Masood Khan, a career diplomat who also served as the 'President' of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), has been appointed as Islamabad's ambassador to the United States of America, but his appointment has been met with opposition due to his unabashed support for several designated terrorist organisations. Salahuddin's Jamaat-e-Islami-backed Hizbul Mujahideen, which has been active in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990, is one of them.
Salahuddin was identified as a "global terrorist" by the US Department of State in June 2017, and his Hizbul Mujahideen was designated as a "specially designated global terrorist" (SDGT) by the US Department of State in August 2017.
After Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen's poster boy, was murdered in an encounter in Kashmir's Anantnag district on July 8, 2016, Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lauded him as a "popular leader" in a UN speech. It ruffled many feathers because Wani had advocated for the formation of the Islamic Caliphate in Kashmir in a video published in August 2015. For the first time, it clashed head-on with Kashmiri militants' populist slogan of "azaadi."
Wani defined himself in the video as a supporter of the pan-Islamist cause championed by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, the worldwide terrorist organisation internationally blamed for September 11 and several other attacks on American interests. "We will not stop until an Islamic caliphate is formed," Wani declared in the video, urging Kashmiri youths to join him in fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in the region.
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