The US designated Syed Salahuddin, chief of Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, as a global terrorist, hours before President Donald Trump’s bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.
The Ministry of External Affairs’ spokesperson Gopal Baglay applauded the designation. He said that this “vindicates India’s long-standing position that cross-border terrorism has been behind the long-standing disturbance in Kashmir since last year, and the outfits he leads perpetuates cross-border terrorism against India from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. It also underlines quite strongly that both US and India face the threat of terrorism, and terrorism knows no boundaries and is a global menace.”
Both Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed “counter-terrorism cooperation”. Their meeting happened just hours before the Trump-Modi meeting.
A statement issued by the US State Department reads that it has designated “Mohammad Yusuf Shah, also known as Syed Salahuddin, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons who have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”
Post this designation, the US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in dealings with Salahuddin and all of Salahuddin’s property and interests in property subject to the United States jurisdiction are blocked.
