Pakistan Violates FATF Redline, Lets JeM Raise Funds For Jihad; May Enter Grey List Again

New Delhi: If reports are to be believed, the UN-banned international terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed actively sought donations for jihad during Eid celebrations in Peshawar and other places. Pakistan reportedly violated a critical red line set by the FATF, the international agency that monitors the financing of terrorism, which removed Pakistan from the graylist last year.

Residents claim that in April of this year, Jaish-e-Mohammed members were seen at Bagh-e-Naran on the outskirts of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa asking money for jihad in Palestine and Kashmir. Since then, a number of Twitter users from Pakistan have noted that extremist groups were apparently doing comparable fundraising campaigns in other areas. Many of them claimed that these fundraising events had been commonplace in many mosques, occasionally with the protection of security guards. Other tweets from terrorist organisations were shown by The European Times to be openly raising money in Karachi mosques.

Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Eid fundraising demonstrates that Pakistan has not kept its FATF agreement to cut back on funding for terrorism. According to European Times, the FATF rejected to remove Pakistan off the graylist in June 2021, citing a lack of action against terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the JeM, and other similar organisations.

In its statement before the FATF, Pakistan asserted that the JeM had been outlawed since 2002, just a few months after the group’s 2001 attack on the New Delhi Parliament House.