May 13, 2010: US Still Will Not Blacklist Pakistani Militant Groups Fighting US Forces in Afghanistan

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) urges the US State Department to blacklist the Tehrik-i-Taliban (also known as the Pakistani Taliban) and the Haqqani network, but this does not happen. Both the Tehrik-i-Taliban and the Haqqani network are militant groups closely linked with the Taliban, but are mainly based in Pakistan. Feinstein, the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claims that the US blacklists foreign groups that engage in terrorism and threaten US citizens and US national security, and both groups “clearly meet” the criteria to be blacklisted. Agence France-Presse reports that the US “has hesitated” to blacklist these groups “in part out of consideration for relations with Pakistan, where anti-Americanism runs rife and whose government is keen to be seen as fighting the Taliban on its own terms.” The Haqqani network is believed to have taken part in a number of terrorist attacks (see January 14, 2008, April 27, 2008, July 7, 2008, December 30, 2009), and in 2009, the US put a $5 million bounty on leader Sirajuddin Haqqani (see March 25, 2009). The Haqqani network is also believed to be a strategic asset of the Pakistani government (see May 2008). Tehrik-i-Taliban was recently implicated in a failed bombing in Times Square in New York City. [Agence France-Presse, 5/13/2010]