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In recent months, a new jihadi terror organization called Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP, the Jihadi Movement of Pakistan) has claimed several attacks in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. On May 12, 2023, it carried out a major terror attack on a Pakistani army camp situated in the Muslim Bagh area of northern Balochistan, a province that has been home to a secessionist movement for several decades. The military camp belonged to the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC). In a May 13 tweet, the group released photos of six "martyrdom-seeking" fighters among those who attacked a Pakistani military camp in Baluchistan province. According to the tweet, the six martyrdoms were Hamza Shaheed, Zakariya Shaheed, Abubakar Shaheed, Maulana Hanzala Shaheed, Mustaghfir Shaheed, and Mutassim Billah Shaheed.
The May 13 tweetby TJP mentioned six fidayeen fighters who took part in a terror attack on a Pakistani military camp in Baluchistan province.
TJP created its account on Twitter in February 2023 and has 2,293 followers. The account tweeted for the first time on February 24. The tweet included a graphic with Urdu-language text described as an "Announcement of the Establishment of Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan." It also named Mullah Muhammad Qasim as the TJP spokesman, who now issues all TJP statements.
The February 24 statement also outlined TJP's goals. It mentioned "Sheikh-ul-Hind" as an inspiration for jihadi ideology. Sheikh-ul-Hind is a title used for Indian Islamic scholar Mahmud Hasan Deobandi (1851-1920) whom the British colonial rulers imprisoned in Malta after he launched a jihadi movement.
"We want to convey the good news to the religious circles of Pakistan that after long discussions with elder Islamic scholars and requests from sincere people, we have reached the conclusion that the objective for which the movement of Sheikh-ul-Hind emerged was destroyed after the independence of Pakistan," the TJP statement noted.
TJP's first tweet, published February 24
It said that later Islamic scholars sought to revive Sheikh-ul-Hind's mission through peaceful means of struggle in Pakistan, but the secular Pakistani elites who came to power created various obstacles. "We have reached the conclusion that except through armed jihad, the enforcement of an Islamic system is not possible in Pakistan," it said and declared the establishment of Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan under the leadership of its emir Maulana Abdullah Yaghistani, about whom no information is available.
"For the achievement of this objective, for the time being hundreds of mujahideen and dozens of fidayan [martyrdom-seekers] of Islam are ever-ready to sacrifice with money and body. We also invite other religious political parties present in Pakistan [to join TJP]," the statement says, adding: "Our targets are the security institutions thrust on Pakistan who are our opponents in this anti-shari'a system." In one of the tweets that Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan published regarding the May 12 terror attack on the Frontier Corps military camp in Baluchistan, it noted that Hamza Shaheed had become TJP's first martyr. "This is a picture of Hamza, our first martyr today," it tweeted.
Hamza Shaheed is TJP's first martyr
In an April 28 tweet, TJP published a photo from an attack on an under-construction college in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "We claim responsibility for the attack in Lakki Marwat," it said, naming its "martyrdom-seeking" fighters: Abuzar Shaheed, Muhammad Ilyas, Sanaullah alias Mubaraz, and Shakirullah. It said that Pakistani soldiers were using the college building as a camp.
TJP said responsibility in an April 25 tweet for an attack in Kabal, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's Swat district. According to the tweet, one of its fighters Hamidullah Sakna Sawati was killed in the operation. On March 6, TJP claimed responsibility for an attack in Bolan in Baluchistan province.
It appears that TJP is mainly active in Pakistan's Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
On February 24, TJP tweeted its emblem.
Source: Twitter, May 15, 2023.
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