US blacklists Pakistan-based terrorist leader Bahawal Khan

Islamabad: The United States has blacklisted the new leader of a Pakistan-based group that carried out terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The State Department announced it has added Bahawal Khan`s name to its list of specially designated global terrorists. According to Dawn News, the move will freeze any assets Khan may have in US jurisdictions and bars Americans from transactions with him. The department said that Khan runs the Commander Nazir Group, which has run training camps, dispatched suicide bombers, provided safe haven for al Qaeda fighters and conducted cross-border operations in Afghanistan since 2006, the report said.

The group is named after Mullah Nazir, a Taliban member whose faction agreed to a cease-fire with the Pakistan military in 2009 but then broke it in 2011. Nazir was killed in a US drone strike in January. Bahawal Khan is reported to be aged 34 and was a former bus driver. He is a long-time associate of Mullah Nazir. ANI