US designates two more Pak outfits as terror groups

The US state department has put two more Pakistani extremist groups on a Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) list amid continuing criticism from Washington that Pakistan is not doing enough to end the scourge of terrorism. The two outfits are Tariq Gidar Group (TGG) and Jama’at ul Dawa al-Qu’ran (JDQ). They are determined to have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US, the state department said. The statement accompa ying the designation said TGG is a Pakistani Taliban linked group based in Darra Adam Khel that is responsible for the massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar, that left 132 schoolchildren and nine staffers dead. The group’s leader, Umar Mansoor, is also known as the mastermind of the January 2016 attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, Pakistan, that killed 20. The state department note on JDQ described it as a terrorist group based in Peshawar and eastern Afghanistan, which pledged allegiance in 2010 to now-deceased Taliban emir Mullah Omar, and which has long-standing ties to alQaida and Lashkar e-Taiba.