Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, April 16 (IANS) The United States has targeted the financial and support networks of Al Qaeda and the Taliban by designating two Karachi-based Pakistani nationals, one of them born in India, for allegedly running charities funding their terrorist activities.

Announcing the action, the Treasury Department said Mohammed Mazhar, 58, born in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, was designated for his fundraising activities and financial and other support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Director of Al-Akhtar Trust since 2004, he carries three Pakistani passports, the Treasury said. Mufti Abdul Rahim, born in Sargodha region of Pakistan, was designated for his fundraising activities for the Taliban. He has been leading Al-Rashid Trust since 2002.

Al-Akhtar Trust and Al-Rashid Trust are both Pakistani charities previously identified as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under an executive order that freezes any assets they may have under US jurisdiction and prohibits Americans from engaging in any transactions with them.

“Thursday’s designation of these two high-profile financiers of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are also leaders of Al-Akhtar Trust and Al-Rashid Trust, further exposes those organisations’ continuing support for terrorism under the guise of charitable activity,” Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said.

Later asked whether the US expected the Pakistan Government to arrest the two individuals and ban, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said he could not comment on the specific cases or particular action taken.

But, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had talked “about the shared effort to combat extremism” with Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.

“And we were all encouraged by the signs that we see in terms of steps that both the United States and Pakistan is taking to reduce the threat to both of our countries and the region.”

Asked to comment on reports that some charities in Pakistan and elsewhere were financing are funding some US think tanks, Crowley said the US paid a “great deal of attention to the flow of money around the world and how that money may, in certain circumstances, benefit extremist groups.”

The US, he said, had built significant cooperation internationally on financial transactions that can support terrorism. “But as to whether any particular group has broken any set of laws in this country or Pakistan, I’m not prepared to address that.”

The Treasury statement said Mazhar “is a long-standing supporter of Al Qaeda and has collected and held large amounts of money on behalf of this terrorist organisation, holding as much as $1 million for Al Qaeda in 2002 and 2003,” the Treasury alleged.

Mazhar has also personally given large donations to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, it alleged and led Al-Akhtar Trust’s efforts to support the Taliban. He was also once a member of Taliban combatant groups and has fought in Afghanistan.

Rahim’s “Al-Rashid Trust has been raising money for the Taliban since 1999, and in his leadership capacity, Rahim handles the day-to-day management of the trust and acts as one of Al-Rashid Trust’s primary fundraisers,” the Treasury said.

As of late 2009, Rahim was a key supporter of Taliban operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan and had coordinated Taliban facilitation activities with Al-Akhtar Trust leader Mohammed Mazhar.

“Rahim has provided regular financial support to the Taliban and received numerous senior Taliban visitors at his madrassa in Karachi. In mid-2005, Rahim passed an unspecified amount of money to a Peshawar-based Taliban associate, who in turn distributed it among several Taliban commanders,” the Treasury said.