U.S. Extends Terror Designation of Pak-based Groups
The United States has reviewed and maintained the terrorist designations of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), along with ISIL Sinai Peninsula (ISIL-SP) and several other organisations. Days ahead of the transition of power, the U.S. Department of State said that it has amended the terrorist designations of LJ and ISIL-SP to include additional aliases.
Additionally, the Department of State has reviewed and maintained the Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) designations of LJ, ISIL-SP, LeT, Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al Naqshabandi, Jama’atuAnsarulMuslimina Fi Biladis-Sudan (Ansaru), al-Nusrah Front, Continuity Irish Republican Army, and the National Liberation Army, a federal register notification published on January 14 said.
These organisations included Lashkar-eTayyiba, JayshRijal al-Tariq al Naqshabandi, Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis-Sudan, Harakat ul Mujahidin, a lNusrah Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Continuity Irish Republican Army, and the National Liberation Army.
FTOs and Specially Designated Global Terrorists designations seek to deny these terrorist organisations the resources to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. Among other consequences of designations, all of the groups’ property and interests that are within the United States or that come within the United States or that come within the possession or control of U.S. persons, are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them. In addition, as designated FTOs, it is a federal crime to knowingly provide, or attempt or conspire to provide, material support or resources to them.
LeT, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, was designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States in December 2001. Since the original designation occurred, LeT has repeatedly changed its name and created front organisations in an effort to avoid sanctions.
The treasury department earlier this month said that the U.S. blocked $342,000 in funds of LeT in 2019 as part of its crackdown on foreign terror organisations.
Shadow Over Pak’s Chances at FATF
The US State Department order came ahead of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting in February, that was to assess the progress made by Pakistan to curb terror financing. The global watchdog did not seem to agree with Islamabad’s pitch that it was taking concrete steps to fix gaps in its laws to check terror financing and should be taken off the grey list. At the end of the last review in October, FATF president Marcus Pleyer cautioned that Pakistan could not take forever to deliver on its commitments and repeated failure to deliver would result in the country being put in the blacklist.
Pakistan was put in FATF’s grey list in 2018 after the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog pointed out failing to control terror financing and money laundering.
But Islamabad is yet to take any concrete action and the Pakistani deep state continues to support terrorist activities in India and Afghanistan. Over the last month, however, Pakistan has gone on an overdrive to impress the FATF.
Lakhvi Sentenced
On 7 January, a Pakistani court sentenced LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi to 15 years jail in a terror-financing case. Another judge issued arrest warrants for JeM chief Masood Azhar, who Pakistan has claimed for years was not in Pakistan.
The Pakistani anti-terrorism court found Lakhvi guilty under three sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act for running a dispensary to raise funds for terror financing. The judge gave Lakhvi separate five-year prison terms under each section, to be served concurrently.
The US has welcomed the conviction of Lakhvi on charges of terror financing but called on Pakistan to prosecute him for his role in masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Lakhvi was arrested soon after the carnage in Mumbai in November 2008 on charges of planning, supporting and financing the attacks in India’s financial hub that killed 166 people, including six American nationals. There has been little progress in Pakistan’s efforts to prosecute Lakhvi and six other accused in the Mumbai attacks case despite evidence provided by dozens of witnesses.
New Delhi has pointed out that neither of the two designated terrorists had been charged for terrorist acts. Pakistan’s “farcical actions” appeared to be aimed at an upcoming review by the FATF of the country’s efforts to counter terror financing, India’s external affairs ministry Anurag Srivastava said in response, pressing for “credible action” against Pakistan against terror groups.
Daniel Pearl’s Murderer Acquitted
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, tried on charges of kidnapping and beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, was acquittal, on 28 January, by the Supreme Court. The acquittal was curiously timed, just days after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office.
The White House expressed “outrage” over Pakistan S Supreme Court’s decision acquitting those involved in the sensational kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl in 2002 and said that the judgement is an “affront” to terrorism victims everywhere.
Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the links between the country’s powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.
Pearl’s murder took place three years after Sheikh, along with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, was released by India in 1999 and given safe passage to Afghanistan in exchange for the nearly 150 passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. He was serving a prison term in India for kidnappings of Western tourists in the country.
White-washing for FATF’s Verdict
on 8 January, an Anti-Terrorism Court in Gujranwala in Pakistan issued an arrest warrant against JeM chief Masood Azhar, in a terror financing case. Azhar’s last location was said to be at a safe-house in Bahawalpur. The UN had, in May 2019, designated Azhar a “global terrorist” after China lifted its hold on a proposal to blacklist the Pakistan-based JeM chief, a decade after New Delhi approached the world body for the first time on the issue.
Thus far, Pakistan has cleared 21 of the 27 markers according to the FATF. The FATF plenary session in February decided that Pakistan would remain on the grey list, withholding its downgrading to the “blacklist” of sanctioned “high-risk” countries like Iran and North Korea.
The FATF’s last plenary, which had put off a decision on Pakistan for more than a year since its deadline in October 2019, had made a particular mention of the need for the Imran Khan government to prosecute UN designated persons, and demonstrate effective actions against them in court and freezing their assets.
Comments
Clearly, Pakistan cannot deal with terrorism, just as America’s neighbours Colombia and Mexico could not do so, when they had struggled to stop the supply of narcotics into the US, overwhelmed by drug cartels that had taken over their governments and judiciary. The fearless drug lords came to fear eventually when the most potent tool was deployed by the US against them, with the acquiescence of their governments – extradition to the US, to be tried and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in high-security prisons.
Pakistan, on the face of it, has ramped up its occasionally orchestrated pressure on terrorists. The sentencing of the operations commander of LeT, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, who allegedly masterminded the Mumbai outrage (26 November 2008), to five years’ imprisonment, does not after 12 years readily inspire confidence to the east of the Radcliffe Line.
Nor for that matter does the anti-terrorism court’s order to arrest Masood Azhar by 18 January. He has been labelled by the United Nations as a “global terrorist”. Both have been charged with financing terror, though they must be held accountable for other insidious activities no less.
The government in Islamabad has been trying to evade the FATF black list. The Lahore court’s action comes at a crucial juncture, when Pakistan’s case was scheduled for review by the FATF. Pakistan’s placing on the “black list’ will signify another turning of the screw on Pakistan, rendering the country to a state of unsplendid isolation.
No one is convinced about Pakistan’s actions against any of the terrorist leaders. In India’s reckoning, it devolves on the international community to hold Pakistan to account and ensure that it takes credible action against terror groups, terror infrastructure and individuals.
