Whatever the reality maybe, making up and breaking up is not something I associate with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

With their grim beards and demeanour, they seem more like the staying together sort, not interested in indulging in petty jealousies. Fights about who said what and when, and who is right or wrong are the culprits of ending things, divorce and such.

It was this perception that was challenged recently when one part of the Taliban split off from the other portion and formed a new group. The “original” Taliban, as they can be called now, used to be led by the infamous Maulana Fazlullah, the former Swat ski lift operator turned guerrilla warrior.

The new group, which calls itself Jamatul Ahrar is led by a man called Omar Khalid Khorasani. He is the one who appears sporting a black turban and beard in various Taliban videos. It is said that, in their unerring commitment to uniformity, all the Taliban love to look like all the other Taliban.

We're lucky to not have to rely on wardrobe or facial hair choices, to tell the new group apart from the old group.

In one of its initial releases, the new Jamatul Ahrar called “IS” the group rapidly evoking havoc in the Middle East their “mujahideen brothers”. The particular transnational bent of this new shoot that has sprung from the old tree of Taliban extremism, was seen yet again in a statement that came from Al Ahrar just a few days ago.

On September 4, 2014 Ehsanullah Ehsan, the group’s spokespersonwelcomed the creation of a new Al Qaeda affiliated jihadi group “for the Indian subcontinent”. The announcement of the creation of that group had been made by the Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri, who promised in his video message, that the new “Al Qaeda in the subcontinent operation” would take the fight to Myanmar, Bangladesh and India”.