US imposes sanctions on two extremists

WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a leader of a Pakistani militant group and former doctor to Osama bin Laden, the late leader of al-Qaida.

The State Department blacklisted Khan Said and Ramzi Mawafi as specially designated global terrorists, a move that entails sanctions barring Americans from doing business with them and freezing all of their assets under US jurisdiction.

Said, who became deputy leader of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in May 2013 and leader of the Mehsud faction which split from TTP in May 2014, is believed to have masterminded a 2012 jailbreak in which the Taliban freed 400 inmates in Pakistan's northwestern city of Bannu, the department said.

Mawafi, an Egyptian national, is described as an explosives expert for al-Qaida and best known as the former doctor to bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 in an American operation inside Pakistan.