On June 20, 2021, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) once again blocked India’s and US proposal for designating Sajid Mir, a terrorist from the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit who was involved in the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks as a global terrorist.
Mir is a senior member of the Pakistan-based LeT and was involved in the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. According to the US State Department, “Mir was the Operations Manager for the attacks and played a major role in the planning, preparation and execution.”
Beijing blocked the proposal that has been moved by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Sajid Mir under the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a global terrorist and freeze his assets, travel ban and arms embargo.
Sajid Mir is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world and has a bounty of USD 5 million on his head by the US for his role in the Mumbai terror Attack of 2008. In June 2022, he was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorist court in Pakistan.
In the month of September 2022, the PRC had placed a hold on the proposal to designate Mir as a global terrorist but now has formally blocked the proposal completely.
The Pakistani Authorities in the past claimed that Mir had passed away, but the Western countries did not believe them and asked for proof. This issue has become a main sticking point in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) assessment of Pakistan’s progress on the action plan late last year.
Previously, on October 19, 2022, China blocked another proposal by the US and India to designate Shahid Mehmood as a global terrorist. Mahmood was previously a part of the LeT operations team led by Sajid Mir. The US Department of Treasury also designated Mehmood as a very important terrorist figure,
On October 4, 2022, China successfully blocked the US-India proposal that aimed to target Talha Seed, the son of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed.
In August 2022, China blocked a US -India proposal for labelling Abdul Rauf Azhar, a prominent Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) member. He was born in Pakistan in 1974.
In June 2022, China, for the fourth time, did not designate Abdul Rehman Makki, the brother-in-law of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the26/11 terrorist attacks. The US declared him as the most wanted terrorist at the international forum.
The Peoples Republic of China, in 2017, also blocked and halted the UN Proposal for labelling Masood Azhar as a most wanted terrorist. Azhar was involved in the hijacking of Air India flight IC814 en route from Kathmandu in Nepal to New Delhi. The pilots were forced to direct the aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan. The terrorists demanded the release of Masood Azhar.
In 2016, The Peoples’s Republic of China (PRC) blocked a proposal from the US and India regarding the designation of another terrorist leader named Muhammad Sarwar as a global terrorist for the fifth time.
China and Pakistan have an “all-weather,” “iron brother relationship.” It has always prevented and protected Pakistan from being blacklisted in the FATF. Turkey also prevents Pakistan from doing the same.
As China is a permanent member of the P5, UN Security Council (UNSC), it has time and again used its position and veto power to become a saviour of Pakistan. Taking into consideration all these events, it can be said that China is the protector of global terrorism. Through the formerly mentioned activities, steps China becomes a ‘messiah’ or saviour of the terrorists.
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