Pakistan has frozen the accounts of 5,000 suspected militants, taking about $3 million out of their pockets, but Islamabad could still come under scrutiny at a crucial June meeting of an international watchdog that tracks terror financing.
Analysts and government officials say political foot-dragging and sympathetic supporters throughout Pakistan makes it difficult to cut off the money supply to banned militant groups.
Next month in Spain, the Financial Action Task Force will update its assessment of “high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions,” Alexandra Wijmenga-Daniel of the task force’s communications department said in an email. She did not offer any specifics.
The 35-nation intergovernmental organization was formed in 1989 to combat money laundering. After 9/11, it also took on the role of fighting the financing of terror. Getting on the task force’s “black list” could hurt a country’s ability to borrow, if its banking system is considered a money laundering haven.
In 2015, Pakistan was exempted from its scrutiny after a similar session applauded the country’s progress in tackling both money laundering and terror financing.
However, concerns have been raised by the resurrection of banned groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba under new names. Also worrying is the relative ease with which groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed appear to operate, openly running Islamic seminaries and fundraising.
“The government has to find a way to completely ban individuals and groups [suspected of militant activity] from operating. This is the only way,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.
Still, Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) has begun the painstaking work of devising anti-terror financing policies, freezing bank accounts of known terrorist groups and identifying those that have resurfaced with different names, according to its director, Ishan Ghani.
NACTA was established in 2013 through an act of Parliament; four years later, Ghani says it is “still in its formative stage.”
When he took over NACTA 18 months ago, it had a staff of only 25, including drivers, despite a government promise to bring in about 800 people with the job of curbing money laundering and terror financing. Ghani blamed the slow start on a lack of government commitment and jurisdictional battles within the bureaucracy.
Since taking over, Ghani has increased his staff to 100, gotten a budget of 1.8 billion rupees ($15.7 million) and is updating a list of individuals suspected of extremism. He also has devised a sweeping policy on which new, stricter laws can be enacted.
He said its current lists are outdated, with several suspected militants either dead or in jail, and the job of identifying individuals suspected of links to extremists rests with Pakistan’s four provinces.
The names have been slow in coming, Ghani added, blaming outdated systems, political foot-dragging and a lack of focus on counterterrorism despite military and police operations against suspected hideouts — particularly in Pakistan’s tribal regions that border Afghanistan.
Politicians have been reluctant to shut down some of the reconstituted militant groups because of the local support they enjoy and the votes they bring in. Other groups, whose stated purpose is to wage war with neighbor India over the disputed Kashmir region, survive because of their suspected links to Pakistan’s military and intelligence.
