Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has started a fund-raising campaign in the Orakzai Agency and parts of the Kurram Agency and Hangu. Sources said the TTP men were asking tribesmen to donate generously because the conflict in South Waziristan was likely to be a long one. ‘They are demanding cash for weapons, food and medicines because it is going to be a long offensive,’ said a local. According to him, many politicians, businessmen, drug barons and jewellers in Kohat, Hangu, Thall, Kurram Agency, Darra Adamkhel and Bannu have been making periodic payments to the Taliban. ‘So these donations are in addition to the money routinely and regularly extorted by the militants.’ Taliban reportedly collect Rs15 million every year as ‘jazia’ from the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency. They have also amassed huge sums through kidnapping for ransom. They kidnapped a local trader, Fayyaz Paracha, from the Kohat-Hangu highway three days ago and demanded Rs10 million for his release. A kidnapped man, released from a TTP hideout on the outskirts of Kohat after a military operation, told Dawn some time ago that their captives termed ransom ‘a kind of jihad’.
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