ISLAMABAD: The US has placed a prominent Pakistani militant group and an Al-Qaeda branch to its list of “global terrorists,” triggering sanctions against the organizations in the midst of a revival of militant bloodshed in this Islamic nation.
The State Department’s announcement comes just days after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, broke a months-long cease-fire with Pakistan and restarted attacks across the country.
The TTP threat compelled Pakistani authorities to take additional precautions, and security was tightened on instructions from the Interior Ministry outside places of worship and other public locations on Friday amid fears of further attacks.
TTP fighters have been instructed to strike security forces around the country. The Pakistani Taliban were responsible for the 2014 attack on a Peshawar school, which killed 147 people, the majority of whom were children.
The State Department said Thursday that TTP and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent had been classified as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
The US is “committed to using its full set of counterterrorism tools to counter the threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including Al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP),” according to the statement, to prevent militants from using Afghanistan as a “platform for international terrorism.”
According to the statement, “as a result of these steps,” “all property and interests in property of individuals named (Thursday) that are subject to US jurisdiction are banned, and all US people are generally forbidden from participating in any dealings with them.”
The US also named four TTP and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent members: Osama Mehmood, the leader of the Al-Qaeda branch, Yahya Ghouri, the deputy chief of the Al-Qaeda branch, and Muhammad Maruf, who is in charge of recruitment for the organisation.
It also named TTP chief Qari Amjad, who is in charge of insurgent strikes in northwest Pakistan.
Osama Bin Laden was killed in a US Navy SEALs operation in May 2011 at his hiding spot in the garrison city of Abbottabad, not far from Islamabad’s capital, and TTP arose after Pakistan became a crucial ally of the US in its fight on terror following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan, but the latest development comes after Islamabad warned the Taliban in Afghanistan to prohibit the TTP from using their territory to launch strikes inside the Islamic country. Pakistan made the demand after a suicide bomber sent by the TTP blew himself up near a truck carrying police assigned to protect polio workers in Quetta, the capital of southern Baluchistan province.
The TTP has claimed responsibility for the incident, which has sparked widespread outrage.
The Pakistani Taliban are a different group that is associated with the Afghan Taliban, who have dominated their country since the withdrawal of US and NATO soldiers last year. The Taliban’s capture of Afghanistan boosted their Pakistani friends, many of whom are hiding in the neighboring country.
Source: AP
