Citing 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Antony Blinken says all terror acts unjustifiable

Sandeep Dikshit

United Nations, October 24

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said that all acts of terrorism are “unlawful and unjustifiable”, whether they are carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba or Hamas, targeting people in Mumbai or Kibbutz Be’eri.

Blinken made the remarks while addressing the Security Council ministerial meeting on the situation in the Middle East following the October 7 attack on Israel by Gaza-based Hamas militants.

“As this Council and the UN General Assembly have repeatedly affirmed, all acts of terrorism are unlawful and unjustifiable. They’re unlawful and unjustifiable, whether they target people in Nairobi or Bali… Istanbul or Mumbai, in New York or Kibbutz Be’eri,” Blinken told the UN Security Council here.

“They are unlawful and unjustifiable whether they’re carried out by ISIS, by Boko Haram, by Al Shabaab, by Lashkar-e-Taiba or by Hamas. They are unlawful and unjustifiable whether victims are targeted for their faith, their ethnicity, their nationality or any other reason,” Blinken said.

He stressed that the Security Council has a responsibility to denounce member states that arm, fund and train Palestinian militant group Hamas or “any other terrorist group that carries out such horrific acts.” Blinken’s remarks appeared to refer to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks carried out by Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people in India’s financial hub. — PTI

Israel slams UN chief’s ‘vacuum’ remark

• Israel on Tuesday took a strong exception to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for his remark that the attacks by Hamas “did not happen in a vacuum. Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”
• The Israeli envoy to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, called Guterres “unfit” to lead the world body and called for his resignation over the statement