Pakistan

UN splits al Qaeda and Taliban on sanctions list

A clear message to Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al Qaeda: UN envoy to US.

Afp June 18, 2011

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Friday split the international sanctions regime for the Taliban and al Qaeda to encourage the Taliban to join reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan.

The council unanimously passed two resolutions which set up one new blacklist of individuals and organizations accused of links to al Qaeda and a second for those linked to the Taliban militia.

The two groups have until now been handled by the same sanctions committee. But the international powers wanted to separate them to highlight the divide between al Qaeda's global agenda and the Taliban's focus on Afghanistan.

The sanctions committee was set up in 1999 when al Qaeda had major bases in the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until they were driven out of power by US led forces.

The new resolutions, 1988 and 1989, send "a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution," said Susan Rice, UN envoy for the United States, which led the campaign for the division.

Peter Wittig, Germany's UN ambassador who heads the Security Council anti-terrorism sanctions committee, said the resolution sends "a strong signal of trust and support for the peace and reconciliation efforts of the government of Afghanistan."

US President Barack Obama has set July as the target date to start cutting the 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this month there could be talks with the Taliban before the end of the year.

The new sanctions regime for those who pose "a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan" gives the Afghan government a say in the listing and delisting of accused militants. An ombudsman also gets extra powers to recommend delistings.

The Security Council will have to vote unanimously to keep a person on a sanctions list if the ombudsman has recommended the name be taken off.

Wittig called the changes a "major advance."

While all 15 council measures backed the resolutions, India and Russia said there must be non-easing up in the international fight against terrorism. "There must be no slackening of efforts to fight both al Qaeda and the Taliban," said Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin.

Separately, the Security Council's sanctions committee is considering taking about 20 former Taliban commanders off the UN blacklist.

The Afghan government had originally advanced about 50 names but withdrew many because it did not have the paperwork to back up the case, diplomats said. A decision on those still waiting will be taken in mid-July.

The remaining list includes five members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's Higher Council of Peace, which he set up last year to seek peace talks with Afghanistan's former hard-line rulers.

One of them, Mohammed Qalamuddin, was once head of the Taliban's feared religious police.

There are 135 Taliban names facing sanctions. The 254 long al Qaeda list was cut by two this week following recommendations from an ombudsman.

One Sudanese-Canadian, Abousfian Abdelrazik, 49, went to the Security Council with a delegation of Canadian civic and labor groups in a bid to get his name taken off the al Qaeda list.

Abdelrazik has been on the UN list since 2006 and subject to an asset freeze and travel ban. Detained after travelling to Khartoum on what he said was a trip to see his ailing mother in 2003, he has denied any links to al Qaeda.

"Since my name has been on that list no one has given me any evidence about what I am supposed to have done wrong," he said after meeting sanctions committee officials in New York.

COMMENTS (4)

safir | 13 years ago | Reply hahahahahaha tomato has white color not red no no other person said it has pink color no no other person said it has rosi color what a u.n.o

Qasim | 13 years ago | Reply @asghar jamal The disease is imperialism. All western superpowers have had it, dating back the the Roman empire. The Spanish had it, British had it, French had it We have the world's biggest aggressor(the USA) - they have attacked over FIFTY countries in the past sixty years(since WW2), mostly poor 3rd world countries. Countries all over the map, from Latin America, to Africa, Asia. The scale of their atrocities is hard to describe. With lofty talk of humanity and liberty, they kill by the millions. They have duplicitous standards - when it's them, it's alright to fire off nuclear bombs on cities full of civilian non-combatants. Millions of people incinerated, children, babies, everyone. It's alright for them to use nukes on civilians, but no-one else even has the right to have nuclear weapons, even as a deterrent against nuclear blackmail. The CIA has been known to fund many terrorist groups all over the world, to achieve their agendas. Billions of people in 3rd world countries work all day for next to nothing, to make shoes for nike and other products for other western mega-corporations. This is a new form of slavery, where these people can't afford to be sick or take a day off or complain, or they're easily replaced by the horde of desperate people, desperate to scratch a living. And all this exploitation just so their mega-corps can boast higher stock prices. They have a powerful media, that results in the mass majority being utterly uninformed and illiterate. The only "facts" they know are the ones they are fed by the media, and most people never bother to do their own research, they don't know about stuff happening right in front of their eyes. Their media creates bogeymen that their government can point to, to justify their warmongering. They're spewing venom against Islam and Muslims these days("towel-heads" or "rag-heads"), but Soviet Russia was their target before - alot of propaganda directed against them, teaching a whole generation to hate and fear "Godless Communists"(commies). And before that, the "Jerries"(Germans) were responsible for all the wrongs in the world. The "gooks"(Vietnamese) were vilified for a while too. Back when they were slaughtering Native Americans in the country the Native Americans had inhabited for thousands of years, they berated and villified them as well, the colloqual title they were referred to by, was "injuns". The US and it's western allies aren't negotiating with the Afghans out of kindness. The US has had it's butt kicked, the Afghans are fiercely independant and have a history of resisting all invaders. The world consists of nearly 200 countries, and outside the 8 or 9 1st world countries, most of the world is "homophobic" - homosexuality is not an acceptable thing in our culture. We do not feel that the west has the right to dictate what's right and what's wrong for us.

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Moise | 13 years ago | Reply As per Brzezinski foreign policy Taliban will be played against Pakistan(Understand they never were anti-Pakistan, the one promoted in media was TTP). That is why you see peace talks, reconciliation and getting off the list. Unfortunately nor our politicians, intellectuals, media, opposition understand this.

asghar jamal | 13 years ago | Reply why is this non-existent distinction being made?? they both are the different symptoms of the same disease,that is, islamic extremsim.Both alqaeda and taliban are bararic religious fascists who'll kill as many people as they want to impose their medieval,homophobic,misogynistic mindset on the rest of the world.These religious barbarians have to be fought,not negotiated with.

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