FATF Warns India Against Al-Qaeda, ISIS

Financial Action Task Force (FATF), global anti-money laundering and terror financing watchdog, has unambiguously warned India against the serious threats from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-linked groups operating in the country. The report has though appreiated India’s success in tackling illicit finance but nudged the country to focus on concluding the prosecutions.

The global watchdog has placed India in the highest-ranked ‘regular follow-up’ category. Only a few major countries are in this category. “UK, France and Italy are among the only G20 countries which have been placed in this category apart from India,” said Vivek Aggarwal, Additional Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.
The report categorised the range of terrorism threats in India into six different theatres. “These can be summarised as theatres associated with ISIL or Al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups active in and around Jammu and Kashmir, whether directly or via proxies or affiliates,” it said. The report further said regional insurgencies in the northeast and north of India and left-wing extremist groups seeking to overthrow the government are the other terrorist threats for the country. The report also mentioned terror-financing and money-laundering cases like the multi-agency probe against the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and a 2017 case lodged by the NIA, involving the All Party Hurriyat Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.