China blocks proposal by US and India to blacklist Pak-based 26/11 LeT handler Sajid Mir by UN

Mir is a senior member of the Pakistan-based LeT and is wanted for his involvement in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai

China has blocked joint move by India and the United States to get the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) designate Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Sajid Mir as a terrorist and impose sanctions on him.

China, one of the five permanent members of the UNSC, earlier this week placed a “technical hold” on the proposal to designate him as an individual linked to al-Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and to put him under full-spectrum UN sanctions, including assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo, a source said on Saturday.

Mir was involved in planning the November 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and was in touch with the terrorists, who had sneaked into India from Pakistan and carried out the attack.

He was in the ‘control room’ the LeT had set up in Karachi to guide the terrorists to kill 166 people and injure many others in a three-day-carnage, with several foreigners, including citizens of the United States and Israel, being among the victims.

Read | Mumbai terror attack handler Sajid Mir jailed for 15 years in Pakistan

Mir was the third terrorist based in Pakistan to be shielded by China from the UN sanctions this year. Beijing had in June and August this year blocked similar joint moves by India and the US to get the UNSC designate the LeT ‘deputy leader’, Abdul Rehman Makki, and Jaish-e-Mohammed ‘senior commander’, Abdul Rauf Asghar, as terrorists and impose sanctions on them.

Rauf, based in Bahawalpur in Pakistan, runs the JeM’s operations in the absence of his ailing brother and the founder of the organisation Masood Azhar. He was also involved in the attacks on Parliament in 2001 and on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab in 2016. Makki is the head of the political affairs wing of the LeT, which itself is a UN proscribed terrorist entity has been responsible for several terror attacks in India, including the 26/11 mayhem in Mumbai.

Mir, now 44, is one of the most wanted terrorists for India and the US. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

“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.

The US State Department had said that Mir has been a senior member of LeT since approximately 2001.

From 2006 to 2011, Mir was in charge of LeT’s external operations and planned and directed various terrorist attacks on behalf of the group. Additionally, Mir allegedly conspired to commit a terrorist attack against a newspaper and its employees in Denmark between 2008 and 2009.

For his role in the Mumbai attacks, Mir was indicted in the United States in April 2011.

In August 2012, the US Department of the Treasury designated Mir as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. As a result of this designation, among other consequences, all property and interests in the property of Mir that are subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with Mir.

“Mir is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List. He is believed to reside in Pakistan,” according to information on the State Department website.

The US had also rejected Pakistan’s bid to claim that Mir had died. He was finally arrested and made to stand trial before an anti-terrorism court for his role in financing of terrorism, which sentenced him to prison for 15-and-a-half years. Islamabad apparently acted against him and others involved in financing of terrorism in order to convince the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to remove Pakistan from its “grey list”.

Beijing has in the past used similar “technical holds” for years to block India's repeated moves to get the UNSC impose sanctions on Masood, the leader of the JeM based in Pakistan and the mastermind of several terrorist attacks in India, including the one on the paramilitary personnel in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14, 2019. China had finally in May 2019 allowed the Security Council to move against the radical cleric based in Pakistan.

China had earlier also blocked India’s moves to get the UN sanctions imposed on LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and the Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin – both based in Pakistan.

(With agency inputs)