Written by Staff Writer
The Pakistani Taliban has announced an end to a ceasefire.
“Unfortunately due to the American pressure and aggression, all operations have been ceased and there will be no more ceasefire,” Haroon Rasheed, spokesperson for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said in a statement on Thursday.
“The operation Zarb-e-Azb will be continued from inside the country.”
The TTP is fighting to establish its own sharia law in Pakistan.
U.S. drone strikes and clandestine drone attacks into Pakistan by American and other western forces remain outlawed under Pakistani law.
Rasheed expressed hopes that “a day will come when Pakistan can control the bordering regions [of Afghanistan] with those belonging to the U.S. and the UK,” as long as these “countries don’t interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan.”
This is the first time the Pakistani Taliban has declared an end to a ceasefire. The ceasefire was initially declared in December 2017, just after American President Donald Trump launched a formal policy review of the US war in Afghanistan.
The TTP’s earlier truce lasted less than three months.
Zarb-e-Azb, as the operation was known, led to the killing of thousands of militants, but allowed the militant group to regroup. In June 2018, two senior leaders of the TTP were killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistani tribal agency of North Waziristan.