U.S. Finally Imposes Sanctions on Pakistani Terrorist Group LeT!

June 26, 2014

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Pakistani Militants

Declan Walsh

New York Times

LONDON — The United States imposed economic sanctions on Wednesday against two senior members of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and designated its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as a “front organization.”

The designation comes after years of conspicuous relief activities by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, whose nationwide network of schools and hospitals and aid programs for the victims of floods and earthquakes have helped it gain favor with Pakistan’s most vulnerable citizens.

The United States already offers a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the charity’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, in relation to Lashkar’s most notorious act: the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which at least 163 people, including several Americans, were killed.

But his prosecution has never looked likely because he lives openly in the eastern city of Lahore under Pakistani state protection, addressing rallies and appearing on television, while Lashkar has stepped up attacks in Afghanistan, most recently against the Indian Consulate in the western city of Herat.

Given that the group has been under Western scrutiny for years and obtains financing from private donors in the Persian Gulf, American sanctions have a largely symbolic value. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department named Mr. Saeed’s close aide, Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry, and the group’s finance chief, Muhammad Hussein Gill, as “specially designed global terrorists,” which freezes any assets the two men may hold in the United States and bars Americans from any transactions with them.

The action was part of continuing American efforts to hit Lashkar’s finances and “disrupt and impede its violent activities,” David S. Cohen, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

Since the State Department designated Lashkar as a terrorist group in 2001, the American government has imposed sanctions on 22 people and four associated bodies. As well as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, on Wednesday it announced measures against the Al-Anfal Trust, a front body that Lashkar had used to “procure goods from the Persian Gulf,” the State Department said.

A spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Lahore said the group was “carefully studying” the American statement and would issue a response on Thursday.