Islamabad - Pakistan on Monday imposed a ban on the leading
organization of the local Taliban after it claimed responsibility for
last week's twin suicide attacks at a military-run arms and
ammunition factory where more than 80 civilian employees died and
around 100 were injured.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is an umbrella group of several
militant organizations. It was created in 2007 and a fearsome
militant commander in the country's tribal areas bordering
Afghanistan, Baitullah Mehsud, was chosen as its first head.
'TTP has been declared as a terrorist organization and the
Interior Ministry has issued a notification to ban it,' said Rehman
Malik, security adviser to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
'The law-enforcement agencies have been directed to monitor the
activities and movements of those people who are somehow linked with
it and take action against them as per the law,' he added.
Malik said the country's central bank, State Bank of Pakistan, has
been asked to collect information from various state-owned and
commercial banks about the accounts of this organization and freeze
them. Other assets of the organization will also be frozen.
TTP head Mehsud is also alleged to have ordered the assassination
of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto in a gun-suicide attack late last year
in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Bhutto's party now leads the
coalition government.
Three other smaller organizations - Lashkar-i-Islam, Ansarul
Islam and Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue - which are not
affiliated with TTP but follow one way or the other its philosophy,
were also banned. All the three groupings are active in Khyber tribal
district.
Some other Taliban groups which are not associated with
any of the banned four organizations are deemed as pro-government
Taliban, which focus solely on carrying out cross-border attacks on
US-led international forces in Afghanistan.
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