Pakistani Taliban

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or simply the Pakistani Taliban, is a Deobandi jihadist militant organization that primarily operates along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and by the Government of Pakistan. Founded by Baitullah Mehsud in 2007, it has been led by Noor Wali Mehsud since 2018. The TTP has publicly pledged allegiance to and fought alongside the Taliban, which has governed Afghanistan since 2021, but it operates independently and does not share the Taliban's command structure. Like the Taliban, the TTP ascribes to Pashtunwali and a highly conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam.

In Pakistan, the TTP is particularly known for carrying out suicide bombings and other attacks against government targets, political opponents, and Pakistani civilians. The organization frequently engages in sectarian violence, especially against Shia Muslims and other non-Sunni minorities. Most Islamist organizations in Pakistan coalesce under the TTP. As a leading militant faction in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa insurgency, the TTP has claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks on the Pakistan Armed Forces, ultimately seeking to overthrow the Pakistani government and establish an Islamic state in line with the organization's Deobandi ideology. The TTP has also used Pashtun-centric narratives and often incited violence against non-Pashtun ethnicities, such as the Hazaras. The TTP depends on the tribal belt along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, from which it draws its recruits. The TTP receives ideological guidance from and maintains ties with al-Qaeda. Some TTP members have also been affiliated with the Islamic State – Khorasan Province. In 2019, there were around 3,000 to 4,000 TTP militants in Afghanistan, according to a report by the United States Department of Defense. Between July and November 2020, the Amjad Farouqi group, one faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Musa Shaheed Karwan group, Mehsud factions of the TTP, Mohmand Taliban, Bajaur Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and Hizb-ul-Ahrar merged with TTP. This reorganization made TTP more deadly and led to increased attacks.

The Pakistani Taliban have previously assisted the Afghan Taliban in the 2001–2021 war, however the two groups have separate ideologies and command structures.

In 2020, after years of factionalism and infighting, the TTP under the leadership of Noor Wali Mehsud underwent reorganization and reunification. Mehsud has essentially steered the TTP in a new direction, sparing civilians and ordering assaults only on security and law enforcement personnel, in an attempt to rehabilitate the group's image and distance them from the Islamic State militant group's extremism.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan was unable to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crack down on the TTP. The Afghan Taliban instead mediated talks between Pakistan and the TTP, leading to the release of dozens of TTP prisoners in Pakistan and a temporary ceasefire between the Pakistani government and the TTP. After the ceasefire expired on 10 December 2021, the TTP increased attacks on Pakistani security forces from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. The Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan's Khost and Kunar provinces on 16 April 2022 appeared to have been conducted in retaliation to the surge in terror attacks in Pakistan.

In 2025, the Pakistani Taliban was labelled as Fitna al-Khawarij by the Government of Pakistan on orders on the Interior Ministry, thereby requiring all media outlets to refer to the TTP as Kharjites. According to them, this was done "in order to reveal to the people" what the Pakistani government considered as "the group's actual ideology".