Saeed is allegedly the founder of a banned group linked to the 2008 Mumbai, India, attack that killed 168 people. He has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. has a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
He was released before dawn on Friday after a three-judge panel in Pakistan ended his detention in the eastern city of Lahore.
The move outraged both U.S. and Indian authorities. Saeed’s spokesman Yahya Mujahid called it a “victory of truth.”
“Hafiz Saeed was under house arrest on baseless allegations and jail officials came to his home last night and told him that he is now free,” he said.
Saeed ran the Jamaat-ud-Dawa organization, widely believed to be a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which India says was behind the Mumbai attack.
Pakistan has been detaining and freeing Saeed off and on since the attack.
The Trump administration has been intensifying pressure on Pakistan to fight extremists and drive them from hideouts in Pakistani territory.
The campaign appeared to produce some success this year when Pakistani security forces assisted with the release of a Taliban-held U.S.-Canadian family after five years in captivity. However, U.S. officials cautioned that move needed to be followed by additional measures to prove the country’s commitment.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said during a visit to Washington in October that Pakistan was willing to cooperate fully with the Trump administration. He said Pakistan had wiped out militant hideouts with little help from the U.S., which has restricted hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Pakistan in recent years.
The U.S. in August said it would hold up $255 million in military assistance for Pakistan until it cracks down on extremist groups that threaten neighboring Afghanistan.
President Donald Trump’s tough words about Pakistan, a troubled U.S. security partner, infuriated Islamabad and triggered anti-U.S. protests that Pakistani police have had to use tear gas to disperse.
This is not a surprise given Pakistan is a failed nation state. It has exploited terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy to garner aid from the United States and elsewhere for decades. As a result, all of its institutions, religious, political, legal/judicial and cultural have become infused with radical sunni terrorists and their sympathizers.
Trump is a failed President. He has exploited xenophobia as an instrument of cynical political posturing for years. As a result, all of his positions, religious, political, legal/judicial and cultural have become infested with RWNJs and their sympathizers.
Honestly, they ought to get along swell together.
I agree with you. However, the White House response on this particular somewhat narrow issue has been timely and pointed.
On the other hand, Moe Bin Salman, the wahabbi sunni despot in Saudi Arabia, has been emboldened by Preshitident Anusmouth-Putindickholster and Secretary of State Cuck Kushner’s brown nosing and is murdering thousands of people in Yemen, launched a blockade against Qatar, deposed the prime minister of Lebanon and jailed hundreds of dissidents at home.
The White House response on this would have been exactly the same if the facts in this case had been completely in the opposite direction.
The “White House” left 4,000 ISIS fighters leave Raqqa in a Convoy and now they complain
about one guy in Pakistan… All this guy has to do is stay at a Trump Hotel and say
how GREAT the cake was and everything is good so the MAGA clowns keep “Winning”?