Ummah Tameer-e-Nau
Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), is a militant organization banned by the United States Department of Treasury on December 20, 2001. It was also placed on the Patriot Act Terrorist Exclusion List. It is suspected of supplying information about constructing nuclear weapons to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Origin The UTN was founded in June 2000 by Pakistani scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who notably resigned from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) in 1999 in protest of the Pakistani government's willingness to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). He had previously served as Director for Nuclear Power and was the chief designer and director of the Khushab Reactor-I. On popular Pakistani news channels, Mahmood was a vehement supporter of the Afghan Taliban, and once described the Taliban's regime in Afghanistan as the "ideal Islamic state". In a report published by the New York Times, his fellow scientists and engineers at PAEC began to question his mental state, and wonder seriously if Mahmood was mentally sound." In March 1999, he was awarded with Pakistan's third highest civilian honour, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, by the President of Pakistan. Membership Lieutenant-General (retired) Hamid Gul former director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence was also a member and has