Pakistanis Added To The Terror List - Spat Imminent?

The State Department added the Pakistani Taliban to the terror watch list, and given Pakistan's recent spate of snits following news they didn't like, one wonders what their next move is? Sitting in a corner and holding their breath 'til they turn blue?

The United States on Wednesday added the Pakistani Taliban to its list of foreign terrorist organizations and set rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of two of its leaders.

The steps mark Washington's toughest moves against the Tehrik-i-Taliban, or Taliban Movement of Pakistan (TTP), a group that claimed responsibility for the failed bomb plot in New York's Times Square and is increasingly seen as a direct threat to the United States.

"We should be very clear about this. The TTP is very much a part of the most dangerous terrorist threat that the United States faces," Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's ambassador at large for counterterrorism, told a news briefing.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's move, announced in a note in the Federal Register, adds the TTP to a list of some 46 groups the United States deems involved in terrorism and subjects to financial and travel sanctions.

Simultaneously, U.S. prosecutors charged TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud for a plot that killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base in Afghanistan last December, and U.S. officials offered $5 million rewards for information leading to the arrest of Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman, another senior TTP commander.

More details on the charges brought against Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

U.S. prosecutors have charged the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, in the plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

Mehsud, believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan and head of the group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was charged with conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

On December 30, a Jordanian doctor who had gained the trust of the CIA employees as a source detonated a bomb hidden under his clothing after entering a heavily fortified compound outside Khost. It was the second-most deadly attack in CIA history.

"Criminal charges are meant to deal with Hakimullah if he's captured," said a U.S. official who declined to be identified. "He can face justice in other ways, too. That hasn't changed."

U.S. military forces have tried to kill Mehsud since the attack with strikes by unmanned aerial drones. The State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his location.

By: Brant