Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the largest Islamist party in Pakistan, has voiced his opposition to a planned operation by the military to root out militants along the Afghan border.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on July 22, the controversial cleric called for peace talks between Pakistan and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the most lethal militant group waging war against Islamabad.
The comments from Rehman, the head of the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) party, came as militant violence has surged across the predominately Muslim nation of some 240 million people.
A high-profile bomb-and-gun attack on a military base in the northwestern city of Bannu on July 15 killed 10 government security personnel.
But residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province that has been the scene of devastating military operations that uprooted millions of people and killed thousands of civilians in the past, have protested against any new military operations in the region.
"People are not ready to suffer yet again," Rehman, who hails from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Radio Mashaal. "We have been through bitter times."
Thousands of people waving white flags and calling for peace rallied in Bannu on July 19 calling for an end to military operations in the region. The demonstration turned violent and security forces fired on protesters, killing one person.
Residents take part in a July 19 peace rally to protest after the recent suicide attack by militants on an army enclave in Bannu.
Since then, thousands of people have been participating in a sit-in protest in Bannu.
"The voices in Bannu are the voices of all the residents of Pakhtunkhwa," Rehman said.
Rehman
Islamabad earlier this year said the military would launch a new offensive to combat militants along the Afghan border, without offering details.
Pakistani military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif on July 22 said the planned operation would be a "comprehensive counter-terrorism campaign" that would not displace locals.
But those comments have done little to quell the concerns of protesters and locals who fear for their lives and livelihoods in any new military offensive.
Since 2003, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in major counterterrorism offensives in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where more than 6 million people have been displaced. The province was a former stronghold of the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Al-Qaeda.
A soldier stands guard as a tractor carrying refugees fleeing the military offensive against militants in North Waziristan drives past a checkpoint in Bannu in 2014.
"People are ready to be buried in the ruins of their homes," Rehman said. "But they do not want to be humiliated again."
Peace Prospects
The TTP has intensified its deadly insurgency against Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Kabul.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan militants of sheltering the TTP, with which it has close ideological and organizational ties. Kabul has rejected the claim, and ties between Pakistan and the Taliban, which have been close allies for decades, have plummeted.
An injured man is shifted to a hospital to receive medical treatment following a blast that targeted a police vehicle near the Afghan border in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on January 8.
In January, the 71-year-old Rehman visited Afghanistan to repair ties. During his stay in Kabul, he met with Taliban officials, including its reclusive chief, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, and TTP leaders.
In his interview with Radio Mashaal, Rehman said he presented a plan to resolve the conflict between Islamabad and the TTP with the mediation of the Afghan Taliban.
"But our [security] establishment and rulers are so incompetent that they didn't accept that solution," said Rehman.
Members of the National Democratic Movement, the Pashtunkhwa National Awami Party, and the Awami Workers Party protest in Karachi on July 21 against the shooting at the peace rally in Bannu two days earlier.
Rehman said a peace deal was the only way to end the TTP’s 17-year insurgency against Islamabad.
In 2022, the Afghan Taliban brokered yearlong peace talks between the TTP and Islamabad. But the talks broke down and the TTP resumed its attacks.
Rehman has courted controversy for his support of the Afghan Taliban.
A JUI-F-led coalition governed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between 2002-2007. Critics blame the party for sheltering the Afghan Taliban whose presence in the region led to the emergence of the TTP. Many Afghan Taliban leaders were educated in Islamic seminaries run by JUI-F leaders.