15 years of 26/11: LeT flourishes in Pak with China’s backing

In the aftermath of 26/11 terror attacks, 15 years later, Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba continues to flourish in Muridke with China’s support.

Updated on: Nov 25, 2023, 10:12:01 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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New Delhi: Fifteen years after the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist group continues to flourish in Muridke with the country’s all-weather friend China shielding Islamabad against sanctions targeted at the principal perpetrators of the attack by the UN 1267 Committee.

The Nariman House was under siege during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Since Xi Jinping took over as President in March 2013, China blocked efforts by the US, UK, France and India to designate Pakistan-based terrorists belonging to LeT and Bahawalpur-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and sanction them by listing them under the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee at the UN that was set up in 1999 under resolution 1267.

READ | China blocks proposal by India, US to blacklist Pak-based LeT terrorist and 26/11 accused Sajid Mir

While 26/11 principal planner LeT’s emir Hafiz Saeed, his brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki, operational planner Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, and financier Arif Qasmani are all on the 1267 list, Sajid Mir, the principal handler of 10 terrorists who wreaked havoc on India’s commercial capital on November 26, 2008 has not been put on the list due to hurdles put up by China. Mir was the man who directed the two jihadists at Chabad House at Nariman Point to take headshots at Rabbi Gavriel and his wife Rivka during the attack while the rabbi’s two-year-old son Moshe survived due to his Indian nanny.

The proposal to designate Sajid Mir aka Wasi bhai on the 1267 list was submitted by the US with Indian co-designation on September 6, 2022 before the 1267 Sanctions Committee. Beijing blocked it on September 15,. 2022, and extended the hold on March 14 and until June 20, 2023. The Xi Jinping regime broke the consensus requirement by finally objecting to the proposal on June 20, 2023. Its modus operandi in other cases was similar. The proposal to designate Abdul Rehman Makki, the financier and ideologue of the 26/11 attack, was submitted by India with US co-designation on June 1, 2022. China placed the proposal on hold on June 16, 2022. With the US threatening to take the matter to the UN Security Council, China reluctantly lifted the hold on January 16, 2023 after which Makki, who has $ 2 million bounty on his head, was put on the list.

The proposal to designate LeT’s propaganda wing member Shahid Mehmood as global terrorist was submitted by India and the US on October 4, 2022. A close aide of Sajid Mir, Mehmood raises terror funds under the garb of proscribed Falah-e-Insaniyat foundation of the Pakistani group. China placed the proposal on hold on October18, 2022 and finally objected to it on November 29, 2022. Finally, the proposal to designate Talha Saeed, son of Hafiz Saeed, was submitted by the US and India on October5, 2022. China placed hold on the proposal to designate Talha, who now runs the show from Muridke, on October 19, 2022 and objected to it on November 29, 2022.

READ | Isolated China gives up on UN listing of LeT’s Makki as global terrorist

Chinese support to terrorist and terror groups in Pakistan is not limited to LeT; it took the might of US, UK, France and India over three years to get JeM mastermind Masood Azhar Alvi listed in the 1267 committee. The proposal was moved on February 2016 and the jihadist was finally listed on May 1, 2019 after his group massacred CRPF troopers in Pulwama attack. The proposal to designate his brother Abdul Rauf Asghar Alvi, the chief operational commander of JeM, was submitted by the US and India on July 27, 2022. China supported Pakistan, by placing a hold on this on August 10, 2022. On February 7, 2023, Xi Jinping regime extended the hold by three months until May 10, 2023 after which Beijing objected to the proposal.

While India has plans to propose listing of Yusuf Muzammil, the predecessor of Zaki Lakhvi as LeT’s chief commander against India, Masood’s brother and IC 814 hijacking accused Athar Ibrahim Alvi, Pathankot attack accused Ali Kashif Jan and Pulwama attack accused Mohiuddin Aurangzeb Alamgir and is collecting evidence in support of these actions, it is clear that China will block all these proposals to bring these terrorists in Pakistan to book.

If the people behind 26/11 are still free 15 years later, this is the main reason for it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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