Bringing the number of banned terror groups (including Northern Irish groups) to 40. The latest banned groups include the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group; Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain; Ansar Al-Islam; Al Ittihad Al Islamia; Islamic Jihad Union; Ansar Al Sunna; Hezb-e Islamia Gulbuddin; Harakat ul Muhajideen/Alami; Jundallah; Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan; Lashkar-e Jhangvi; Khuddam u-Islam; Jamaat ul Furquan; Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami; and Harakat ul Islami (Bangladesh).
“‘Terror group’ ban agreed by MPs,” from the BBC (including the sneer quotes around “terror group”), with thanks to Cindy:
A ban on 15 international groups believed to be terrorist organisations has been approved by Parliament.
The decision means the ban will come into force on Friday, bringing the total number of banned groups to 40.
The groups have links in Iraq, Uzbekistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Morocco.
Concerns were raised by some MPs, who said evidence of the groups’ activities should be revealed and argued decisions must be made on an individual basis.
‘Allegiances’
The Home Office believes the selected groups are “concerned in terrorism”.
Some 25 international organisations are already proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, and a further 14 already banned in Northern Ireland.
Labour MPs John McDonnell and Alan Simpson, expressed their reservations when the ban was debated in the House of Commons on Thursday.
Mr Simpson said the groups were being banned because their allegiances had shifted from “pro-western terrorism to anti-western terrorism”.
Mr. Simpson’s comments betray some of the myopia that is so common these days. The US supported the Afghan mujahedin against the Soviet Union! That means, evidently, that any action against the mujahedin today, and the totalitarian, expansionist, supremacist ideology that motivates them, is simply evidence of hypocrisy. Simpson and his ilk can’t seem to see beyond the 1970s to the fact that the mujahedin, and their ideology, have been around a good deal longer than the United States. Any support America gave to the mujahedin in the 1970s was evidence of its own short-sightedness and superficial analysis of political realities. Nor does that support mean that the global jihad threat of today is somehow non-existent.