News Brief
China Shields Pakistani Terrorists Once Again, Blocks US-India Bid At UN To Declare 26/11 Attacks Accused As Global Terrorist
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping
China blocked a proposal by India and the US at the United Nations on Tuesday (20 June), which aimed to designate Sajid Mir, a terrorist from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, as a global terrorist for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
The proposal, moved by the US and co-designated by India, sought to blacklist Mir under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council as a global terrorist.
It would have subjected him to an assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo. However, Beijing blocked the proposal.
Last year in September, China put a hold on the proposal to designate Mir at the UN. Now, Beijing has blocked the proposal.
Mir is one of India's most-wanted terrorists and the US has placed a bounty of $5 million on his head for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, 2008.
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan sentenced Mir to over 15 years in jail for his involvement in a terror-financing case in June.
Despite Pakistani authorities claiming in the past that Mir had died, Western countries remained sceptical and demanded evidence of his death. This issue caused a significant obstacle in FATF's evaluation of Pakistan's progress on the action plan towards the end of last year.
"Mir was LeT’s operations manager for the attacks, playing a leading role in their planning, preparation, and execution,” the US State Department has said.
Pakistan-based terrorists have repeatedly been protected from being blacklisted under the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council by Beijing, which is an all-weather friend of Islamabad.
In June 2022, China blocked a US-India bid to get Lashkar-e-Taiba's deputy chief, Abdul Rehman Makki, listed as a global terrorist.
Makki, a US-designated terrorist, is the brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
To rescue Pakistan, China placed a "technical hold" on the proposal, and so it can't be adopted until China withdraws the hold.
Beijing had earlier tried to scuttle India's bid to get LeT chief Masood Azhar listed.
In 2015, China also blocked India's move in the UN seeking action against Pakistan for releasing the mastermind of the ISI-sponsored 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.
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