadership, the Darra Adamkhel
faction of the TTP was being led by Tariq ‘Geedar’
Afridi and his associate Muhammad Arif ‘Kaka’. Tariq
Afridi was killed in the August 2012.
The group’s bloodiest assault is the
Army Public School
(APS) carnage
in Peshawar that killed 148 people, including 132
children. The group’s leader is alleged to have given
the gunmen instructions from a call that was traced to
Afghanistan’s Naziyan District in Nangarhar province. As
a result of Pakistan army’s retaliatory
counter-terrorism measures, it was reported in 20th
December 2014 that the group’s leader Umar Mansoor had
been killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal regions
along with 20 other militants.
On 13th February 2015, a Shia mosque was attacked by a
group of suicide bombers during Friday prayers in
Hayatabad in Peshawar. The attack killed 20 people and
injured another 30. Sources within the security
establishment stated that ‘there is sufficient evidence
to believe that the Hayatabad Mosque butchery was
masterminded by Commander Umar Mansoor, who not only
heads TTP’s Darra Adam Khel chapter but also Tariq
Geedar group, and continues to operate from across the
border in Afghanistan’.
According to a statement by the DG-ISPR, Mansoor might
be operating from Afghanistan.
History
The exact origins of the faction remain obscure. It was
initially led by one Tariq ‘Geedar’, and was based in
Darra Adam Khel. It subsequently came to be known as the
‘Tariq Geedar Group’.
The group’s name first attracted media attention during
the attack on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)
airplane (flight PK-756) at the Peshawar airport in June
2014. The group attacked the plane while it was landing
at the Bacha Khan International Airport. The attack was
launched from the top of the roof of a school nearby.
Resultantly, one female passenger was killed and three
crew members were injured.
Earlier, on 17th March 2014, the group had
also targeted the Peshawar District Courts. According to
the Wall Street Journal, the group was also responsible
for the kidnapping and beheading of The Polish engineer
Piotr Stanczak in the year 2009.
Organization’s Message
Statements from the group have warned that the attacks
are a part of a ‘series that will draw blood for blood’.
The group’s brutal assaults are portrayed as retaliation
against the Pakistani Army’s ongoing operation
‘Zarb-e-Azab’
in Waziristan. The group is strictly pro-Jihad.
After the Army Public School (APS) attack in Peshawar,
the group posted a video on one of the websites used by
the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In it, Umar
Mansoor had the following message to convey to
Pakistan’s military forces and the security
establishment: ‘If our women and children die as
martyrs, your children will not escape. We will fight
against you in such a style that you attack us and we
will take revenge on innocents’.
This video is currently not available online.
Target Audience
Not available.
Tools
Not available.
Splinter Groups
No information is
available about any further splinter groups.
Annexure
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
It is a South Waziristan (Pakistan) based conglomerate
of various militant outfits. It demands Pakistan state’s
disassociation from the coalition for war on terror.
The Army Public School (APS) Massacre
A terrorist attack that took place on 16th
December 2014 in Peshawar in which seven gunmen
affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
entered a school and opened fire, killing 148 people
including 132 children.
Operation Zarb-e-Azb
A military offensive
that is being conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces
against a number of militant groups operating within
Pakistan and its North Western border areas. The
operation was launched on 15th June 2014.
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