The US has blocked Pakistan\u2019s bid to have Jamaat-ul-Ahrar commander, Umer Khalid Khurasani, listed as a terrorist by the UN Security Council\u2019s sanctions committee, reflecting the strain and lack of trust in ties between the two countries, according to Pakistani news reports.<\/p>\n
Pakistani officials say Khurasani, also known as Abdul Wali, is the alleged mastermind of the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014 that killed nearly 150 people and the Easter Sunday suicide bombing in Lahore in March 2016 that left 75 people dead, most of them Christians.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Office informally learnt that the process to list Khurasani as a terrorist had been held up because of an objection by the US, the Dawn newspaper quoted a senior diplomatic official as saying. The US objected because Pakistan had listed Afghanistan as Khurasani\u2019s current location, the report said.<\/p>\n
The development came against the backdrop of China repeatedly blocking efforts by India and Western powers to have Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, Maulana Masood Azhar, listed as a terrorist by the UN Security Council, reportedly at the behest of Islamabad.<\/p>\n
The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, in a statement sent to journalists, welcomed the US move to block Khurasani\u2019s listing.<\/p>\n
Foreign office spokesman Mohammad Faisal on Thursday expressed disappointment at Khurasani not being listed as a terrorist by the UN Security Council. Without naming the US, he said the sanctions committee did not approve Pakistan\u2019s request because it couldn\u2019t reach consensus due to \u201cdisagreement by a member\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply disappointed\u2026Wali has the blood of hundreds of innocent Pakistanis on his hands,\u201d he told a regular weekly briefing. \u201cIf the organisation, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has been listed by the sanctions committee, its leader should also have been listed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faisal contended the development reflected \u201cdouble standards\u201d in the fight against terrorism and showed \u201ccomplete disregard\u201d for sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight .<\/p>\n
The US move came amid deteriorating bilateral ties since US President Donald Trump unveiled his new South Asia and Afghanistan policy last August and choked military aid to Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Americans inject politics into the sanctions regime and practice double standards. They are not listing the leader of a terrorist entity who is targeting Pakistan merely because he is operating from Afghanistan,\u201d an unidentified Pakistani official told Dawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US has blocked Pakistan\u2019s bid to have Jamaat-ul-Ahrar commander, Umer Khalid Khurasani, listed as a terrorist by the UN Security Council\u2019s sanctions committee, reflecting the strain and lack of trust in ties between the two countries, according to Pakistani news reports. Pakistani officials say Khurasani, also known as Abdul Wali, is the alleged mastermind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30773,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30771\/revisions\/30773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}