 The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is "an extension of Al Qaeda" and the organisations have close ties, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik said on Monday.
| No! Reeeeally? Who'da ever thunk that? |
"We have certain evidence that there is a close connection [and] links, and that there are similarities between Al Qaeda and the TTP," he told reporters in Islamabad.
| Kinda like, every time a big-time Qaeda turban gets banged there are at least one or two TTP turbans within close proximity? |
Asked if Al Qaeda's deputy chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri is directly or indirectly talking to the TTP, Malik said: "If Al Qaeda is to move in a tribal area, they have to look to the TTP to get a refuge."
| It'd probably be more accurate to say that TTP rents the room where al-Qaeda lives. |
"The TTP is a host to Al Qaeda and is their mouthpiece," Malik said, adding that there was evidence that foreign fighters are operating in Pakistan.
| Gorsh. That cert'nly comes as a surprise. We'da never guessed that! |
The federal government had banned the TTP last month.
| After it's gobbled up a considerable portion of NWFP and FATA. |
According to Reuters, Malik said the security forces had missed a chance to capture Zawahiri.
| The question is whether they missed it intentionally or through ineptitude. I'm thinking intentionally. |
Rehman Malik did not say when that was or give any more detail about the incident. He also did not say where Osama Bin Laden might be.
| You mean where he is in Chitral? That's the question, isn't it? |
Malik said Zawahiri was moving between Pakistan's Tribal Areas and the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Paktia.
| More the former than the more dangerous latter. |
"We certainly had traced him at one place, but we missed the chance. So he's moving in Mohmand and, of course, sometimes in Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktia," he said. "We have also found traces of militants from the Uzbek and... Chinese militant movements in the tribal regions," he said.
| "It wuz the chopsticks that gave them away." |
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