US adds TTP to terrorism blacklist

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Wednesday added the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to its international terrorism blacklist, targeting the group and its leaders with financial and travel sanctions. “The group threatens US national security,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a notice published in the Federal Register. She designated the group a “foreign terrorist organisation” under US law. In addition, Clinton named the group and its top leaders, Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, “specially designated global terrorists”, a classification that imposes additional state and treasury department sanctions. “Each has committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,” she said in the notice. The move will freeze the group’s assets in US, makes it illegal for Americans to fund or support them and bars them from entering the US. US prosecutors have also charged Hakimullah for the plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December, the US Justice Department said on Wednesday. ap

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