In light of the upcoming October 21-23 plenary and subgroup meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), it is understood that Pakistan has engaged a major lobbying firm on Capitol Hill to push forward a narrative that favors Islamabad with the Trump administration and get bailed out of the club of nations on the “gray list.”
With all-weather friend and iron brother China, Ottoman Empire Renaissance Turkey, and Malaysia increasingly radicalized behind Pakistan, there is no chance that Islamabad will be blacklisted by the FATF, as only three of all 39 member states must block the proposal. Islamabad, however, requires the support of at least 12 of the 39 member states to remove its name from the gray list and this will largely depend on the approach that the United States takes in the Paris plenary.
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According to diplomats based in the US and Paris, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry has hired Houston-based lobbying firm Linden Strategies to push its case before the Trump administration. The lobbying firm’s website describes it as a “government relations and business development firm providing strategic analysis and advice to national and international clients, including sovereign nations.” The firm’s specialization is in government relations, strategic communication, business consulting and political consulting with clients around the world.
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Apparently, the narrative that Pakistan wants the Houston firm to communicate to the Trump administration is as follows:
■ The main leadership of the global Taliban terrorist groups, the Haqqani network, al Qaeda and Daesh are based in Afghanistan and have sufficient funds. This means that Islamabad has disavowed the Taliban shura and Haqqani network operating from Quetta, through the Bolan and Peshawar pass, through the Khyber pass, and there is no hand of the deep state of Pakistan in al Qaeda and Daesh or the called the Islamic state in Afghanistan. . The fact is that the head of the Haqqani network, Sirajiuddin Haqqani, is the sword arm of the Taliban as their deputy leader, while Maulvi Hibatullah Akhunzada is a cleric.
■ Although Pakistan claims that Muridke-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is still missing, terrorist financing cases have been reported against the majority of the identified leaders of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e- foundation. Insaniat. The fact is that the head of LeT, Hafiz Saeed, the main defendant in the 11/26 attacks, handed over the reins of the outlaw group to his son Talha, who is instigating violence and in contact with sleeper cells through the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu. and Kashmir.
■ The Imran Khan government claims that the Bahawalpur-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) follows a unique operating model based on the Afghan war. While its key leaders are not in Pakistan, the group operates through its supporters. The fact is that JeM’s emir Masood Azhar is seriously ill and bedridden in Bahawalpur. His brother Mufti Rauf Asghar now operates the group with training camps both in Pakistan and across the Durand Line in Afghanistan. JeM’s main operator in Kashmir is Kasim Jan, accused of Pathankot attack in 2016, who receives instructions from Asghar. JeM is a family business whose main product is terrorism.
■ Pakistan claims that it has successfully convicted four appointees and two other senior leaders, and terrorist financing cases have been initiated against 11 appointees (61 cases) and eight other leaders (37 cases). However, the fact is, according to the 2019 FATF mutual assessment report, there were 66 organizations and approximately 7,600 people outlawed under UN Security Council resolution 1373, which was passed to prevent and suppress funding. of terrorist acts after the September 11 attacks.
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Despite hiring a major lobbying firm and offering its influence with the Taliban to the US In reducing violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan will not be able to escape the gray list this time, as their mutual evaluation report 2019 leaves much to be desired and still remains to be desired. Comply with the 27 points of the FATF action plan from the past.
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