Days after he urged US President Joe Biden to reject the appointment of Masood Khan, Pakistan's new ambassador to the United States, Congressman Scott Perry has now demanded an investigation into the envoy's alleged links to terrorists and terror groups.
Perry, who is a senior member of the House Foreign Committee and a member of the sub-panel on Asia and Pacific, has penned a letter to the US attorney general Merrick Garland demanding a probe into Khan's links to the US-designated terrorist groups.
In the letter to the attorney general, Perry along with Congress members Mary Miller and Gregory Steube accused Khan of having links with Ghulam Nabi Fai, a Virginia-based activist who admitted to being an agent of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and had received 3.5 million dollars by the Pakistan spy agency for his organisation Kashmiri American Council.
Read: Designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terror, demands US Congressman
"Following his release, Fai became involved with a new outfit, the World Kashmi Awareness Forum, and set about forming a partnership with Masood Khan. In May 2018, Fai’s group hosted an event in D.C. to “highlight Indian atrocities” in Kashmir – an event where Masood Khan was the keynote speaker," the letter read.
{{/usCountry}}"Following his release, Fai became involved with a new outfit, the World Kashmi Awareness Forum, and set about forming a partnership with Masood Khan. In May 2018, Fai’s group hosted an event in D.C. to “highlight Indian atrocities” in Kashmir – an event where Masood Khan was the keynote speaker," the letter read.
{{/usCountry}}The letter also points to Fai's alleged links to a front group for Turkish president Erdogan's paramilitary outfit.
"In addition to continuing his pro-Pakistan work, Fai also appears to be a close representative of the Turkish regime, serving as a board member of a leading regime entity named the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), an alleged front group for the Erdoğan regime’s paramilitary group, SADAT."
The letter addressed to the attorney general also accuses the Pakistan ambassador of being closely linked to Islamabad's efforts to marginalise India in the United States.
"Prior to Prime Minister Modi’s 2019 visit to US, an organization named Friends of Kashmir – a group that works out of the Pakistani consulate in Houston and frequently collaborates with the Pakistani government worked with other groups to organize large-scale protests against the Indian government after Imran Khan compared India’s Modi-led government to the Nazis."
The outfit Friends of Kashmir has been hosting events with top operatives of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the terrorist group which orchestrated the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Khan is believed to be meeting the members of Friends of Kashmir on a regular basis.
"Given the Ambassador’s unusual closeness to the aforementioned Islamist groups, we request an investigation into the nature of Mr. Khan’s relationships with them. It is vital to U.S. national security that our government investigate any potential Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) violation with regard to Ambassador Khan." the Congress members demanded.
In January, Perry had written a letter to US President Joe Biden urging him to reject Masood Khan as the Pakistan ambassador.
"Masood Khan has praised both terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations – including Hizbul Mujahideen – in stark and unsettling terms. He has encouraged young men to emulate jihadists like Burhan Wani, a former commander of Hizbul Mujahideen who dedicated his life to a war against India. In 2017, Mr. Khan lashed out at the United States for designating the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen for sanctions, calling those sanctions unjustifiable," Perry had said.