WASHINGTON, Sept 28: The US Treasury Department said on Wednesday it was blacklisting two officials of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.

The move means that US citizens will be prohibited from having any dealings with Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi and any of their assets found in the United States will be frozen, the department said.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT, was founded in 1990 and long focused on fighting Indian forces in held Kashmir. It was blamed for the coordinated attacks on Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people.

The United States has designated LeT as a 'foreign terrorist organisation'. Pakistan banned it in 2002, but critics say it long operated openly under different names.

“Over the past 20 years, Iqbal and Bhuttavi have been responsible for fundraising, recruitment and indoctrination of operatives,” said David Cohen, Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“By targeting the core of LeT's leadership, today's action aims to degrade its ability to facilitate its terrorist activities,” he added.

According to the Treasury, Iqbal co-founded LeT in the late 1980s with its current chief, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

In 1989 or 1990, the department said, the two men travelled to Jeddah to seek financial support from Osama bin Laden, then head of Al Qaeda.

As of late 2010, Iqbal was in charge of the finance department of LeT, also known as Jamaatud Dawa, the department said.

Bhuttavi was identified as a founding member of LeT and a deputy to Hafiz Saeed. —Agencies