West asks UN to blacklist JeM head
The United States, Britain and France proposed on Wednesday that the United Nations Security Council blacklist the head of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, which said it attacked an Indian paramilitary convoy in disputed Kashmir killing forty.
However, the move is likely to be opposed by China, which previously prevented the Security Council's Islamic State and al Qaeda sanctions committee from sanctioning JeM leader Masood Azhar in 2016 and 2017.
China's UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new proposal.
The Feb 14 attack, the most deadly in Kashmir during a 30-year-long insurgency, increased tensions between Pakistan and India with the nuclear-armed neighbors both saying they had shot down each other's fighter jets on Wednesday.
The United States, Britain and France have asked the 15-member Security Council sanctions committee to subject Azhar to an arms embargo, global travel ban and asset freeze. The committee operates by consensus and members have until March 13 to raise objections, according to the proposal seen by Reuters.
JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al-Qaeda and was blacklisted by the UN Security Council in 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India's parliament, which almost led to a fourth war.
The Security Council condemned the Feb 14 attack in a statement last week, which was agreed after several days of negotiation.
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