Pakistan is as serious about countering terrorist financing as China is about respecting Uighur Muslims’ human rights (incidentally, that genocidal tragedy is something Pakistan doesn’t seem to mind).
Which is to say, putting it politely, that Pakistan is not serious about countering terrorist financing.
This bears note. On Thursday, the international Financial Action Task Force will begin considering Pakistan’s progress in addressing numerous recommendations. The findings are hugely important to Pakistan in that the FATF wields significant influence over how international banking institutions approach nations with terrorist financing concerns. Where nations are blacklisted by the FATF, or, as is the present case with Pakistan, graylisted, they suffer impediment to smooth capital flows, foreign investment complications, and generally higher banking fees. Pakistan is pushing hard for the FATF to ratify that it has met benchmarks and should be removed from the graylist.
The Biden administration must exert all necessary pressure on the FATF and U.S. allies within the organization to ensure that this does not happen. The facts demand that Pakistan remain on the graylist.
A September FATF report showed that Pakistan remains highly deficient on terrorist financing concerns. For example, while Pakistan has introduced some new regulations, it completely lacks enforcement procedures. Islamabad has no interest in confronting the patronage relationships that sustain dozens of jihadist groups across its territory. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan offers rhetorical fastballs, but innocent Pakistani Muslims pay dearest for his failings.
Were Pakistan to be removed from the graylist, terrorists the world over would celebrate.
India, America’s rising strategic partner, which has suffered greatly from Pakistani terrorism, would question the power of Washington’s influence. The Pakistani government would continue its long-standing tradition of simultaneously condemning terrorists and enabling them. With a few exceptions, pursuit of this tradition is a dark art form in Islamabad.
Take the Pakistan Supreme Court’s recent freeing of Ahmad Omar Sheikh, the killer of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Pakistan had already allowed most involved in that 2002 terrorist atrocity to escape justice. But this is something else. Recognizing the Supreme Court’s unhelpful timing in releasing Sheikh so close to the FATF deliberations, Khan’s government appealed its decision. The reaction of Supreme Court Justice Omar Ata Bandyal said it all. Rejecting the appeal, the judge instead ordered that Sheikh “be moved to a comfortable residential environment, something like a rest house where he can live a normal life.”
And Pakistan suggests it is serious about countering terrorist financing? Give me a break. The FATF shouldn’t simply keep Pakistan on the graylist. It should warn Islamabad that absent rapid and wide-ranging reform, blacklisting is coming.
