US officials launched a broad legal offensive against Pakistan’s Taliban on Wednesday, placing the group on its international terrorism blacklist and charging its leader with planning last year’s suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees.
The Pakistani group, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), was officially designated a “foreign terrorist organization,” a classification that imposes additional State and Treasury department sanctions.
The Pakistani Taliban threatens US national security, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a note published in the Federal Register.
The US Department of Justice then unsealed charges against the self-proclaimed emir of the TTP, Hakimullah Mehsud. He is accused of planning the attack in December last year in which a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a CIA base in Afghanistan, killing a Jordanian intelligence officer and the CIA employees.
Conviction on the two conspiracy charges, which were entered on Aug. 20, would likely mean life in prison.
“The various actions taken today against the TTP support the US effort to degrade the capabilities of this dangerous group,” US State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin said. “We are determined to eliminate TTP’s ability to execute violent attacks and to disrupt, dismantle and defeat their networks.”
The TTP has also been blamed for the failed May 1 car bombing in New York’s Times Square. Islamabad accuses the group of being behind the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the suicide bombing against the US consulate in Peshawar that killed six Pakistanis in April.
“These charges are part of a multi-pronged US government effort to disrupt and dismantle Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. “It is our intention to hold Mehsud accountable for his actions.”
The State Department is offering a US$5 million bounty for Mehsud and another top Taliban leader, Wali Ur Rehman, and the Treasury has placed financial and travel sanctions on Mehsud and others identified with the group.
RISK REMAINS: An official said that with the US presidential elections so close, it is unclear if China would hold war games or keep its reaction to angry words The Ministry of National Defense said it was “on alert” as it detected a Chinese aircraft carrier group to Taiwan’s south yesterday amid concerns in Taiwan about the possibility of a new round of Chinese war games. The ministry said in a statement that a Chinese navy group led by the carrier Liaoning had entered waters near the Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean and separates Taiwan from the Philippines. It said the carrier group was expected to enter the Western Pacific. The military is keeping a close watch on developments and “exercising an
FIVE-YEAR WINDOW? A defense institute CEO said a timeline for a potential Chinese invasion was based on expected ‘tough measures’ when Xi Jinping seeks a new term Most Taiwanese are willing to defend the nation against a Chinese attack, but the majority believe Beijing is unlikely to invade within the next five years, a poll showed yesterday. The poll carried out last month was commissioned by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taipei-based think tank, and released ahead of Double Ten National Day today, when President William Lai (賴清德) is to deliver a speech. China maintains a near-daily military presence around Taiwan and has held three rounds of war games in the past two years. CIA Director William Burns last year said that Chinese President Xi Jinping
RESILIENCE: Once the system is operational, there would be no need to worry about the risks posed by disasters or other emergencies on communication systems, an official said Taiwan would have 24-hour access to low Earth orbit satellites by the end of this month through service provided by Eutelsat OneWeb as part of the nation’s effort to enhance signal resilience, a Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) official said yesterday. Earlier this year the Ministry of Digital Affairs, which partnered with Chunghwa Telecom on a two-year project to boost signal resilience throughout the nation, said it reached a milestone when it made contact with OneWeb’s satellites half of the time. It expects to have the capability to maintain constant contact with the satellites and have nationwide coverage by the end
REACTION TO LAI: A former US official said William Lai took a step toward stability with his National Day speech and the question was how Beijing would respond US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday warned China against taking any “provocative” action on Taiwan after Beijing’s reaction to President William Lai’s (賴清德) speech on Double Ten National Day on Thursday. Blinken, speaking in Laos after an ASEAN East Asia Summit, called the speech by Lai, in which he vowed to “resist annexation,” a “regular exercise.” “China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters. “On the contrary, we want to reinforce — and many other countries want to reinforce — the imperative of preserving the status quo, and neither party taking any
RSS