Press Trust Of India
Islamabad, Nov 2: The US has shared with Pakistan a list 20 terrorist groups like the LeT, JeM and HUM that Washington believes are operating from its soil to target India and Afghanistan, a media report said Thursday.
Top on the list is the Haqqani network which, the US says has safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in northwestern Pakistan and uses them to launch attacks into Afghanistan, Dawn reported.
The list includes three types of militants groups: those who launch attacks into Afghanistan, those who attack targets inside Pakistan and those who are focused on Kashmir, the newspaper quoted diplomatic sources as saying.
India-specific terror groups like Harakatul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) are also onthe list. The US says that group had links to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda as well, the report said. JeM operates mainly in Kashmir.
The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organisation of various militant groups, was based in FATA, but has now relocated to Afghanistan. The US says that the group wants to enforce its own interpretation of Sharia and plans to unite against Nato-led forces in Afghanistan. It has conducted hundreds of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
Other groups on the list are: Harakatul Jihadi-i-Islami, Jamaatul Ahrar, Jamaatud Dawa al-Quran and Tariq Gidar Group, which is one of 13 TTP affiliates.
The Tariq Gidar Group has been behind some of the deadliest attacks inside Pakistan, including the Dec 16, 2014, massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar that left 132 schoolchildren and nine staffers dead.
Tillerson told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Monday that Pakistan was willing to target terrorists if provided specific information about their whereabouts and Washington plans to give Islamabad the opportunity to do so.
He said the information that the US delegation gave Pakistan went “beyond just names of individuals” and also expected “to receive information” from Pakistan that would be useful in targeting militants”.
Tillerson said that it was in the interest of Pakistan to change its “long-standing” relationship with terrorist organisations.
Congressman calls for more vetting of people coming from Pak
press trust of india
Washington, Nov 2: A top American lawmaker Thursday called for “more vetting” of people coming in the US from Pakistan, blaming the country of having large terrorist presence.
“If a person is coming from a country which has a strong terrorist presence, there should be more intense vetting and investigation than there would be from someone not coming from a country similar to that,” Congressman Peter King told CNN in an interview.
“Pakistan has a large terrorist presence. They have sent 800 people to Syria to fight alongside ISIS. In that case, there should be more vetting. How you define it is more than you do in the ordinary case,” he said.
“…The lottery system itself, to me, it’s worked. It’s gotten good people into this country. In my experience, in New York, they’ve gone on to become very productive people,” he said.
Igniting a political battle, Trump said the attacker Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, who ploughed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path near the World Trade Centre, was allowed to enter the US on a State Department programme known as the “Diversity Lottery Programme”.
China again blocks UN move to ban Jaish chief
Beijing: China Thursday blocked a US resolution seeking to declare Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist. Due to lack of consensus at the UNSC committee, the application seeking a ban on Masood Azhar has been rejected, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official told IANS.This is the second time Beijing has vetoed the proposal which was first moved by India at the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council in March last year. China did the same to a US proposal backed by France and the UK. It first blocked it in January and then put a technical hold for three months in August. A new resolution will have to be moved now. India says only China is not in favour of branding Azhar as an international terrorist.
