US slams Pakistan for providing 'safe havens' to terror groups

Washington: The US has slammed Pakistan for failing to crackdown on terror groups operating from "safe havens" inside its territory, and said the Nawaz Sharif government did not take any action against the LeT and JeM, which continue to operate openly.

In its annual Country Report on Countering Terrorism, the US State Department said though the Pakistan government supported political reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban, it "failed to take significant action to constrain the ability of the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network to operate from Pakistan-based safe havens and threaten US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

It said the Pakistan government "did not take any significant action against Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed, other than implementing an ongoing ban against media coverage of their activities. LeT and JeM continued to hold rallies, raise money, recruit, and train in Pakistan," it said.

"Indian authorities continued to blame Pakistan for cross-border attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. In January, India experienced a terrorist attack against an Indian military facility in Pathankot, Punjab, which was blamed by authorities on JeM. Over the course of 2016, the Government of India sought to deepen counterterrorism cooperation and information sharing with the United States," it said.

The State Department said:"Numerous terrorist groups, including the Haqqani Network (HQN), Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), continued to operate from Pakistani soil in 2016."

It said that although LeT is banned in Pakistan, LeT's wings Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FiF) "were able to openly engage in fundraising, including in the capital".

"LeT's chief Hafiz Saeed (a UN-designated terrorist) continued to address large rallies, although in February 2017, Pakistan proscribed him under relevant provisions of Schedule Four of the Anti-Terrorism Act, thus severely restricting his freedom of movement."

"The Pakistani government did not publicly reverse its December 2015 declaration that neither JuD nor FiF is banned in Pakistan, despite their listing under UN sanctions regimes, although in January 2017, Pakistan placed both organizations "under observation" pursuant to Schedule Two of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

It said that on November 11, 2016, Pakistana's National Counterterrorism Authority published its own list of banned organisations that placed the JuD in a separate section for groups that are "Under Observation," but not banned.

Pakistan continued military operations to eradicate terrorist safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, although their impact on all terrorist groups was uneven.

Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, in an interview in April this year claimed that Hafiz Saeed was not involved in the 2008 Mumbai attack and "in Pakistan, we don't call him a terrorist.

In the beginning of July, a fund-raising campaign was organised in the name of Kashmir by Falah-e-Insaniyat in Rawalakot, Pakistan-administered Kashmir.