A proposal to designate Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Shahid Mahmood as a global terrorist under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was put on hold by China on Wednesday. The resolution had been proposed by India and the US. This is the fourth time in as many months that Beijing has turned down a request to put a terrorist on the international organization’s blacklist.
The US Treasury Department reportedly labelled Mahmood and LeT senior commander Muhammad Sarwar as international terrorists in 2016. The American intervention at the time was a component of a plan to dismantle Lashkar-e Taiba’s (LeT) funding and support systems. Acting Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control John E. Smith had stated that “these two Lashkar-e-Taiba executives are responsible for generating and moving monies to assist the terrorist group’s operations.”
Beijing has halted calls to designate people living in Pakistan as terrorists under the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee system four times during the previous few months. China blocked India and the US from designating Pakistani terrorist Sajid Mir as the most wanted terrorist earlier in September. The US asked the UN to classify Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as a worldwide terrorist organisation, and terrorist Sajid Mir is the notorious member of this group.