US Freezes Assets of Lashkar's Fundraisers and Senior Commander, Gives Them Terrorist Tag

Washington: The United States on Tuesday froze the assets of three Pakistanis it has linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group behind the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

The State Department added Abdul Rehman al-Dakhil to its list of "specially designated global terrorists," saying he was a senior commander of the group.

Rehman, who till recently was LeT's divisional commander for the Jammu region, is a longtime member of the US designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT). He was an operational leader for LeT's attacks in India between 1997 and 2001.

In 2004, Dakhil was captured in Iraq by UK forces, then held in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan until his transfer to Pakistan in 2014. After his release from Pakistani custody, Dakhil returned to work for the LeT. In 2016, Dakhil was the LeT divisional commander for the Jammu region. As of early 2018, Dakhil remained a senior commander in the LeT.

The designation seek to deny Dakhil the resources to plan and carry out terrorist attacks, the State Department said in a statement.

The US Treasury targeted Hameed ul Hassan and Abdul Jabbar, who it said were responsible for funneling money to Lashkar-e-Taiba and paying salaries to its members.

"Treasury’s designations not only aim to expose and shut down Lashkar-e Tayyiba’s financial network, but also to curtail its ability to raise funds to carry out violent terrorist attacks," Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement, using an alternate spelling of the group's name.

The designation means all property belonging to the men subject to US jurisdiction are blocked and Americans are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Army of the Pure, is an anti-Indian militant group with historical ties to Pakistan’s top spy agencies. It has been accused of orchestrating numerous attacks, including the 2008 assault in Mumbai that killed 166 people, six of them Americans.