US again lists Pak as a safe haven for terrorists

PAKISTAN DID NOT TAKE SUFFICIENT ACTION AGAINST LET AND JEM, WHICH CONTINUED TO TRAIN THERE, SAYS STATE DEPT REPORT

WASHINGTON: Pakistan remained in the dock in the Trump administration’ s first worldwide assessment of terrorism and related threats, released on Wednesday, for not doing enough to combat terrorist groups and individuals operating from its soil.

The state department’s 2016 Country Reports on Terrorism named Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM), the groups behind most terror attacks in India, and the Haqqa ni network, which has attacked US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, as organisations that operate from safe haven sin Pakistan.

In language lifted from its previous iterations, the latest report said, “Pakistan did not take sufficient action against other externally focused groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taibaand-Jaish-e-Mohammad in 2016, which continued to operate, train, organise, and fundraise in Pakistan.”

The report stated further ,“The Pakistani military and security forces undertook operations against groups that conducted attacks within Pakistan such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (but they) did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or HQN(Haqqani network), or substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghanistan…”

As before, Pakistan figured on the list of countries in the report that the US says provide safe haven to terrorist groups such as Haqqa ni Network, Le Tand JeM.

“Although LeT is banned in Pakistan,” it said, “LeT’s wings Jamaat-ud-Dawaand-Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation were able to openly engage in fundraising,” it said. The report said India continued to blame Pakistan for cross-border attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. In January, India experienced a terrorist attack against an Indian military facility in Pathankot, Punjab, which was blamed by authorities on JeM.