Pak tightens curbs on Dawood, Hafiz

MOVE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN ORCHESTRATED WITH EYE ON UPCOMING ASSESSMENT BY FINANCIAL WATCHDOG

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: Weeks ahead of an expected assessment of its counter terror-financing actions, Pakistan has tightened curbs on eight Lashkar-e-taiba (LET) leaders, including the organisation’s founder Hafiz Saeed, Jaish-emohammed (JEM) chief Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim by taking steps to enforce UN sanctions against them.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry quietly issued two statutory regulatory orders on August 18 to enforce UN Security Council sanctions against hundreds of terrorists, including operatives of LET, JEM, al-qaeda, Taliban, Haqqani Network and Islamic State, and 93 terrorist groups and entities.

The action appears to have clearly been taken with an eye on the upcoming assessment of Pakistan’s counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes by the Financial Action Task Force, which is expected to take place by October. FATF was scheduled to review Pakistan’s actions in June but the Paris-based watchdog pushed back the deadline by four months because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In some cases, Pakistan hadn’t acted on UN sanctions imposed more than a decade ago despite growing pressure from Western countries, including the United States.

The Pakistan government also repeatedly failed to meet FATF’S deadlines to implement a 27-point action plan, and the watchdog has warned of harsher measures since Pakistan has addressed only 14 of the 27 points in the action plan.