Pakistan Update: Muslim Nation Prepares to Ban Some Terror Groups

There are 10 terror groups, including 26/11 leader Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Afghanistan's Haqqani network that may join the list of banned outfits in Pakistan, said indiatoday.com.

It is a welcome move, which would help Pakistan's security policy to strengthen its base, after the Peshawar school massacre. This is also a huge "paradigm shift" in Pakistan's approach, say the experts.

Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry had visited the US, and had dubbed the fugitive chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistani Mullah Fazlullah, a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist'.

Now in a matter of days, the government would announce an official announcement. It will be a huge and welcome decision for the world, including Afghanistan, the US and India, according to economictimes.com.

Critics believe that banning JuD, a cover for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group would be important to the US as well as India, due to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that killed 166. The UN Security Council said that the JuD is a front for the LeT after the Mumbai attacks.

Jalaluddin Haqqani's group was responsible for the bombing of the Indian embassy in 2008, which led to the killing of 58. An attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and major truck bombings in Afghanistan are other attacks that followed. Both the US and Afghanistan suspect that Pakistan's spy agency ISI secretly supported the Haqqanis so that its influence can be extended in Afghanistan. This charge, however, has been denied by Islamabad.

In September 2012, the group was called a terrorist organisation by the United States.

Pakistan's National Action Plan against terrorism was drawn up by the government and opposition parties after the school attack in Peshawar that killed 150.

Officials at the Interior Ministry clarified that Pakistan banned 12 new organisations even before the visit of Kerry to Pakistan.

With this, the number of outfits banned in Pakistan will go up to 72.