Organizations that categorically set out to destroy the very fabric of society, through indiscriminately targeting innocent civilians and non-combatants, can never be moral and their actions can never be justified. Their ‘alleged’ stated objectives have nothing to do with the deliberate choice of destructive methods and actions they wantonly resort to. This begs a series of questions: Why would any rational actor take on such pointless and self-destructive modus operandi? Who gains from such senseless acts of savagery and brutality? If the means adopted neither justify nor correlate to the ends and objectives sought, then how are such noxious forces able to gain recruits and followers? What must the society under siege do to repel and dismantle such toxic forces?

To answer these pertinent questions, we will take up the case of the notorious Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). To begin with, the organization’s stated goals and objectives are dubious, self-contradictory and largely inconsistent. TTP’s central assertion that it wants to impose Sharia law in Pakistan, a country that has constitutionally declared itself an Islamic Republic, is so blatantly paradoxical. For a group to declare jihad on an ‘Islamic Republic’ when it is surrounded by a number of non-Islamic countries and entities, is absurd and preposterous. Furthermore, TTP’s narrow and misguided interpretation of Sharia is not only dismissive of common perception but is also at odds with the leading religious scholars and intellectuals of the time. Even if we were to accept the bogus premise of TTP as their stated primary objective, it is still not possible to establish any relation between their alleged desired ends and the subsequent means they resort to.

“TTP’s central assertion that it wants to impose Sharia law in Pakistan, a country that has constitutionally declared itself an Islamic Republic, is so blatantly paradoxical.”

TTP wants to impose its twisted understanding of Sharia on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan through targeting innocent civilians and non-combatants. Their primary modus operandi involves suicide bombings and IED blasts. Any interpretation of Sharia, as we know, strongly forbids targeting of innocent civilians and non-combatants. Moreover, suicide and IED blasts that can cause indiscriminate damage to people and environment on a large scale are also strictly forbidden in Islam.

If the methods and tactics employed by TTP have no place in Islam, then how can their objectives be justified? The answer is obvious: their actions have no place in Islam and civilized societies. They do not want to build a society; they want to tear it down. They are not defenders of Islam or sharia as they falsely claim; they are in fact its foremost enemies. Their objective is not as they claim and project, but convoluted and conspiratorial that seeks to damage both the image of Islam and its adherents all over the world.

If the choice of TTP’s targets and the methods and tactics they resort to, have clearly no place in Sharia, then how is the group able to sustain itself? How does it continue to attract recruits and carry out its violent and destructive campaigns? Given the unjustified modus operandi of the group and its highly dubious and unrealistic objectives, it is clearly neither the modus operandi nor the ideology of the group that sustains TTP. The longevity of TTP and its frustrating durability is in part due to its successful outreach campaigns that take advantage of vulnerable and impressionable young minds who cannot see through the façade of the group’s bogus narrative. The other main reason for TTP’s testing resilience is its sources of funding and support from foreign elements.

“Given the unjustified modus operandi of the group and its highly dubious and unrealistic objectives, it is clearly neither the modus operandi nor the ideology of the group that sustains TTP.”

TTP, for all intents and purposes, is an alias and a proxy of foreign states and entities that want to destabilize both Islam and Pakistan from within. Since it is not possible to take the fastest growing religion in the world and a nuclear power like Pakistan head-on, the enemies of both Islam and Pakistan conspire to destabilize the two from within. TTP serves this agenda brilliantly. On the one hand, it kills and maims innocent people in the name of Sharia, which brings Islam into disrepute the world over. On the other hand, its violent campaign seeks to destroy the peace and tranquility of Pakistan from within.

As an enemy of both Islam and Pakistan, it is a religious as well as a civil responsibility of every self-respecting Muslim and Citizen to expose the hypocrisy of groups like TTP. It is necessary to dismantle and deconstruct the bogus and toxic narrative of such groups that seek to exploit vulnerable young minds for the sake of their scheming proxy overlords.  TTP is a curse on humanity and exposing it for what it truly is- is a moral necessity.