US adds to list of ‘terrorists’
ISLAMABAD — The United States has added four top Islamic militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan to its list of “global terrorists,” amid a resurgence of violence and border tensions in the area. The militant leaders hail from the Pakistani Taliban and an al-Qaida branch in South Asia.
Both militant groups operate from Afghanistan, but they have hideouts in Pakistan’s mountainous northwest and elsewhere as well.
The State Department’s announcement, on Thursday, comes days after Pakistan’s Taliban movement, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, ended a monthslong ceasefire with Pakistan and resumed attacks across the country.
Amid threats from the militants, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry tightened security in public places and mosques, on Friday. The TTP has asked its fighters to target security forces across the country. The militant group was behind the 2014 attack on a Peshawar school that killed 147 people, mostly schoolchildren.
The State Department said the terrorist designation of the militants would trigger sanctions against the four militant commanders who are from the TTP and al-Qaida’s South
Asian branch.
The statement read that the US was targeting the “threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).” The US would move to prevent militants from using Afghanistan as “a platform for international terrorism,” it added.
“As a result of these actions,” the statement said, “all property and interests in property of those designated (Thursday) that are subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and all US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them.”