Who are the Pakistani Taliban?

The Pakistani Taliban is a banned Islamist group with intimate links with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda. While the attempted killing of 14-year-old teen activist Malala Yousafzai has brought renewed focus on the group, the brazen act is part of a long list of attacks on civilians and the military that the Islamist militant group has carried out in Pakistan's mostly ungoverned tribal area along the Afghan border. Most recently, the group, formally known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), took the global spotlight when Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, attempted to detonate a car bomb in New York's Times Square in May 2010. The TTP took responsibility, and Shahzad testified that he had received training from them. The following September, the U.S. State Department designated the TTP a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Where do the TTP's roots lie?

Pakistan's army began hunting various militant groups in the semi-autonomous regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in 2002. In reaction, militant "supporters of the Afghan Taliban in the tribal areas transitioned into a mainstream Taliban force of their own," according to the Council on Foreign Relations. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, fighters from Pakistan crossed over the border to fight. They retained close relations with the Taliban after returning home, Rumi says. In 2007, like-minded militias in Pakistan's triabl region came together under the command of Baitullah Mehsud. As a result of its beginnings, Tehrik-i-Taliban is not a unified fighting force but a coordinated coalition of militias. A U.S. drone strike took Mehsud's life in 2009. The militant groups control different regions within the tribal area and often have different agendas and political objectives. The factions don't always speak with one voice, although it is widely believed they recognize Hakimullah Mehsud as their leader since Mehsud's death. They are "not just guys hiding in mountains or caves," with loose factions having spread as far as Punjab province, Rumi explains. "And they have also been joined by criminal gangs" to raise money through kidnappings and extortion. But the TTP has maintained the coalition nature of their roots. "There is a lot of discord," says Rumi, "but for the moment they are all united." Their opposition to the government and its allies has galvanized them. "When (former president) Musharraf sided with the US in 2001 after the 'you are either with us or against us' line from (then-President George W.) Bush, this is when the Taliban began to resent the military," Rumi says. The TTP does not encompass all militant groups in the tribal regions but does work together with some, such as the Haqqani Network.