Noose tightens around Hafiz Saeed

Washington: To make Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to America fruitful, the US has tightened its noose around the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). On the list of designated terror organisations, it has added the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and slapped sanctions against two Pakistan-based LeT leaders.

The US State Department has amended Lashkar-e-Taiba’s designations to add the aliases: Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool and Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal, an official statement said.

Simultaneously, the Department of the Treasury targeted the financial and leadership networks of LeT by designating Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry (Ahmad) and Muhammad Hussein Gill as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). Ahmad and Gill are being designated for acting on behalf of LeT, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan.
    

Treasury and the Department of State have designated 22 individuals and four entities associated with LeT.

“In targeting Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership, today’s (Wednesday) action demonstrates our unrelenting commitment to combating terrorism by disrupting terrorist groups’ financial activities,” said the Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S Cohen.

“We will continue to target LeT’s financial foundation to disrupt and impede its violent activities,” he added. The LeT was responsible for the deadly November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai that claimed 166 lives and injured more than 300. The group’s leader Hafiz Saeed is also a designated terrorist leader.

Also, there has been several reports of the funding of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the parent body of banned terror group LeT from the Pakistan’s Punjab Province Government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N. In 2013, besides the grant-in-aid of more than Rs 6.1 crore in its budget for fiscal 2013-14 for ‘Markaz-e-Taiba’, the largest centre of the JuD, the provincial government has allocated Rs 35 crore for setting up a “Knowledge Park” at the centre and other development initiatives.

Ahmad has been a senior leader of the LeT since the early 2000 and has served as its Vice-President, member of the group’s central leadership and as close aide of its leader Muhammad Saeed. Ahmad directed the group’s public relations department for at least ten years and as of 2012 was the head of LeT’s information wing. Ahmad has also been a key strategist for the group and has been involved in LeT operational finance matters.

Gill is a senior LeT shura member and was a LeT founder. He has been an accountant for LeT for more than ten years and has served as its chief financial officer and headed its accounts department for several years. He also has served in LeT’s revenue wing and has maintained its expense records.

“As a result of Wednesday’s action, all property and interests in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons in which Ahmad and Gill have an interest are blocked and US persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them,” the Treasury said.

 

(With PTI inputs)