The Pakistani Taliban's top leaders

After the failed car bomb attack in New York City’s Times Square, the Pakistani Taliban have suddenly risen to the top of the list of concerns for Western intelligence and law enforcement officials. The Pakistan Taliban’s claim for the failed attack was initially ignored, but the resulting investigation has pointed back to the group’s involvement. This has forced US officials to admit that the Pakistani group is more than just a local insurgent outfit aiming at overthrowing the Pakistani government.

Although the Pakistani Taliban has only recently been recognized as a threat to the US homeland, the group has for years conducted operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan and sheltered al Qaeda and a host of regional and international terror groups. Al Qaeda’s external operations network has been based in territory ruled by the Pakistani Taliban, yet strangely, most Western observers have not seen the Pakistani Taliban as a direct threat.

The largest Taliban faction in Pakistan is known as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. This is an alliance of 28 Taliban groups located in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the Northwest frontier Province). There are also several other major Taliban groups, mainly in North Waziristan, that are not members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan but that have remained closely allied with the grooup.