UNSC designates Lashkar-e-Taiba's Abdul Rehman Makki a global terrorist

New Delhi, January 17

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The UN Security Council (UNSC) has declared Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Abdul Rehman Makki as a global terrorist. The UNSC’s 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee on Monday added Makki, who was involved in raising funds, recruiting and radicalising youths to resort to violence and planning attacks in India, including the Mumbai terror attack, to its list of designated terrorists.

Editorial: Global terrorist

Welcoming the UNSC decision, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said threats from terrorism in the region remained high and UNSC sanctions such as these were an effective tool to curb such threats.

India would continue to press international community to take credible, verifiable and irreversible action against terrorism, said MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. A UNSC permanent member like China has the privilege to put a “technical hold” to stop listings which can last for up to six months at a time. As China put the hold on Makki in June, it expired at the end of December.

Makki’s terror operations will get considerably hampered as he will now be subject to a world-wide assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Besides blocking the listing of Makki, brother-in-law of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, for over six months, China has also put hold on four other Indo-US proposals. These include holds on the listing of Saeed’s son Hafiz Talha Saeed, LeT’s Shahid Mahmood and Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Abdul Rauf Azhar and LeT’s Sajid Mir. The US has named all four as specially designated global terrorists with hefty bounties against some of them. For instance, Mir, once declared dead by Pakistan, has a bounty of $5 million.