Washington
\nThe Trump administration on Friday slapped sanctions on six Taliban and the Haqqani network leaders and pressed Pakistan to work with the US to deny<\/p>\n
militants safe havens on its soil and aggressively target their fund-raising activities.<\/p>\n
The Haqqani network has carried out a number of kidnappings and attacks against US interests in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
It has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul that killed<\/p>\n
58 people.<\/p>\n
In a scathing attack on Pakistan, US President Donald Trump, in his first tweet of 2018, had accused it of \u201clies and deceit\u201d and of fooling US leaders while<\/p>\n
sheltering terrorists.<\/p>\n
The latest action by the US was taken against four Taliban leaders–Abdul Samad Sani, Abdul Qadeer Basir Abdul Baseer, Hafiz Mohammed Popalzai and<\/p>\n
Maulawi Inayatullah–and two Haqqani leaders Faqir Muhammad and Gula Khan Hamidi.<\/p>\n
All six militants have been designated as global terrorists by the US Department of Treasury.<\/p>\n
As a result, all property and interests in property of these persons subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and the US citizens are prohibited from engaging in<\/p>\n
transactions with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are targeting six individuals related to the Taliban or Haqqani network who have been involved in attacks on coalition troops, smuggling of individuals, or<\/p>\n
financing these terrorist groups,\u201d said Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.<\/p>\n
The action supports Trump\u2019s South Asia Strategy by disrupting terrorist organisations and publicly exposing individuals who facilitated their activities, he said.<\/p>\n
Mandelker said: \u201cThe Pakistani government must work with us to deny the Taliban and the Haqqani network sanctuary and to aggressively target their terrorist<\/p>\n
fund raising.\u201d<\/p>\n
In early 2017, Sani sent weapons to Taliban members who later attacked an Afghan National Police (ANP) patrol, killing an ANP officer and wounding two<\/p>\n
others.<\/p>\n
In 2015, Sani was a member of the \u2018Taliban Senior Shura\u2019 and had received funding to purchase supplies and ammunition for Taliban commanders and fighters<\/p>\n
engaged in combat in Afghanistan. He was personally involved in appointing special representatives to serve as Taliban fundraisers abroad.<\/p>\n
Sani served as the Taliban\u2019s deputy finance commissioner, and also as the governor for the Afghan Central Bank during the Taliban regime.<\/p>\n
Last year, Baseer provided Taliban commanders with tens of thousands of dollars for attacks in Kunar province of Afghanistan. In 2016, he hosted meetings<\/p>\n
with leaders of the Taliban to convince them to support then supreme leader of the Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur. He served as the treasurer for the<\/p>\n
Taliban in Peshawar.<\/p>\n
He was the financial advisor to the Taliban\u2019s Peshawar Military Council and head of the Taliban\u2019s Peshawar Financial Commission in 2010. He personally<\/p>\n
delivers money from the Taliban\u2019s leadership Shura to Taliban groups in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
During the Taliban regime, Baseer was the general consul of the Taliban in Islamabad and according to the UN, he also served as the Taliban regime\u2019s military<\/p>\n
attach\u00e9 at the Taliban embassy in Islamabad.<\/p>\n
Popalzai has served for several years at the Taliban Finance Commission and was in-charge of the Taliban\u2019s finances for southern and western Afghanistan,<\/p>\n
including Qandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, Herat, Zabul, Uruzgan and Farah provinces.<\/p>\n
In mid-2011, the Taliban was paid 10 million euros for the release of hostages it was holding.<\/p>\n
The Taliban arranged for money to be deposited into an account at an Afghan bank in Qandahar. The account, which ultimately belonged to Ishakzai, was held in<\/p>\n
a false name.<\/p>\n
Inayatullah has been a Taliban military affairs member in charge of multiple Afghan provinces, and was a member of the Taliban Peshawar Shura. In 2016, he<\/p>\n
operated as the overall Taliban member responsible for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Kabul.<\/p>\n
He received a large sum of money from a contact and gave it to a courier to provide it to al-Qaeda militants.<\/p>\n
For several years, Faqir has been a major fundraiser for the Haqqani network. He was designated for assisting in, sponsoring, or providing financial, material or<\/p>\n
technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, the Haqqani network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington The Trump administration on Friday slapped sanctions on six Taliban and the Haqqani network leaders and pressed Pakistan to work with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19960,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions\/19960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}