How Noor Wali Censored RAND and Confessed to TTP’s Collapse From Within

A RAND study at the heart of the booklet

For two decades, TTP’s propaganda has presented Western research and modern schooling as tools of kufr, and its war as one fought on prophetic methodology alone. Page 4 of Noor Wali Mehsud’s booklet takes a different line. Militant organisations, it says, cannot be understood through “mere theoretical assumptions” (mahz nazari mafroozon); that requires “historical facts and scientific surveys.” The booklet then summarises a study by “the American research institution RAND Corporation.”

The study is RAND’s How Terrorist Groups End (2008), by Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki. It covers 648 groups active between 1968 and 2006, of which 268 ended during the period, 136 splintered and 244 remained active. Pages 4 to 7 of the booklet follow RAND’s research brief (RB-9351-RC) closely, section by section, with comments of their own.

The booklet does not say what the study was for. Its full title is How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, and it was written to advise the United States on defeating al Qa’ida. It also names TTP’s founder: al Qa’ida, RAND writes, “acted as a force multiplier for the Taliban and allied commanders, such as Sirajuddin Haqqani and Baitullah Mehsud.” Its chronology of al Qa’ida attacks includes the killing of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007 by “members of al Qa’ida and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud.”

Figure 1 · Booklet, page 4

The finding that was left out

RAND’s research brief gives its finding on religious groups in a single sentence divided by a semicolon. The booklet’s version, on page 6, section (ہ), stops at the semicolon.

The booklet’s readers are not told the finding that matters most to them: no religiously motivated group achieved victory during the period RAND studied. RAND’s full study adds that most of the religious groups that ended — 26 of 45 — splintered, and that of those ended by the authorities, “most (13) fell to policing, while only three succumbed to military force.”

Figure 2 · RAND’s sentence and the booklet’s version

A misleading comparison

On page 5, section (ج), under the heading “An Important Analytical Comparison” — ایک اہم تجزیاتی موازنہ — the booklet sets two of RAND’s four outcomes side by side.

The comparison sets militant victory against only one of the state’s instruments. Ninety percent of the groups that ended did so without victory. Most ended through a political settlement (43 percent) or through policing and intelligence (40 percent) — the method the booklet itself describes in point 2 of the same page: “infiltration inside the organizations, intelligence gathering, the arrest or killing of key members, and breaking the organizational network.” RAND’s own example is Pakistan, where, it writes, the most successful efforts to capture or kill al Qa’ida leaders after the September 2001 attacks “occurred because of careful police and intelligence work, not military force.” It is the approach of the intelligence-based operations Pakistan conducts against TTP today.

Page 5 also explains the 7 percent away: military force succeeded, it says, only where militants were few — “fewer than two thousand” — or held a single area, such as Anbar in Iraq, where al-Qaeda had “a small government.” RAND found the opposite. Military force worked best against groups strong enough to wage an insurgency, and such groups ended by military force 25 percent of the time. RAND’s chapter on Anbar describes al-Qaeda in Iraq as one of them — a group that had “brought its troubles onto itself through an overly aggressive stance” before local tribes turned against it. On page 6, section (د), the booklet itself concedes that military force works best against large, organised insurgencies. TTP is exposed either way — to the army when it concentrates, and to intelligence penetration when it disperses.

Figure 3 · RAND’s outcome chart and the booklet’s page 5

“So that all workers remain busy”

From page 7 the booklet moves from RAND to Noor Wali Mehsud’s own guidance. Page 8, section (ب), describes an organisation that retreats from open combat under pressure “because war expenses and human casualties are extremely high,” and the difficulties its leaders then face: factional splintering (gurohi intishar) and the end of public support — “The public stops supporting them.”

Its remedies follow: keep plans secret, protect civilians “so that public support can be restored,” and, in the first line of page 9:

Page 10, point 3, returns to the strain on the ranks: “When fighters pull back from sacrificing themselves and take the path of flight [desertion — rah-e-firar], how can victory over opponents be achieved?” Page 13, section (ج), repeats the advice: “always keep the military [fighter] class busy.” Guerrilla attacks are presented not only as a tactic but as a way to keep fighters occupied and to contain dissent in the ranks.

Figure 4 · Booklet pages 8–10

Force and money: the funding model

Page 11, points 11 and 12, sets out the organisation’s finances. Citing Mufti Muhammad Shafi’s Ma’ariful Qur’an, it states that success and power require “zaur aur zar” — force and wealth. It calls for a self-sufficient economy “because foreign aid is based on [foreign] interests and can be cut off at any time,” and lists the means: “the organization should secretly arrange its own commercial affairs,” win over “the wealthy and rich class of the public” so that they give funds, and “focus on extracting and using local minerals,” giving local people a share “so that they do not adopt the path of opposition.”

The warning about foreign aid implies that outside money has been part of TTP’s finances, and page 12, point 26, adds that political or financial support “at the external or internal level” can greatly increase a group’s capability and influence. The U.S. State Department has assessed that TTP raises most of its funds “through kidnapping-for-ransom payments, extortion, and other criminal activity.”

Figure 5 · Booklet, page 11

A base abroad and a “foreign land”

Pages 7 and 8 list thirteen rules for militant groups in the field. None cites the Qur’an or Sunnah, and several concern public opinion. Point 3 instructs: “Necessarily highlight your victimhood on the media.” Point 9 advises against attacks that harm the public, “because when harm occurs, the public blames the weaker party more, which spreads hatred against the armed organization among the people.” Point 7 asks for every effort to infiltrate the enemy: to uncover its spies and plans and, from inside its ranks, to carry out sabotage and attack important targets.

Point 10 concerns the organisation’s base:

The rule assumes what TTP and its hosts deny in public: that the organisation operates from a base camp outside Pakistan, under a “supporting government.” In December 2025 the UN Security Council’s monitoring team reported the “continued Taliban harbouring of TTP leadership in Afghanistan.” The booklet’s model of leadership is the same movement: on page 10 it praises Mullah Muhammad Omar and celebrates the Islamic Emirate’s return to Kabul on 15 August 2021.

Figure 6 · Booklet pages 7 and 13

The last pages: a “foreign land”

From page 12 the booklet offers “important lessons from personal experience,” drawn, Noor Wali Mehsud writes, from “the incidents I have faced in my life.” However much one serves the tribe and the group, he warns, “opponents will increase and you will be bitten by your own people.” He continues:

He lists “the war from 2001 to 2021” alongside the border politics of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan and the plight of the tribes under Ghazi Amanullah Khan as experiences “worthy of reflection,” and points readers to Waziristan Tamzaye on “the settlement of the Mehsud tribe in Afghanistan and their scattering across various regions.” Written by a leadership based in Afghanistan, the lines on a “foreign land” point to Afghanistan, and the warning against becoming “a shield for others” reads as a verdict on the movement’s own experience.

Figure 7 · Booklet pages 13 and 14