The ongoing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meetings in Paris are expected to deliberate on state sponsorship as a means to fund and support terrorism, including the financing of banned outfits and their proxies operating in Pakistan, said sources in law-enforcement agencies.
The FATF week started on Monday, and its Plenary will be held from Wednesday to Friday. Representatives of over 200 jurisdictions and observers are attending the meetings.
“Over 130 terror entities and individuals based in, or linked to, Pakistan are listed on the United Nations Security Council’s ISIL/Al-Qaeda Sanctions List. The Resistance Force, a proxy of Pakistan-based banned outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the gruesome killings in Pahalgam on April 22, has also been designated by the United States as a global terror outfit,” an official said.
In June, the FATF issued a statement condemning the Pahalgam terror attack, stating that it could not “occur without money and the means to move funds between terrorist supporters”. In July, it released a report, “Comprehensive update on terrorist financing risks”, which, for the first time, recognised state sponsorship as a longstanding terror-financing threat to global peace and security.
State sponsorship includes providing direct funding, logistics, materials, or training.
Indian security agencies have gathered inputs showing that the LeT, under the front of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, has raised funds to rebuild its headquarters in Muridke, which was destroyed by the Indian Air Force on May 7.
In May, the Pakistani government had announced that it would finance reconstruction of the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed facilities. It allocated four crore Pakistani rupees to the LeT for its headquarters Markaz Taiba, while the estimated cost of its complete reconstruction was likely to exceed 15 crore Pakistani rupees. Therefore, according to the agencies, the outfit raised funds on the pretext of “relief for flood victims”.
State sponsorship includes providing direct funding, logistics, materials, or training.
