23.1.15

Pakistan bans Haqqanis, JuD

Ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to India, the Pakistani government on Thursday banned Lashkar e-Taiba front organization Jamaatud-Dawa (JuD), the Haqqani network and several other terror outfits and froze all their assets and bank accounts. It also barred JuD chief and 2008 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Mohammad Saeed from travelling abroad.
Islamabad said the move was part of the “renewed“ national action plan against terror groups and not owing to pressure from any other quarter, including US secretary of state John Kerry .
However, JuD hit back at Islamabad, accusing it of having enforced the ban under pressure from the US to “please India“. It also said that it would continue its “charity work“ across Pakistan. The government's plan was framed after the Taliban attack on the Peshawar school in which 132 children were killed. Citing interior ministry sources, the Pakistani media reported that the US had sought a ban on the Haqqani network and JuD, which describes itself as a charity organization in its new avatar of Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation. The renaming took place after the US state department named JuD a “foreign terrorist organization“. Now Falah, too, stands proscribed.
Saeed, who has a US bounty of $10 million on him, roams free in Pakistan and addresses public rallies, railing against India. New Delhi has repeatedly asked Pakistan to hand over Saeed for questioning over his role in the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.
The Pakistani media reported that the interior ministry also added Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation, Ummah Tameer-i-Nau, Haji Khairullah Hajji Sattar Money Exchange, Rahat Ltd, Roshan Money Exchange, Al Akhtar Trust and Al Rashid Trust to the list of the banned outfits.
Aslam said the Haqqani network, founded by Afghan warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and using Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan as its headquarters for decades, doesn't have bank accounts in Pakistan.
The network has been blamed for some of the deadliest attacks on US-led foreign forces and Indian missions in Afghanistan. The outfit was declared a terrorist organization by the US in September 2012.

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