India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Syed Akbaruddin on Wednesday accused the Security Council and its member nations of “shying away” from the terror attacks in Afghanistan. “Is it that they are far too many to keep track of?” he asked. “Is it because there is a threshold below which human lives lost to terrorism are not required to be addressed?”

Akbaruddin was speaking during a debate on “The Situation in Afghanistan” in the UNSC. He also questioned why there were no discussions on ideas and plans of action at the Security Council on the ongoing violence in Afghanistan. He asked how did these “anti-government elements” managed to stand up against one of the biggest “collective military efforts in the world”. “How is it that these elements collaborate with the world’s most dreadful terrorists in killing and brutalising the Afghans?”

Advertisement

The ambassador asked the United Nations to investigate the source from which the militants in Afghanistan were receiving their funding, PTI reported. “Where are these anti-government elements getting their weapons, explosives, training and funding from? Where do they find safe havens and sanctuaries?” Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent representative to the UN, said on Wednesday.

Akbaruddin also made a veiled reference at Pakistan, accusing it of supporting and funding militant groups. “The Taliban, Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Lashkar- e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and others of their ilk are all terror organisations, many of them proscribed by the UN,” he said. “They should be treated like terrorist organisations with no justifications offered for their activities.”

The ambassador said there should be no differentiation between “good” and “bad” terrorists. “It is the international community’s first and foremost duty to ensure that the resurgent forces of terrorism and extremism do not find sanctuaries and safe havens anywhere and at any level,” he said.