UPDATED ON:
Thursday, December 11, 2008
07:58 Mecca time, 04:58 GMT
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA
Pakistan group hit by UN sanctions
The sanctions against Jamaat-ud-Dawa come in the wake of last month's deadly
assaults in Mumbai [AFP]
A UN Security Council panel has said that a charity based in Pakistan is a
front group for the organisation blamed by India for last month's deadly
attacks on Mumbai.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa is operating for Lashkar-e-Taiba, also a Pakistan-based group,
and is subject to UN sanctions on terrorist organisations, the al-Qaida and
Taliban Sanctions Committee said on Wednesday.
The panel also approved the designation of four people suspected of involvement
in the Mumbai attack as terrorists.
The men include Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Lashkar's chief of operations, whose
arrest was announced by Pakistan on Wednesday.
The others are Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief; Haji Muhammad
Ashraf, its chief of finance; and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, a financier
with the group.
The sanctions package against Jamaat-ud-Dawa came a day after India appealed to
the Security Council that restrictions be imposed on the group.
Asset freeze
The sanctions against Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the four individuals include an asset
freeze, ban of travel and an arms embargo.
The UN panel has designated Lashkar-e-Taiba as a terrorist organisation
affiliated with al-Qaida since 2005, while the US and European Union also have
sanctions against the group.
Lakhvi is among the four sanctioned by the UN EPA]
The sanctions package against Jamaat-ud-Dawa comes as New Delhi presses
Islamabad to act against armed groups based on Pakistani soil.
The Indian government has said that individuals based in Pakistan were
responsible for a string of co-ordinated attacks on Mumbai, India’s financial
capital, which left at least 171 people dead.
Lakhvi was arrested during a raid on Sunday in Pakistani Kashmir, Yousuf Raza
Gilani, Pakistan’s prime minister, said on Wednesday.
Pakistani authorities have also Zarrar Shah, an alleged Lashkar leader.
But Pakistani officials say that India is not supplying evidence from its
investigation of the Mumbai attack, highlighting the tense relationship between
the two nuclear-armed countries.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which emerged in 2002 after Pakistan's government banned
Lashkar, runs a chain of medical clinics and schools.
Links denied
Saeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, said on Wednesday that his group has no link
to Lashkar.
"No Lashkar-e-Taiba man is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been a chief of
Lashkar-e-Taiba," he told Pakistan's Geo television.
Lashkar is believed to have been created with the assistance of Pakistan's
military and intelligence services as a proxy force in Indian-administered
Kashmir.
The UN sanctions panel also referred to a several other organisations as
aliases for the al-Rashid and al-Akhtar trusts, which have raised funds for
Lashkar.
Source: Agencies
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