WASHINGTON: The United Nations Security Council’s consolidated list of terrorist individuals and entities includes 139 entries from Pakistan.
The list — updated and accessed on Tuesday — identifies all those individuals who have lived in Pakistan, operated from there or have been associated with groups that used Pakistani territory for carrying out their operations, from Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri to known Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) activists.
The first person on the list is Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s heir apparent. The UN data claims that he is still hiding somewhere “in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area”. Several of his lieutenants are also on the list who, the UN believes, are hiding with him.
The second person on the list is another internationally known terrorist, Ramzi Mohammad bin al-Sheibah, who is identified as a Yemeni national, arrested in Karachi and handed over to the US authorities.
Hafiz Saeed listed as a person wanted by Interpol for involvement in terrorist activities
More than a dozen suspected terrorists are listed in the same category, arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the US authorities. Some of them had Pakistani passport, issued by various Pakistani missions in the Middle East and renewed in Pakistan.
The list also includes Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, an Indian national who, according to the UN Security Council, has held several Pakistani passports issued in Rawalpindi and Karachi. The UN claims that he owns a “palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad, Karachi”.
LeT’s Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is listed as a person also wanted by Interpol for his involvement in terrorist activities. Haji Mohammed Yahya Mujahid, LeT’s media contact, and Hafiz Saeed’s deputies, Abdul Salaam and Zafar Iqbal, are listed under him. Like Hafiz Saeed, they are all wanted by Interpol.
LeT is listed with its various aliases, such as al-Mansoorian, Paasban-i-Kashmir, Paasban-i-Ahle Hadith, Jamaatud Dawa and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation.
Terrorist entities that were allegedly based in Pakistan, worked from there or had links to Pakistani individuals, include Al Rasheed Trust, Harkatul Mujahideen, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Wafa Humanitarian Organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Rabita Trust, Ummah Tameer-i-Nau, Afghan Support Committee, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Al-Harmain Foundation, Islamic Jihad Group, Al Akhtar Trust International, Harkatul Jihad Islami, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Jamaatul Ahrar and Khatiba Imam Al-Bukhari.
Some of them are listed as based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2018