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Hans India
12 hours ago
- Business
- Hans India
FATF slams 'brutal' Pahalgam terror attack, says it could not have occurred without 'money and means'
Paris/New Delhi: In a major development, the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Monday severely condemned the "brutal terrorist attack" in Pahalgam on April 22, stating that it could not have taken place without "money and the means" to move funds between terrorist supporters. "Terrorist attacks kill, maim and inspire fear around the world. The FATF notes with grave concern and condemns the brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April 2025. This, and other recent attacks, could not occur without money and the means to move funds between terrorist supporters," the FATF said in a statement on Monday after its plenary meeting. It mentioned further: "As highlighted by the FATF President at the recent No Money for Terror Conference in Munich, no single company, authority, or country can combat this challenge alone. We must be unified against the scourge of global terrorism. Because terrorists need to succeed only once to achieve their goal, while we have to succeed every time to prevent it." As many as 26 innocent tourists were massacred in the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. Investigations into the Pahalgam terror attack brought out the communication nodes of terrorists in and to Pakistan. A group calling itself The Resistance Front (TRF) - a front for the UN-proscribed Pakistani terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba - had claimed responsibility for the attack. India had given inputs about the TRF in the half-yearly report to the Monitoring Team of the United Nations' 1267 Sanctions Committee in May and November 2024, bringing out its role as a cover for Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Earlier too, in December 2023, India had informed the monitoring team about LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad operating through small terror groups such as the TRF. Pakistan's pressure to remove references to TRF in the April 25 UN Security Council Press Statement were highlighted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) during Operation Sindoor. Asserting that Pakistan has a history of misusing bailout packages for cross-border terrorism, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had called for putting the failed state back on the FATF grey list. "The state and non-state actors are two sides of the same coin in Pakistan, which became evident when designated terrorists were accorded funerals with state honours," Singh said earlier this month. The FATF, which develops and promotes policies to protect the global financial system against money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, has acknowledged in the past that India has suffered from the effects of terrorism consistently since its independence in 1947 and still faces a "disparate range of terrorism threats", categorised into different theatres. Speaking exclusively with IANS recently, several experts, including former diplomats and counterterrorism experts, backed a strong action against Pakistan, including by putting the country back on the grey list of the FATF for its continuous involvement in terror financing and backing global terror outfits. "Terror doesn't come out of the blue. It's something that has to be financed, structured and so forth. So, it's a long, concerted action that lies behind all this terror. Therefore, you need to do whatever you can globally, also regionally, to secure that we don't have financing that will flow into the streams of terror. It has to stop. Pakistan has to be put where they belong. So, they have to be put on that list, no doubt about that," Freddy Svane, the former Danish Ambassador to India, told IANS in an exclusive interview, earlier this month.
Indian Express
14 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Global terror financing body FATF condemns Pahalgam terror attack
The global money laundering and terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has condemned the 'brutal terrorist attack' in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025 and expressed 'grave concern' about such terror attacks. Without naming any country, the FATF in a statement released Monday also said that the Pahalgam attack and similar terror attacks could not have occurred without movement of funds between 'terrorist supporters'. 'Terrorist attacks kill, maim and inspire fear around the world. The FATF notes with grave concern and condemns the brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April 2025. This, and other recent attacks, could not occur without money and the means to move funds between terrorist supporters,' it said. The statement by the FATF comes after it held its plenary meeting last week. The money laundering and terror financing watchdog said it has identified gaps that need to be addressed through its mutual evaluations. It has enhanced its focus on the effectiveness of measures countries have put in place against terrorism, the FATF said, adding that it will soon release a comprehensive analysis of terrorist financing, compiling cases provided by its global network. Citing a recent statement by the FATF President at the recent No Money for Terror Conference in Munich, the FATF said, 'No single company, authority, or country can combat this challenge alone. We must be unified against the scourge of global terrorism. Because terrorists need to succeed only once to achieve their goal, while we have to succeed every time to prevent it.' The FATF plans to host a webinar to help public and private sectors understand the risks and stay alert to emerging threats, especially from terrorism. The Indian government had earlier stated its intent to take up terror funding charges against Pakistan to make a case for putting it back in the 'grey list' of FATF at the plenary meeting earlier this month. Pakistan was put in the grey list in June 2018, and faced 'increased monitoring' till it was removed in October 2022. When Pakistan was taken off the grey list in 2022, it was kept in the enhanced follow-up category by the FATF having been compliant with other recommendations but being 'partially compliant' with one recommendation (recommendation 38 of FATF) — a deficiency relating to the coverage of predicate offences. Originally, it was found to be non-compliant on recommendation 38 (R.38), the status for which was then changed to 'partially compliant' in the October 2022 review. In simpler terms, R.38 is regarding mutual legal assistance (MLA) for freezing and confiscation of proceeds of crime, mainly when crime has happened elsewhere and proceeds are in the relevant country (Pakistan in this case). Recommendation 38 of the FATF requires countries to have authority to take expeditious action in response to requests by other countries to identify, freeze and seize property laundered, proceeds from money laundering or predicate offences. Though Pakistan had issued guidelines for MLA, FATF had noted the deficiencies in its scheme for providing assistance to other countries. Aanchal Magazine is Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and reports on the macro economy and fiscal policy, with a special focus on economic science, labour trends, taxation and revenue metrics. With over 13 years of newsroom experience, she has also reported in detail on macroeconomic data such as trends and policy actions related to inflation, GDP growth and fiscal arithmetic. Interested in the history of her homeland, Kashmir, she likes to read about its culture and tradition in her spare time, along with trying to map the journeys of displacement from there. ... Read More
