Pakistan Hails Decision To Add Pakistani Taliban Leader To UN Sanctions List

The Pakistani government has welcomed a United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) decision to add the leader of the Tehrik-e Taliban militant group (TTP) to a sanctions list of individuals and entities subject to an assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.

The sanctions against TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud “are being implemented by Pakistan in compliance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and we hope that other countries will also follow suit,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on July 17.

A sanctions committee of the Security Council on July 17 designated Mehsud for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of entities associated” with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Mehsud was named the TTP leader in June 2018 following the death of the group’s former leader, Maulana Fazlullah, in a U.S. strike in Afghanistan.

Under Mehsud’s leadership, TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks across Pakistan.

The group was designated by the Security Council in 2011 for its association with Al-Qaeda.

The United States designated Masud as a global terrorist in September last year.