Islamabad

The recent attack on a police party by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in Islamabad, which left one dead, points to Imran Khan government's failure to realise the affinity between the TTP and Afghan Taliban, a media report said.

The banned TTP group, by carrying out such an audacious attack in the capital where there is a heavy security presence on account of numerous sensitive locations, including dozens of diplomatic missions, indicated its capacity to wreak mayhem in 'mainland' Pakistan -- if and when it chooses to, reported Dawn.

The continuous surge in attacks by the TTP speaks of a monumental failure of the Imran Khan government's policy in which the Pakistani state wilfully refused to gauge the extent of affinity between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP and what could transpire in the event of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Recently, Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa was quoted as acknowledging that the TTP and Afghan Taliban are "two sides of the same coin".

The Afghan Taliban have not criticized TTP despite their multiple heinous attacks in Pakistan. The 2014 Peshawar attack by the TTP which killed over 100 children in Arm School did not change the state's blinkered approach. And now the people of Pakistan may have to pay the price, according to Dawn.

The TTP had mainly been targeting Pakistan's security forces in the country's former Fata area. For locals, the violence has revived memories of the nightmare years when the area was a terrorist hub, and a target of US drone attacks and Pakistan Army offensives. If reports are to be believed, the TTP has been chomping at the bit to unleash full-scale attacks but has so far been 'restrained' by the Afghan Taliban who have, however, refused to take action against the TTP, said Dawn.