WASHINGTON: The United States declared on Thursday the militant Islamic State group’s Afghanistan-Pakistan wing a foreign terrorist organisation.

This week, the group carried out terrorist attacks at Pakistani diplomatic missions in Afghanistan and has also been involved in previous terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.

“The US Department of State has announced the designation of ISIL-K as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” which authorises the administration to make such designations, says a statement issued in Washington.

The Department of State took this action in consultation with the Depart­ments of Justice and the Treasury, the statement added.

The group, known as Islamic State Khurasan or ISIL-K, announced its formation on Jan 10, 2015 and is composed primarily of former members of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.

This year, the group recruited scores of fighters from the militants who fled to Afghanistan after Pakistan launched a military operation in Fata. Among the Afghan Taliban fighters, the group targets those who are disgruntled with the current Taliban leadership.

The consequences of the FTO designation include a prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to this organisation.

An official US designation also leads to a similar designation by the United Nations, which makes any association with the group an international crime.

The State Department noted that the senior leadership of the group had pledged allegiance to the IS’s central leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This pledge was accepted in late January 2015 and since then the group has “carried out suicide bombings, small arms attacks and kidnappings in eastern Afghanistan against civilians and Afghan National Security and Defence Forces, and claimed responsibility for May 2015 attacks on civilians in Karachi, Pakistan,” the designation order added.

The State Department said that the imposition of sanctions against terrorists was an important element of Washington’s counter-terrorism efforts.

“Designations of terrorists and terrorist groups expose and isolate individuals and organisations, and result in denial of access to the US financial system,” it added.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2016