KARACHI, Oct 15: A charity organization on Wednesday denied US accusations that it supported Al Qaeda and militants in Iraq after Washington designated it a terrorist support organization.
“We have nothing to do with Al Qaeda or any other group,” Mohammad Mazhar, president of the Al Akhtar Trust, told AFP in a mosque which houses the trust’s secretariat in Karachi.
“We are purely a welfare and charity organization and the US sanctions will not deter us to carry on our job.”
US Treasury Secretary John Snow announced on Tuesday the designation, which bars US nationals from engaging in any transaction with it and requires the freezing of any assets it has in the US.
Al Akhtar is accused of supporting Osama bin Laden’s followers in Afghanistan, raising money for extremists in Iraq, and of connections with an individual believed to be the owner of the property where US reporter Daniel Pearl was killed.
US officials say intelligence reports indicate Al Akhtar treated wounded Al Qaeda fighters at its medical facilities in Spin Boldak in Afghanistan and Karachi after the United States attacked the Taliban regime in October 2001.
Al Akhtar executives say the Trust had already won a battle against the freezing of its accounts by the State Bank of Pakistan.
“Our accounts were frozen, but the Sindh High Court has restored them and soon we will be able to operate them again,” Al Akhtar director Zahid Ahmed told AFP.
KARACHI, Oct 15: A charity organization on Wednesday denied US accusations that it supported Al Qaeda and militants in Iraq after Washington designated it a terrorist support organization.
