New Delhi:
In what comes as another setback for Pakistan, the United States on Tuesday (American Standard Time) designated the leader of Pak-based terror group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a terrorist. The terror group is responsible for carrying out multiple bombings and killing civilians. Noor Wali, the designated leader, took over TTP after the death of his predecessor Mullah Fazlullah in 2018.
Under Noor’s leadership, TTP has claimed responsibilities of numerous terrorist attacks across Pakistan, says US State Department. According to the United States, TPP is responsible for “financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of, supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to, recruiting for or otherwise supporting acts or activities of” Al-Qaida.
Before this, TTP was designated as as Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by US State Department. The US State Department has also listed leaders of Hizbullah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
“The State Department is moving aggressively to implement these new authorities. Today, the Department has designated one terrorist group - Hurras al-Din, an Al-Qaida affiliate in Syria - as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT)”, the statement issued by US State Department reads.
This decision has come amid Pakistan faces the risk to get backlisted by the Financial Action Task Force. The present action of the US is set to weaken Pakistan’s case in front of the FATF.
In August this year, a sub-group of the Financial Action Task blacklisted Pakistan for providing safe havens for terrorists. The Asia Pacific Group of the FATF blacklisted Pakistan. On 11 effectiveness parameters, Pakistan was adjudged as low as 10. Despite its efforts, it could not convince the 41-member Plenary to upgrade it on any one parameter. The discussion lasted for over seven hours that ran into two days.
(With Agency Inputs)
