No group is responsible for killing more Americans in Afghanistan than the Haqqani Network.
Via Daily Beast:
The White House designated a Taliban ally as a terrorist organization in 2012. Seventeen months later, though, none of the network’s assets have been frozen or blocked.
In the last 17 months since the U.S. government financially blacklisted the Haqqani Network, one of the deadliest insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not a single dollar associated with the group has been blocked or frozen, according to U.S. officials and one of the Congressman who oversees the Treasury Department’s financial war on terrorism.
But it’s not just the Haqqanis—an ally today in the Taliban’s fight against U.S. troops and the Afghan government—who seem to have been spared from America’s economic attacks. According to a Treasury Department letter written in late November, not a single dollar been seized from the Pakistani Taliban, either, at least for 2012.
The reason why, according to a leading Congressman, is that enforcing such sanctions might upset delicate negotiations between America, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and other insurgent groups. “The Haqqani network is associated with the Taliban. My opinion is that this is appeasing the Taliban. Because if we go after the Haqqani network’s money, then the Taliban will walk away from these talks,” Rep. Ted Poe, a Republican chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees the fight against terrorism, told The Daily Beast.
While the Obama administration has continued to designate as terrorists individual members of the Haqqani Network—including three such men this week—the investigations and law enforcement actions that typically follow such designations have not resulted in any frozen assets.
“There has been not a dime of money frozen or seized from the Haqqani network,” said Poe. “Finances are what lets these groups continue to commit terrorism.”
While the Haqqani Network is hardly a household name here, the group based on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border is one of America’s most potent foes on the battlefield.