TTP Magazine: More Fiction than Fact

Last month the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan released the inaugural issue of its English-language magazine Sunnat-e-Khola following in the footsteps of the Islamic State or Da’ish. Notably the 45-page magazine is from those women who migrated to Khurasan, supposedly a caliphate established by Da’ish in Afghanistan. But unlike Dabiq, a high-quality magazine issued by Da’ish, this is an amateur effort with low-quality images. The pieces are also poorly written and riddled with typos. On the cover or title page is the image of a lone woman clad in a black, Saudi-style abaya. On the contents page is the image of a woman holding a child in Afghan-style burqa. Both are shown walking on the sand in a desert, in an effort perhaps to convey the hardship of migrant women believers.
Random references to Muslim history are made in the editorial titled ‘Pak-India Decisive War’ before the performance of the Pakistan Army is panned down in the 1971 and Kargil conflicts, raising questions about the legitimate representation of Muslims in wars with the Taliban. It heaps scorns on the army for its failures, kow-towing to the US and torturing Taliban men and women. It claims that Pakistan is facing an existential threat from India and only the TTP can be the saviour.