Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Qari Hussain, leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been designated a terrorist by the United States State Department.

In a statement Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Hussain had been designated under Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and their supporters. Ms. Clinton said that the application of the order would ?help stem the flow of finances to Hussain by blocking all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Hussain has an interest and prohibiting all transactions by U.S. persons with Hussain.?

The TTP itself was previously designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under the same executive order.

Commenting on Hussain?s background State Department officials noted that he was one of TTP?s top lieutenants and also served as the trainer and organiser of the group?s suicide bombers. Further highlighting Hussain?s links to suicide bomber recruitment officials explained that he had ?gained particular notoriety for his heavy recruitment of children.?

Describing him as the ?deadliest of all TTP?s commanders,? the Secretary?s statement said that Hussain and the TTP had claimed responsibility for numerous lethal suicide bombings throughout Pakistan, including the November 2009 car bomb in Peshawar, two attacks on Pakistani government offices in Lahore, a September 2010 attack on a rally in Quetta that killed at least 54 people, a second September 2010 attack on a Shia procession in Lahore, which killed 33, and a September 2010 car bomb in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, that killed at least 17 people, including four children.

The State Department also linked Hussain to Jordanian militant Humam Muhammad Abu Mulal al-Balawi. Al-Balawi, who has been described as a ?triple agent? was responsible for a December 2009 suicide mission, in a remote outpost of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Khost, Afghanistan, that killed seven senior CIA officers.

In a video released after the bombing al-Balawi purportedly claimed that he had carried out the attack in retaliation for the killing of TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone strike in August 2009.

In comments following the announcement of Hussain?s designation Daniel Benjamin, the State Department?s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, said, ?Today?s designation of Qari Hussain is in response to the wanton acts of violence he has perpetrated against the people of Pakistan and the U.S.?

He added that the operations that Hussain had sponsored had a destabilising effect on the region and his use of children to carry out suicide bombings was "abhorrent."