China has once again come to Pakistan’s rescue by blocking a move in the United Nations to list Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) leader Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist. This is the fourth time in as many months that Beijing has thwarted moves to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorists.
India and the US late on Tuesday initiated the latest proposal to list Mahmood, 42, as a global terrorist under the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. The US Department of Treasury had designated Mahmood and another LeT leader Muhammad Sarwar in December 2016 as part of the action “to disrupt Lashkar-e Tayyeba’s (LeT) fundraising and support networks.”
Incidentally, the latest China block or putting on hold the proposal came at a time when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is in India and paid homage to the victims of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. The LeT had carried out the attack in which over 160 people were killed.
According to information on the US Department of the Treasury’s website, Mahmood “has been a longstanding senior LeT member based in Karachi, and has been affiliated with the group since at least 2007. As early as June 2015 through at least June 2016, Mahmood served as the vice chairman of Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a humanitarian and fundraising arm of LeT.”
In 2014, Mahmood was the leader of FIF in Karachi. In August 2013, Mahmood was identified as a LeT publications wing member, the website said.
Mahmood was previously part of LeT’s overseas operations team led by Sajjid Mir...the US Department of Treasury said.
Additionally, in August 2013, Mahmood was instructed to forge covert links with Islamic organisations in Bangladesh and Burma, and as of late 2011, Mahmood claimed that LeT’s primary concern should be attacking India and America,” the US Department of Treasury said.
This is the fourth time in last four months that China has put a hold on listing proposals to designate Pakistan-based terrorists. In June this year, China put a hold, at the last moment, on a joint proposal by India and the US to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki.
He is a US-designated terrorist and brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Taiba head and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
Then in August, China again put a hold on a proposal by the US and India to blacklist the senior leader of Pakistan-based terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) Abdul Rauf Azhar.
In September, Beijing blocked a proposal moved at the United Nations by the US and co-supported by India to designate Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Sajid Mir, wanted for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks, as a global terrorist. Mir is one of India’s most wanted terrorists and has a bounty of USD5 million placed on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
In June this year, he was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan, which is struggling to exit the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed Mir had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proof of his death. This issue became a major sticking point in the FATF’s assessment of Pakistan’s progress on the action plan late last year.