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New Delhi: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has released a detailed organisational blueprint for 2026, outlining an elaborate command, administrative and governance structure that analysts say reflects an attempt by the militant group to evolve beyond a conventional insurgency and project itself as a politico-administrative entity on the lines of the Afghan Taliban.
The Urdu-language material, shared with this newspaper, lays out a multilayered structure comprising central military wings, political and intelligence commissions, economic and welfare directorates, media and education units, and a parallel judicial system.
The charts divide Pakistan into northern, central, southern and western zones, each further broken down into multiple so-called “waliyats,” or administrative units, with appointed heads, deputies and departmental chiefs.
This move should be seen as a deliberate effort by TTP to project permanence, internal discipline and governance capability, rather than the profile of a fragmented hit-and-run militant network.
Significantly, the structure closely mirrors the Afghan Taliban’s pre-2021 shadow governance model, under which courts, taxation mechanisms and administrative systems operated parallel to the Afghan state long before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul.
While several components of the announced framework, including welfare services, accountability bodies, an expansive judicial hierarchy and a claimed “air wing,” are widely viewed as aspirational or symbolic, analysts say core elements such as zonal military commands, intelligence and counterintelligence cells, training infrastructure and media operations already exist to varying degrees across Pakistan’s northwest and parts of Balochistan.
The documents also list a “Kashmir Waliyat,” which sources in TTP clarified refers specifically to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and adjoining facilitation areas, not India’s Jammu and Kashmir.
Similarly, the inclusion of regions such as Karachi, southern Punjab and interior Sindh is viewed as expansionist signalling intended to project nationwide relevance, rather than confirmation of sustained territorial control.
Analysts note that the blueprint serves an internal organisational purpose as well, by formalising hierarchy, reducing factionalism and creating non-combat roles in administration, finance, media and religious outreach, thereby broadening recruitment beyond frontline fighters.
All these developments indicate TTP’s long-term intent to normalise itself as a governing actor inside Pakistan, drawing lessons from the Afghan Taliban’s trajectory.
The documents suggest that TTP leadership sees the Afghan Taliban’s success as a replicable model and is attempting to lay the organisational groundwork for a similar evolution, even though conditions on the ground inside Pakistan remain far less conducive.
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