ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has welcomed a United States decision to place Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), splinter group of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), on a list of specially designated global terrorists.
“Pakistan has long pleaded concrete action against the TTP and their like who operate in Afghanistan, and they have planned and launched a number of attacks in Pakistan while operating from there,” Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at a weekly briefing on Thursday.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) is an offshoot of the TTP based in the Pak-Afghan border region. The group, founded by a former TTP leader in August 2014, has staged multiple attacks in the region targeting civilians, religious minorities, military personnel and law enforcement agencies.
The US State Department announced that the designation automatically imposed on the group and its leaders all sanctions that applied to foreign persons and groups determined to have committed, or posing a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism.
As a result of these designations, all property subject to US jurisdiction in which Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has any interest is blocked and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with the group.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was responsible for the killing of two Pakistani employees of the US Consulate in Peshawar in March. Later in that month, it carried out a suicide assault at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal amusement park in Lahore that killed more than 70 people — nearly half of them women and children — and injured hundreds more. The Easter Sunday attack was the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan since December 2014.
‘Pakistan has suffered more than any country’
The Pentagon’s announcement that it will not pay Pakistan $300 million in military reimbursements did not evoke a strong reaction from the Pakistan Foreign Office.
However, spokesperson Zakaria in response to a question recounted the sacrifices the country has made in the war against terrorism.
Pakistan has suffered more than any other country in the war on terror both in terms of human and economic losses, Radio Pakistan quoted the FO spokesperson as saying.
He said 60,000 people including 6,000 security personnel had lost their lives during the war on terror, adding that the US payment under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) was helpful to the Pakistani offensive.
Operation Zarb-i-Azb has seen a resounding success due to which bastions of terrorists in the tribal areas have been cleared, the spokesperson stated.
