More than 20 people were killed and several homes destroyed in the Tirah Valley of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday (September 22) in an explosion.Authorities said the blast was caused by bomb-making material stored in a compound by Pakistan Taliban members, but some claimed the Pakistani armed forces had carried out strikes in the area.The X handle of PTI Khyber Pakhtunkhwa posted in Urdu, “During the jet aircraft bombing in the Tirah Valley of Khyber, several bombs fell on the local population…five houses of local citizens were destroyed, and according to local sources, 20 bodies have been recovered from the rubble so far, including children and women among the martyrs…”While there are conflicting accounts of today’s incident, Pakistani army crackdown in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region is not unheard of, given the presence of the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) or the Pakistan Taliban in the region.Security forces have often claimed that the TTP uses civilians as human shields. About Monday’s incident, a police officer told AP that two local Pakistani Taliban commanders, Aman Gul and Masood Khan, had established hideouts in the compound, which was being used as a factory for producing roadside bombs.What is the Tehrik-e-Taliban?According to the United Nations Security Council, “Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistan Taliban, is an alliance of formerly disparate militant groups that came together in 2007 following Pakistan military operations against Al-Qaida-related militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.”The TTP was formed under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud, who died in August 2009 in a US drone strike.Story continues below this adAt its height, the TTP’s controlled large areas in north-western Pakistan. While its influence has since waned, it received a boost after the Taliban came back to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2011.What is the TTP’s aim?The TTP, belonging to the orthodox Deobandi school of thought, wants Pakistan to be run by an emirate based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law. To that end, it wishes to overthrow the current government, which it believes is not Islamic enough. The TTP also opposes the Pakistan government’s assistance to the US ‘war on terror’ launched after the 9/11 twin tower attacks.It has been behind some of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani soil, including the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, in which 132 schoolchildren between the ages of eight and 18, and nine school staff, were massacred.The Pakistani establishment had long nurtured the Afghan Taliban, and claimed that the TTP was a creation of India.Story continues below this adWhen the group came back to power in Kabul in 2011, Islamabad had hoped that TTP militants would no longer get shelter and aid in Afghanistan. That hope has been conclusively belied.In March 2024, Pakistan had even carried out airstrikes targetting TTP militants inside Afghanistan. The Taliban regime had then said that the strikes had killed five women and three children.