On Wednesday, China prevented India and the US yet again from having Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant Talha
Saeed, who is the son of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed, blacklisted at the UN. Earlier on Tuesday, China thwarted India and the US in
their attempt to use the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council to designate Shahid Mahmood (42) of
Pakistan, a LeT militant, as a global terrorist.
China has once more thwarted international efforts to combat terrorism by blocking the US-India proposal at the UN for the third
time in the last three months to blacklist Sajid Mir, one of India's most wanted terrorists and a top member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT), who is based in Pakistan and who was responsible for the horrifying Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 as well as attacks in the
US and Denmark. Those who are familiar with UN procedures claim that China is abusing its position as a permanent member of
the UN Security Council (UNSC) to prevent the inclusion of terrorists based in Pakistan on the sanctions list maintained by the UN
Security Council's Al Qaida and ISIL (Daesh) Sanctions Committee (also known as the UNSC 1267 Committee).
In the past, Pakistani authorities had asserted that Mir had passed away, but Western nations had not been persuaded and had
demanded proof of his passing. Late last year, when FATF evaluated Pakistan's progress on the action plan, this problem arose as
a significant sticking point. An anti-terrorist court in Pakistan, which is attempting to get off the Financial Action Task Force's “grey
list,” sentenced Mir to more than 15 years in prison in June of this year in a case involving the financing of terrorism (FATF).
We are all aware of China's responses to actions related to the India-China relationship. They fluctuate on these issues typically
in response to how the relationship with India is progressing. This subject has been openly politicised in China. For more than two
years, India and China have been locked in a violent border standoff, and the process of both sides' armies disengaging from it is
still painfully slow.
On Thursday, the day that Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and other SCO leaders
gathered in Samarkand for the 22nd SCO Summit and discussed the issue of terrorism in the region, Beijing put a hold on the
proposal moved by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Mir.
Beijing defended its decision to oppose the US and India's request at the UN to blacklist Masood Azhar, the brother of Jaish-e-
Mohammed (JEM) chairman Abdul Rauf Azhar, a senior leader of Jaish, by claiming that it needed more time to review the
application. This was done last month as well. A joint proposal from India and the US to include terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki in the
1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was put on hold by China in June of this year at the last minute. As
the brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Taiba leader and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, Makki is a terrorist with US designation.
According to the US State Department, Mir has been a prominent LeT member since around 2001. His name appears on the FBI's
list of wanted terrorists. In charge of overseeing LeT's external operations from 2006 to 2011, Mir planned and oversaw a number of
terrorist actions on the organization's behalf. In addition, between 2008 and 2009, Mir allegedly planned a terrorist attack on a
newspaper and its staff in Denmark. Mir was charged in the US in April 2011 for his involvement in the Mumbai attack. The US
Department of Treasury classified Mir as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in August 2012.
