By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials launched a multi-prong attack against the Pakistan Taliban, placing the group on the international terrorism black list while indicting its leader in the death of seven CIA employees last year on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
The State Department also announced that it was offering a $5 million reward each for information leading to the capture of two top leaders.
One of those leaders, Hakimullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban, was charged in a criminal complaint announced Wednesday in Washington in connection with the Dec. 30, 2009 suicide bombing that killed the seven CIA employees.
Authorities noted in a court affidavit that Hakimullah Mehsud assumed the leadership of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — which is more commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban — after leader and founder, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in August 2009.
Authorities said that TTP’s primary goal is to force the withdrawal of Pakistani troops from an area of Pakistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; to fight NATO forces in Afghanistan and to establish Islamic law in the tribal territories.
Authorities allege that the Pakistani Taliban has had a hand in, or claimed responsibility for a number of violent acts including the December 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the September 2009 suicide attack on the Bannu, Pakistan police station, the Times Square bombing attempt and numerous attacks on NATO supply lines, the Justice Department said in a press release.
The State Department is offering up to a $5 million reward each for Mehsud and Taliban leader, Wali Ur Rehman.
The designation as a international terrorist group will help in carrying out criminal charges around the globe, the State Department said.
