Pakistan: JeM Leader Kept Off UN Sanctions List
| Publisher | Jamestown Foundation |
| Author | Alexander Sehmer |
| Publication Date | 15 April 2016 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | Terrorism Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 8 |
| Cite as | Jamestown Foundation, Pakistan: JeM Leader Kept Off UN Sanctions List, 15 April 2016, Terrorism Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 8, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5724df404.html [accessed 3 November 2019] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Link to original story on Jamestown website
China has blocked India's attempt to have Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), designated a UN-sanctioned individual.
According to Indian media, China, the only member of the Security Council to vote against sanctioning Azhar, said the JeM leader did not meet the requirements to be blacklisted by the UN (Indian Express, April 2). The move angered India (Times of India, April 2), but was welcomed by JeM in its al-Qalam publication (ZeeNews, April 12). Azhar, a former member of Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, founded JeM in 2000. The group, which is officially banned in Pakistan, is active in Kashmir although its aims and operations are geographically more expansive.
This is the second time China has blocked a move to sanction Azhar. India had attempted to designate Azhar in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This time, however, India wanted Azhar sanctioned over the January 2016 attack on its Pathankot airbase. The four-day clash at the airbase left seven Indian security personnel dead and prompted a security overhaul along the country's 2,900 kilometer western border with Pakistan (Times of India, April 11).
The Pathankot attack was claimed by the United Jihad Council (UJC), an alliance of largely Kashmiri militant groups-among them the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen (Dawn, January 4). The claim appeared to be intended to focus attention on Kashmir at a time when India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had just undertaken a historic trip to Pakistan to meet President Nawaz Sharif (see Sudha Ramachandran's article in this issue of Terrorism Monitor for additional developments in Kashmir).
India remains skeptical of the UJC's claim and instead blames JeM, which has a wider field of operations than the UJC and appears a more likely candidate to have been behind the attack. A series of attacks on Indian assets around the same time as the Pathankot attack -including an attempt to storm the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan-likewise suggested regional militant groups were receiving some direction from the Pakistani intelligence services who were unhappy with political developments (Al Jazeera, January 3).
Soon after the Pathankot attack-likely based on intelligence supplied by India-Pakistan arrested Azhar. But it remained equivocal on India's claims against JeM, with Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah referring to the arrest as "protective custody" (Dawn, January 15). Meanwhile, China's move to keep Azhar off the UN sanctions list is a use of its UN Security Council position to contain Indian power in the region, and has occurred despite the fact that JeM as an organization has been under UN sanctions since October 2001.
