Government cracks down on accused terror suspect
Islamabad makes move in bid to avoid being on watch list.
Pakistan is racing to avoid being placed on an international terrorism-financing watch list, banning and closing the offices of organizations linked to the suspected planner of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Ahead of a review next week by the global anti-laun- dering Financial Action Task Force in Paris, the government is taking action against Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-udDawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation — which have been accused of being fronts for militant group Lashkhar- e-Taiba.
More than three dozen properties have been taken
over by the government and the organization’s ambu- lances were handed over to the Red Crescent, said Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan, a spokesman for Punjab province where the char- ities operate.
Islamabad has alternated between leaving Saeed alone, because of his domestic pop-
ularity, and cracking down on him at the behest of other countries such as the U.S., which view him as an alleged terrorist mastermind. “They have done it before,
but this time the government looks more serious,” said retired Pakistani Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former national security adviser and ambassador to the U.S. “This should have been acted on long ago.”
Saeed, who lives in the open in Lahore and has denied the charges against him, was released from his latest bout of house arrest in November — provoking White House condemnation. He’s long been a thorn in rela- tions between the U.S. and Pakistan, which have dras- tically soured this year after President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of “lies and deceit” for allegedly supporting militant groups while taking billions of dollars in American aid.
At stake for Islamabad is its ability to tap international markets and avoid further potential sanctions down the line. This week Pakistani offi- cials said the U.S., U.K., Germany and France were pushing to get the nuclear-armed nation added to FATF’s mon- itoring list, which one government minister Wednesday called a “conspiracy.”
Pakistan announced this week it had banned Saeed’s charities and changed a law to allow security forces to take action against groups on the United Nations Secu- rity Council sanctions list. Islamabad has also repeat- edly denied providing safe haven for terrorists and points to multiple military operations it has launched against insurgents that tar- get its own soil.
“At this stage the government people, the military people, they are all talking about taking a tough line,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst in Lahore. “But we don’t know what happens six months down the road” with national elections scheduled in July.
It’s also unclear that being added to a watchlist will affect Pakistan’s finances or political behavior. FATF had previously placed Pakistan on its monitoring list in 2012, before removing it three years later. In that period Islamabad negotiated an International Monetary Fund bailout package and continued to tap the global bond market.
Pakistan’s actions were greeted with skepticism across the border in India.
“These moves sound quite transparent to try and make sure that next week’s meeting in Paris doesn’t put Pakistan back on the global terrorist-financing watchlist,” said Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “These are moves that are reversible.”