FATF: Pakistan must do more to prevent terrorism financing

Pakistan will remain on a list of countries that are not doing enough to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism until it implements a set of preventive guidelines, a global watchdog said.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international working group against money laundering, made the announcement following a week-long meeting in the French capital Paris late Friday.

Pakistan has completed action on 26 out of 27 items on its 2018 action plan, the watchdog said.

"The FATF encourages Pakistan to continue to make progress to address, as soon as possible, the one remaining item by continuing to demonstrate that TF (terror financing) investigations and prosecutions target senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups," the statement added.

The FATF placed Pakistan on the watch list in 2018 on the request of the United States and its European allies.

Pakistan's powerful military is often accused of harbouring Islamist militants to use them as proxies against India and neighbouring Afghanistan.

There had been hardly any restrictions on terrorist groups such as the Taliban and their affiliates regarding the raising funds in Pakistan before the FATF pushed the country for better control.