Pakistan Taliban Isn't on U.S. Terror List

By DEVLIN BARRETT

The State Department still hasn't decided if the Pakistan Taliban-blamed for the failed plot to detonate a car bomb in Manhattan's Times Square more than a week ago-should be labeled a terrorist organization.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to add the group, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban, to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

"I was shocked to learn that the group was omitted from the list," Mr. Schumer told reporters. "They've declared war on the citizens of the United States. We must respond appropriately."

The suspect captured in the Times Square plot, Faisal Shahzad, has told investigators he received bomb-making training from the Taliban in his native Pakistan, authorities say.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Pakistan Taliban "is a group that we have been focused on for some time, but I think in light of the Times Square attempt, it's something we're looking at very closely."

He said the department was being "intentionally deliberate" in studying whether to add the Pakistan Taliban to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Naming the group to the list is more than a symbolic move. It allows the government to bar foreign nationals affiliated with the group from entering the U.S., and allows the government to seize assets traced to the group.

Most importantly, the designation also allows prosecutors to use an antiterror statute to criminally charge those who provide support to such groups. That has helped the U.S. crack down on people in the U.S. who send terrorists equipment, money or recruits.

Mr. Schumer and a number of other Democrats, including the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said the group should be on the list.

Ms. Feinstein said she thought the group belonged on the list even before the Times Square incident.

The senior Republican on the intelligence panel, Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, said after a classified briefing that there was not enough evidence yet to support claims by senior Obama administration officials that the Pakistan Taliban was behind the attempted bombing in New York.

The U.S. is fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but has not added them to the list of 45 designated foreign terror organizations. Mr. Schumer said Tuesday their absence from the list is in part aimed at helping U.S. forces in that country win the support of the Afghan people.