Islamabad: The United States has added a major Pakistani militant group and al-Qaeda offshoot to its list of “global terrorists”, triggering sanctions against the groups amid a resurgence of extremist violence in the Islamic nation.
Thursday’s move by the State Department comes days after Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, better known as TTP, ended a months-long ceasefire with Pakistan and resumed attacks across the country. done.
The continued threat by the TTP has forced Pakistani authorities to take additional measures, and security was tightened on orders from the interior ministry outside places of worship and other public places on Friday amid fears of more attacks. The TTP has asked its fighters to target security forces across the country. The Pakistani Taliban was behind a 2014 attack on a school in Peshawar that killed 147 people, mostly school children.
The State Department on Thursday said it has designated the TTP and al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”.
The agency’s statement said the US is “deploying its full set of counterterrorism tools to counter the threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)”. Committed to use.” )” to prevent militants from using Afghanistan as “a staging ground for international terrorism”.
“As a result of these actions,” the statement said, “all property and interests in the assets of those named (Thursday) that are subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and all US persons generally prohibited from any transactions with them.” are prohibited from joining.”
The United States also designated four members of the TTP and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, Osama Mahmood, the head of the al-Qaeda branch, Yahya Ghauri, the deputy chief of the al-Qaeda branch, and Muhammad Maroof, responsible for recruitment, to the group.
It also named TTP leader Qari Amjad, who oversees terrorist attacks in northwest Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed in a US Navy SEAL operation in May 2011 at his hideout in the garrison town of Abbottabad, not far from the capital Islamabad, and Pakistan became a major ally of the United States. Later TTP emerged. In its war on terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, but the latest developments came after Islamabad asked the Taliban in Afghanistan to stop the TTP from using its soil for attacks inside the Islamic nation. A suicide bomber sent by the TTP blew himself up near a truck carrying police deployed to protect polio workers in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province.
The TTP has claimed responsibility for the attack, which has drawn nationwide condemnation.
The Pakistani Taliban is a separate group, but allied with the Taliban of Afghanistan, who have ruled their country since the withdrawal of US and NATO troops last year. The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened their Pakistani allies, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in the country next door.