Abstract
Pakistan is again facing surge in terrorism since August 15, 2021, when the Afghan Taliban took power in Kabul on the US exit, contrary to the pledge Afghan Taliban made in the Doha Peace Agreement of not letting terrorist groups use Afghan soil against any country. Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan injected fresh motivation into Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), unleashing new waves of violence in Pakistan. Despite having almost two decades of experience in kinetic actions against terrorist groups, law enforcement agencies still seem short of completely stopping the TTP from attacks at will. To identify the deeply hidden root causes of the conflict that makes all the measures and efforts by Pakistan to eradicate terrorism insufficient, the conflict wheel model is employed to understand the complexities of the problem. The study assumes that grievances of the Pakistanis living along the Pak-Afghan border, weak writ of the state, poverty, international interests in the region, and failure to understand the goals, interests and positions of the involved actors are the major causes that hinder peaceful resolution.
