...the Army of the Pure,an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is
banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
(LeT) on Monday, identifying Milli Moslem League (MML) and Tehrik-e-Azadi-e-Kashmire (TAK) as LeT affiliates, which makes it impossible for them to register as political parties.
The US Treasury Department also updated its list of individual terrorists, naming seven members of the MML leadership as LeT activists who were acting in MML on behalf of LeT.
The State Department described the MML and the TAK as LeT ’aliases’ and added their names to its lists of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).
"In August 2017, LeT chief Hafiz Saeed
...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat...
created the MML to serve as a political front for the group. LeT members make up MML’s leadership and the so-called party openly displays Saeed’s likeness in its election banners and literature," the State Department pointed out.
Monday’s amendments "take aim at Lashkar-e-Taiba’s efforts to circumvent sanctions and deceive the public about its true character," said Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State.
"Make no mistake: whatever LeT chooses to call itself, it remains a violent terrorist group. The United States supports all efforts to ensure that LeT does not have a political voice until it gives up violence as a tool of influence," he added.
The designations clearly undermine MML’s effort to get itself registered with the Election Commission of Pakistain as a political party and contest the 2018 general elections. It will be difficult for the Pak government to ignore the designations and register MML as a political party, as it would be seen as an act of direct confrontation with the United States.