US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced today he had put two Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups on a list of foreign terrorist organizations, stepping up pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to shut them down.
"The vicious attacks that took place on September 11th made it clear that the United States must use every tool at its disposal to combat terrorism," Mr Powell said in a statement.
"Today I am taking another important step in our campaign to eliminate the scourge of terrorism. I am designating two groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, as foreign terrorist organizations under US law," he said.
India has demanded Pakistan arrest leaders of the two groups, which it says were responsible for the December 13th suicide attack on the Indian parliament in which 14 people died.
The US move against the two groups, already blacklisted under separate anti-terrorism moves by the Bush administration, freezes any assets they have in the United States and makes it illegal to support them financially. It also allows US authorities to deny visas to their members.