Yesterday, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main insurgent group fighting the Pakistani state, called on the Pakistani government to reject all American aid intended for victims of Pakistan’s floods and offered to have the TTP distribute aid instead:

The government should not accept American aid and if it happens, we can give 20 million dollars to them as aid for the flood victims.… We will ourselves distribute relief under leadership of our chief Hakimullah Mehsud among the people if the government assures us that none of our members will be arrested.… We condemn American and other foreign aid and believe that it will lead to subjugation. Our jihad against America will continue.

The flooding in Pakistan is the worst in living memory. Fourteen million people have been affected and six million are in dire need of “direct humanitarian assistance” if they are to survive. So far, only $45 million of aid money has actually been delivered by international donors, a paltry sum in comparison to the responses to other recent disasters of similar scale. The U.S. has so far pledged $55 million in flood relief, provided over half a million meals, and tasked six helicopters to help with rescue efforts in areas that are remote or cut off due to flooding and landslides.

The TTP statement is a political ploy to capitalize on the publicity the relief effort is receiving, and the offer to distribute aid will not materialize. But the TTP is not the first or the only terrorist group attempting to benefit from the disaster.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a Pakistani charity organization widely believed to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, has been heavily involved in the humanitarian response to the flooding. JuD has 2,000 volunteers working in flooded areas, has set up thirteen camps for internally displaced people, and is providing food, shelter, and an ambulance service to the flood victims. While Pakistanis heap scorn on the government’s slow response, groups with terrorist ties like JuD are able to fill the governance gap and extend their grassroots support.

All of this demonstrates the strain that counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan are coming under. The Swat valley, the focal point of a large Pakistani military offensive against the Taliban in 2009, was seeing considerable progress towards reconstruction and normalization. The floods have nearly completely undone that progress, and the hardships they will cause may provide the Taliban with a window of opportunity to reinfect the region.

The scale of the human tragedy and physical destruction is vast and the effects are likely to be long-term. Unfortunately, Mother Nature has now given new lease to the twin forces of extremism and insurgency in a country already plagued by both.

– Reza Jan was recently in the Swat valley conducting research on the Taliban insurgency in northwest Pakistan. He is the Pakistan Team Lead at AEI’s Critical Threats Project.