Hunt for ISIL female fundraisers underway in Pakistan

The crackdown on terror group, ISIL has reached intensive dimensions following a search by police in Karachi for 20 women from well-off families accused of sourcing for funds and arranging wives for ISIL members.

According to security officials, the search was intensified after security operatives apprehended a suspect believed to have funded a gun attack in May which saw the killing of 44 Pakistani Shias in a bus conveying them.

Read also: ISIL: 200 Muslims arrested in Uzbekistan

It was the first attack claimed by ISIL inside Pakistan and it targeted members of the Shia Ismaili minority.

Chief of Sindh province’s counterterrorism unit, Raja Umar Khattab, said a suspect confessed that his wife had established a religious organisation in the city called Al Zikra Academy to fund the group’s activities, AFP news agency reported.

“A group of 20 women, all from well-off families, distributed USBs containing ISIL videos, and also preached in support of terror organisations… They also arranged marriages among the group’s followers,” he said.

Khattab said the women include the wife and mother-in-law of Saad Aziz, the main suspect in the May killings.

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