Terror watchlist: Harkat founder slams US, calls it sour grapes

Says Washington is irked by his refusal to fight against China

ISLAMABAD: Harkatul Mujahideen founder Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who has been placed on the US terrorist watch-list, claimed on Tuesday that Washington had “indirectly offered its militants to fight against China” after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Khalil, who is believed to have hosted Osama bin Laden for a while, has been added to the US list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). Several sanctions were placed on him last month.

The US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen accused Fazl’s grouping of being a “violent terrorist organisation that trains militants and supports the activities of many of the best known and brutal extremist groups, including al Qaeda”. The group is believed to have been involved in fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and supporting the Afghan Taliban to overrun Kabul in the mid-90s.

Khalil, who now heads the Ansarul Ummah group, said the US has given allegations without proving them in any court. He said the US has added him to the terrorist list at a time when a “murderer of the Muslims has been elected as Prime Minister in India”.

Khalil said his organisations have “never been involved in terrorism” and the US slapped unjust sanctions on his group.

In early August, Khalil had stated that he was ready to send his militants to Palestine to fight Israelis. Just days after his statement, the State Department added his organisations to the lists of Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and SDGT.

“I was also called a Mujahid and hero for firing the American Stinger Missile [during the cold war against the Soviets]. I became a terrorist as I now talk about the rights of the oppressed Muslims of Palestine, Kashmir, Burma, Syria and Iraq,” he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2014.