Monitoring Desk
WASHINGTON: The US department of State has put the Milli Muslim League (MML) and Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (TAJK) to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and said that both were fronts for banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The US State Department website shared that the both the organization were put on the FTO list on Monday night and it added that the aliases have been added to LeT’s designations as an FTO under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order 13224.
Ambassador Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the department, explained that the putting the aliases of LeT showed that the US government is not fooled by banned outfit efforts to avoid sanctions and deceive the public.
He added that MML and TAJK were different names of the same banned terrorist outfit and adding that regardless of its attempts to create new facades, it would not be able to hide from the US.
Pakistan’s Western ally, with which relations have recently become quite bumpy, noted that American citizens were prohibited from engaging in any type of deal with either of these groups.
According to statement issued in this regard, it added that financial sanctions have been imposed on both the MML and TAJK.
Meanwhile, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced its decision to include seven members of the MML’s top brass to the SDGT list.
It specified that members who were designated as SDGTs include “Saifullah Khalid, Muzammil Iqbal Hashimi, Muhammad Harris Dar, Tabish Qayyuum, Fayyaz Ahmad, Faisal Nadeem, and Muhammad Ehsan”.
The MML was formed last year and made an impressive show at the NA-120 by-election in Lahore, where its supported candidate gained the fourth place. Candidates backed by the party — since it is yet to be registered as a political party — have made similar gains in subsequent by-elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
At present, the MML is struggling to get itself registered as a political party.
