Haqqani Network asks US to ‘hurry up’ on the Foreign Terrorist Organisation designation
Pakistan Army’s wholly owned subsidiary, the Haqqani Network has asked US to designate it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) soon. A plea to this effect was made by the Network’s Chief Finance Officer Mullah Somar in Islamabad today. It may be remembered that recently, the US House of Representatives had passed a bill through voice vote to force the state department to decide within a month whether the Haqqani Network meets the criteria for the designation.
Explaining the logic behind the move, Somar said “Look US is not a source of funds for our activities. It is instead the Pakistani army and the ISI who fund us right from the donkey saddles to AK 47s. A major parameter that Pakistani army uses to determine if a group is worthy of its largesse is the US or Indian designation. If either one of these countries brands a Pakistani group as a terror organisation, Pakistani army opens a new account in HSBC for the group and releases a huge corpus within just 13 days. In addition, all daily expenses, per diem for onsite terrorists, arms and ammo procurement and commando training are all handled by them jointly with ISI. They fund everything.They even keep my mother-in-law away from me. So it is very important for my network to get this special designation”.
Somar also said that he was ready to meet US senators to request them to hurry the process. “The entire senior management of Haqqani Network is currently awaiting this tag eagerly. On our last earnings call, a Pakistani analyst had asked us by when the FTO tag will be given to the network and we had said that it will be done this quarter. We have to stand by this commitment and US is not helping the cause by delaying the whole process. This is why I hate democracies. It takes them forever even to pass bills that are beneficial to them. This Hillary Clinton is no good,” he lamented.
He claimed that though Haqqani Network was managed by the Pakistani army, the latter was not funding it completely. “There are activities which are run by us with our own funds. But we want to embark on a major M&A spree to grow inorganically in the coming months and are actively looking for smaller terror groups to acquire. But the whole thing depends on US designating us as a FTO and Pakistani army releasing more funds after the designation,” Somar said.
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| Mulah Somar pointing to his mother-in-law's residence |
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| Senior management of Haqqani network share a joke |
He claimed that though Haqqani Network was managed by the Pakistani army, the latter was not funding it completely. “There are activities which are run by us with our own funds. But we want to embark on a major M&A spree to grow inorganically in the coming months and are actively looking for smaller terror groups to acquire. But the whole thing depends on US designating us as a FTO and Pakistani army releasing more funds after the designation,” Somar said.
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