Blacklisted: UN orders global sanctions against Haqqani network

Move welcomed by Kabul, dismissed by Taliban, Haqqanis.

UNITED NATIONS/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: The UN Security Council on Monday ordered global sanctions against the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, a move welcomed by Kabul but dismissed as meaningless by the Taliban and Haqqanis themselves.

The outfit and its chief suicide attack organiser Qari Zakir were added to the UN’s Afghanistan-Taliban sanctions list. This means nations must apply an assets freeze and travel ban on Zakir and seize any assets belonging to the network, as well as impose an arms embargo.

The US had already put the Haqqani network on its terror blacklist in September, with the Pentagon saying the group represented a “significant threat” to national security, and added Zakir to its list of terrorist suspects on Monday.

The UN designation said that the group was linked to al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and a string of militant groups in Pakistan, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Crackdown underway

Pakistan on Tuesday said it is already cracking down on the Haqqani network and does not need to impose extra measures following the group’s addition to the UN’s blacklist.

“The three elements of the ban – arms embargo, asset freeze and travel ban – are all already in place in Pakistan,” Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told Reuters.

“Which banned militant can openly travel in Pakistan? We have also checked on financing and other transfers. There is no problem,” Kaira said.

Afghanistan welcomes move

Afghanistan welcomed the United Nations’ decision and said it would not negotiate for peace with the group, the presidential spokesman said.

Aimal Faizi, President Hamid Karzai’s chief spokesman, said Kabul backed the decision, but that it should have been made a long time ago.

“We don’t want any kind of deal with the Haqqanis, who were behind many of the attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians including women and children,” Faizi told Reuters.

Militants mock

The Haqqani network, however, mocked the United Nations Security Council’s decision saying the UN is “not an independent forum, but instead works as a servant of the Americans.”

“The decision has once again showed that the UN is a slave of the Americans and will follow what the Americans and its Western allies order it,” Haqqani network’s spokesperson Muzzamil told The Express Tribune by phone from an undisclosed location.

He ridiculed the announcement to freeze assets, saying the Haqqanis have no money anywhere in the world and its assets are “our Mujahideen” who are fighting to expel foreign troops.

(WITH INPUT FROM TAHIR KHAN IN ISLAMABAD)

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2012.