February 19, 2007 ☼ Foreign Affairs ☼ Security
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Here’s part of what M K Narayanan, India’s national security advisor, said at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security a few days ago:
An important source for jehadi outfits are religious charities. Sincere believers are perhaps unaware that a sizeable portion of funds go to terrorist activities. Many charities already designated as “Terrorist Front Organizations’ continue to operate under new labels. The Al Rashid Trust went through several changes in nomenclature, while the banned International Islamic Relief morphed into the Sanabil Al Khir Foundation. Conduits through which funds find their way to terrorists include established banking channels such as the Habib Bank in Pakistan. [Mint]
And here’s a report from Pakistan’s Daily Times today:
The government has ordered immediate closure of all offices of the Al-Rasheed Trust (ART) and Al-Akhter Trust (ART) throughout Pakistan after the United Nations Security Council declared them to have links to militant groups.
Sources said that the Interior Ministry had directed the four provinces, the chief secretaries of the Northern Areas (NAs) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) district administration to close the offices, schools, hospitals and other ongoing projects of Al-Rasheed Trust and Al-Akhter Trust in their respective areas. They have also been asked to detain the staff of the two trusts, impound their vehicles and confiscate equipment from their offices, said the sources.
Daily Times has learnt that five offices of these organisations are operating in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. They are also operating medical dispensaries in remote areas of the twin cities. Banks and other financial institutions have been asked to freeze the accounts of the two trusts and report to police if any person attempts transactions involving these accounts. The cyber crimes wing of the FIA has been instructed to hack the websites of these trusts, the sources said.Pakistani officials cite UN Security Council resolutions as the reason for the ban. Given that those resolutions date back to 2001 and 2005, it is almost certain that they were reacting to Narayanan’s comments in Munich. Is it the possibility of a deal with India that is causing Musharraf to react in such a manner?
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