The US blocked $63 million in funds of designated terrorist groups, including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, in 2019 as part of its crackdown on foreign terror organisations, according to the treasury department.
The US blocked $342,000 in funds of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), $1,725 of the Jaish-e Mohammed (JeM) and $45,798 of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-al-Islami, the US Department of Treasury said in an annual report released on Thursday.
All the three groups are Pakistan-based terror outfits. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-al-Islami is a jihad group operating primarily in Kashmir.
Another Pakistan-based Kashmir-centric terrorist outfit, Hizbul Mujahideen, had $4,321 blocked by the US in 2019 as against $2,287 the previous year, the report said.
For the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the US blocked $5,067 in 2019 as against a paltry $318 in 2018.
The Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the leading US government agency responsible for implementing sanctions against the assets of international terrorist organisations and terrorism-supporting countries.
The federal body implements these sanctions as part of its general mission to administer and enforce economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals.
According to the report, in 2019, the US blocked $63 million in funds of nearly 70 designated terrorist organisations, with the highest being $3.9 million of the al-Qaeda group. While the total blocked funds in 2018 was $46 million, that of the al-Qaeda was $6.4 million that year.
The list includes the Haqqani network ($26,546). It is a significant increase from $3,626 in 2018.
The US blocked $580,811 in funds of the Sri Lanka-based Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the figure having remained the same for two years—2018 and 2019.
The report indicated a significant drop in Taliban funds being blocked by the US from $296,805 in 2018 to $59,065 in 2019.
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According to the report, the combination of sanctions programmes targeting international terrorists and terrorist organisations with those targeting terrorism-supporting governments constitute a wide-ranging assault on international terrorism and its supporters and financiers.
The US also blocked $200.19 million in funds of countries designated as sponsors of terrorism—Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea.
