New Delhi: For the fourth time this year, China has put a hold on a proposal to list another Pakistan-based terrorist under the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions regime.
India and the United States had proposed that Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Shahid Mahmood be blacklisted by the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee and subjected to an assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. All decisions of the UNSC panel are taken by consensus. It is learnt that China put a hold on the listing on Tuesday, October 19, according to official sources.
This is the fourth time this year that China has put a hold on a listing for a Pakistan-based terrorist in the same number of months.
The unusual number of listing proposals this year have come up in the run-up to the plenary of the Financial Action Task Force that begins on October 20. The two-day plenary is widely expected to give a stamp of approval for Pakistan to finally exit the FATF’s ‘grey list’ over its lax anti-money-laundering and terror financing regime after more than four years.
Shahid Mahmood had previously been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2016 for “acting for or on behalf of LeT, a terrorist organisation based in Pakistan”.
According to the 2016 profile by the US treasury department, Shahid Mahmood is based in Karachi and had been associated with LeT since at least 2017.
He had also served as the vice-chairman of the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a fund-raising arm of LeT.
Mahmood had travelled abroad several times as a front of FIF. He led delegations to Myanmar and Bangladesh to aid recruitment for LeT in migrant camps, per the profile.
He even travelled to Syria and Turkey in 2014, where he was appointed to lead FIF efforts in both countries.
Last month, China blocked a joint India-US proposal to blacklist top Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Sajjad Mir, one of the main handler of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The US designation noted that Mahmood had been earlier part of Mir’s overseas operations team.
Mir was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in June this year.
According to Dawn, Mir’s case had been a major sticking point in FATF’s assessment of Pakistan in 2021, which finally led Pakistan to move towards his arrest and conviction. “His conviction and sentencing were, therefore, major achievements that Pakistani officials showcased in their progress report given to FATF on its action plan during the latest plenary,” said the Pakistani newspaper on June 25.
Earlier in August, Beijing put a hold on the proposal to list Abdul Rauf Azhar, younger brother of Jaish-e-Mahmood supremo Masood Azhar. India had then described China’s actions as “most uncalled for”.
Two months earlier, in June, India had moved a proposal along with the United States to include Abdul Rehman Makki, a US-designated terrorist and brother-in-law of LeT chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, in the UNSC’s sanctions list. China had refused to give the green light for the listing. Indian government sources had described the move as a sign of China’s “double standards”.
The revelation of China’s hold on the listing of Makki came just during the previous plenary of the FATF in June 2022. The FATF had then authorised an on-site visit to verify compliance with the 34-point action plan committed by Pakistan.