Peshawar violence masks internal strife within Pakistan Taliban

For one of the world's more parochial Islamist militant groups, the Pakistan Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has a habit of grabbing global headlines.

Set up to unite a motley collection of local extremist outfits in the rough and restive border regions along Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan in 2007, the movement has had much of its time and energy taken up with bitter internal competition and maintaining its ruthless rule over the enclaves it has carved out over the years.

It has also battled Pakistani security forces and launched a series of increasingly audacious and lethal terrorist attacks beyond the frontier zones.

Tuesday's horrific attack in Peshawar on an army-run school, which killed 141 people, mostly students, speaks to all of these issues. It has the added effect of assuring attention across the planet, though it is unlikely the latter was a priority.

The TTP has been under pressure in recent months. A series of internal splits has seen factions peel off. The most important, made up of members of the powerful Mehsud tribe, has simply gone it alone. Others rejected the brutal violence that has been a hallmark of the movement.

Mohammed Khurasani, the spokesman who claimed responsibility for Tuesday's school attack, has been in the job for only a few weeks. The previous incumbent left to join a breakaway group loyal to Islamic State.

Security officials and experts know that when groups fragment, and leadership is contested, attacks often become more extreme as individual commanders seek to prove themselves the most effective, and the most audacious. Extreme violence, even directed at targets such as schools, also serves to reinforce disintegrating authority over communities in the enclaves where the militants are based. So too does the deployment of multiple suicide bombers, six in this case. The tactic, however banal it has become, remains an effective way of inspiring fear.