Opinion | India-Pakistan crisis: How long can China oppose UN labelling Masood Azhar a terrorist?
- The latest conflict between the nuclear powers was sparked by a suicide bomb attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed, but Beijing refuses to agree to labelling its leader a terrorist
- Ankit Panda suggests that by shielding Azhar, Beijing is reducing the likelihood of JeM training Uygur separatists in China’s far west
As the worst crisis between India and Pakistan since 2002 continues to play out, the world is watching for New Delhi’s reaction to Islamabad’s decision on Friday to release the Indian pilot captured after being shot down.
The origins of the crisis are not, of course, based in February 2019. Yes, India made the decision to strike Pakistani territory in retaliation for what was the worst terror attack against its security personnel in Kashmir in three decades, but what the current situation really represents is a boiling over of years of frustration in Delhi.
After the nuclear age began in South Asia, friction between the two neighbours took on a new character. Pakistan’s military and intelligence services recognised that a potent tool to bleed India with a thousand cuts would be proxy terror groups – impassioned fighters, with great anti-India animus, who could be trained and guided.
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the group at the centre of the ongoing conflict, is a familiar name to India. It was responsible for the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that sparked the last major crisis, and two assaults in 2016 on Indian military installations, the second of which resulted in an Indian action across The Line of Control, the demarcation line that separates the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir.
JeM’s leader, Masood Azhar, remains among India’s most wanted terrorists. He lives on Pakistani soil. And while he has occasionally been taken into “protective custody” by the Pakistani state after Indian protests, he continues to recruit fighters to his cause and plan attacks.
If the current crisis does soon come to an end, Azhar’s fate on the other side of it will be a top priority for India. Since the JeM attack on February 14, India’s diplomats have embarked on a global campaign to gain support to both pressure Pakistan on its continued tolerance of these groups on its soil and pursue multilateral means to proscribe Azhar personally.
JeM is listed as a terrorist organisation under United Nations Security Council resolution 1267, but Azhar has not been designated a “global terrorist”.
