Weeks after Pakistan’s all-weather ally China vetoed the motion to get Jaish-e-Muhammad terror group founder and leader Masood Azhar included on the list of global terrorists, the United States, along with Britain and France, has renewed the efforts to get him blacklisted by the UN Security Council.
The United States has circulated a draft resolution with the help of Britain and France to the 15-member UN security council that would blacklist JeM leader Masood Azhar which will subject him to an arms embargo, travel ban, and asset freeze.
The move comes after China put a “technical hold” on the designation of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, claiming it will provide time for thorough and in-depth assessment of the case.
The draft resolution by the United States, Britain, and France seeks to put Masood Azhar in the Security Council’s ISIS and Al Qaeda sanctions blacklist. However, it is unclear when the resolution to blacklist Masood Azhar will be put to vote.
There have been 4 attempts so far to designate Masood Azhar in the list of global terrorists. China has blocked 3 previous requests and put a technical hold on the latest one, which could last for about 9 months.
Earlier, France and Germany had moved proposals to blacklist him in the EU. France had frozen’s Azhar’s assets in the country.
JeM is a proscribed terror group which operated from Pakistan and Masood Azhar is the founder and leader of the group. It has been on the UN terror list since 2001. The group has been involved in numerous terrorist attacks against India. It also carries out training and recruitment of radical Islamists as terrorists in Kashmir. This year in February, the group was involved in a terror attack in Pulwama in which 40 Indian security personnel lost their lives.
