China puts spanner in India-US bid to declare LeT leader as global terrorist

China has put a hold on a proposal by India and the US at the United Nations to list Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist. This is the fourth time in as many months that Beijing has blocked UN’s attempts to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorists.

China, an all-weather ally of Pakistan, reportedly placed a hold on the proposal to designate 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, for such status in December 2016. It was part of its action to disrupt LeT’s fundraising and support networks.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is currently in India and has paid homage to the victims of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. The terror attack, carried out by LeT, left over 160 people, including American citizens, dead.

Longstanding senior LeT member

According to the US Department of the Treasury website, Mahmood has been a longstanding senior LeT member based in Karachi, Pakistan. He 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), the LeT’s humanitarian and fundraising arm.

In 2014, he was the FIF leader in Karachi. In August 2013, Mahmood was identified as a LeT publications wing member, the website says.

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Mahmood was previously part of the LeT’s overseas operations team led by Sajjid Mir. Additionally, in August 2013, Mahmood was instructed to forge covert links with Islamic organisations in Bangladesh and Burma. As of late 2011, Mahmood claimed that LeT’s primary concern should be attacking India and America, says the website.

Fourth time in as many months

This is the fourth time in as many months that China has put a hold on listing proposals to designate Pakistan-based terrorists under the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee regime.

In June this year, at the last moment, China put a hold on a joint proposal by India and the US to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki under the said committee of the UN Security Council. Makki is a US-designated terrorist and brother-in-law of LeT head and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed.

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In August, China again put a hold on a proposal by the US and India to blacklist Abdul Rauf Azhar, the senior leader of Pakistan-based terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM). Azhar, born in 1974 in Pakistan, was sanctioned by the US in December 2010.

The US said Azhar has urged Pakistanis to engage in militant activities. In 2008, Azhar was assigned to organise suicide attacks in India. He was also involved with JEM’s political wing and has served as a JEM official involved with training camps.

“Need for transparency”

In September, Beijing put a hold on a proposal moved by the US at the United Nations and co-supported by India to designate LeT terrorist Sajid Mir, wanted for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, as a global terrorist. Mir is one of India’s “most wanted” terrorists and has a bounty of $5 million placed on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

In June this year, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan jailed him for over 15 years in a terror-financing case. Pakistani authorities had previously claimed Mir had died, but Western countries demanded proof of his death. This issue became a major sticking point in the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) assessment of Pakistan’s progress on its action plan.

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in his address to the high-level UN General Assembly session in September, “The United Nations responds to terrorism by sanctioning its perpetrators. Those who politicise the UNSC 1267 Sanctions regime, sometimes even to the extent of defending proclaimed terrorists, do so at their own peril. Believe me, they advance neither their own interests nor indeed their reputation.”

Amid repeated holds by China on proposals to designate terrorists under the UN sanctions regime, Jaishankar told reporters last month that terrorism should not be used as a political tool. “We do believe that in any process, if any party is taking a decision, they need to be transparent about it. So, the idea that something is blocked without assigning a reason, it sort of challenges common sense,” Jaishankar had said in New York.

(With agency inputs)