Pakistan not taking strong action against banned outfits: US

WASHINGTON (92 News) – The US State Department has on Friday once again accused Pakistan of not taking strong action against the banned outfits including Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Haqqani Network. The State Department's acting coordinator for counterterrorism, Justin Siberell said that the Terrorist safe havens not only continue to exist in the tribal areas of Pakistan, but also militants are able to openly raise funds from heavily populated areas. As a result, the terrorist groups continue to conduct terrorist attacks, he said in its annual 'Country Reports on Terrorism 2015'. On the other hand, Justin Siberell said that Iran remained the leading state sponsor of terrorism despite sealing a nuclear deal with world powers, the State Department said. He said that the number of terrorist attacks around the world declined last year for the first time since 2012, and that such attacks were becoming more decentralized and diffuse. Terrorist attacks fell by 13 percent compared with 2014, while fatalities caused by terrorist activity declined by 14 percent, the agency said in its report on global terrorism, which tracks trends in political violence. "The global terrorist threat continued to evolve rapidly in 2015, becoming increasingly decentralized and diffuse," it said. "Terrorist groups continued to exploit an absence of credible and effective state institutions, where avenues for free and peaceful expression of opinion were blocked, justice systems lacked credibility, and where security force abuses and government corruption went unchecked."