My sister just asked me, “Pakistan ko problem kya hai?” and I had no answer. Starting with their demand to form a separate nation based on religion to illegally taking over parts of India, I have no idea what Pakistan’s problem is.
The cherry on the cake is that they sponsor terrorism not just against India, but against a lot of other countries. It is ironic how a blacklisted country has to carry out a surgical strike on a greylisted country to exfiltrate its men.
Why Did Iran Conduct A Surgical Strike On Pakistan?
About two and a half years ago, in 2018, a terrorist organization called Jaish ul-Adl kidnapped 12 men of the elite Revolutionary Guard of Iran. Jaish ul-Adl claims to be fighting against the Iranian government in order to defend the rights of Baloch Sunnis.
In a surgical strike, Iranian forces rescued two of those guards. “A successful operation was carried out last Tuesday night to rescue two kidnapped border guards who were taken as hostages by the Jaish ul-Adl organization two and a half years ago”, an official IRGC statement said.
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A Little Backdrop
An international organization called Financial Action Task Force (UN FATF) keeps a check on money laundering and terror financing around the world. It maintains two lists: a blacklist and a grey list.
Currently, Iran and North Korea are the only blacklisted countries. Pakistan has been on FATF’s grey list since 2018. They can come off the grey list, but who are we kidding? That isn’t something we’d see for another hundred years probably.
In the last meeting, FATF had given Pakistan a few tasks to work on. Failure to complete FATF’s tasks leads to staying on the grey list or even being pushed up to the blacklist.
Pakistan Seems To Be Playing Hide And Seek With The Black List
It is funny how conveniently, before every UN meeting, Pakistan is able to get hold of terrorists to show that they are working on the tasks assigned to them to curb terrorism on their land, and as soon as the threat of global sanctions fades away, Pakistani courts let go off these terrorists.
Evading full sanction impositions has become second nature to Imran Khan and his government. India has often tried providing evidence to push Pakistan to the blacklist, but our neighbor always seems to manage to secure enough votes to escape it.
As if this wasn’t enough, Pakistan had the audacity to try and prove India as a terror-sponsoring state. Quite an outrageous move. I hope all my readers remember the idiom “ulta chor kotwal ko daante”. Yes, those Hindi classes are going to be of use today.
Thanks to another very friendly neighbor of ours – China, who is the current chief of the Asia-Pacific group of FATF, Pakistan always gets a way out. In fact, China urges the entire world to encourage Pakistan for its visible progress made in fighting terrorism.
A volley of emojis and memes are flying past my brain at this point. Pakistan has failed to complete 8 of the 27 tasks given by the UN. The state has failed to take proper action against some very famous names on the global list of terrorists.
To name a few, Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim, Zakiru Rahman Lakhvi along with many others from the Taliban, al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, are still strolling around freely in Pakistan, plotting attacks.
Is Iran’s surgical strike not enough proof that terrorist outfits are still enjoying Pak government’s support? Are the years of attacks and infiltrations on Indian soil not enough for the list to get darker?
Enough second chances have been given, and yet there’s hardly been any improvement. I believe it is high time that Pakistan goes up on the blacklist and faces more severe sanctions.
Image Sources: Google Images
Sources: The Diplomat, The Print, India Today, Al Jazeera
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This post is tagged under: india pakistan wars, pakistan fatf grey list, un sanctions, global terrorism, Global Assessment Report, first followup report, terrorism in pakistan, balakot terrorism attack, india’s diplomatic win, should pakistan really be moved to black list, Financial Action Task Force, iran north korea blacklisted
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