The US Treasury has designated Jordanian national Abu Musa’ab Al-Zarqawi and five other individuals as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). The designation requires authorities to freeze US-based assets belonging to these persons and to prohibit the men from carrying out transactions with US nationals.
The action comes in coordination with the listing of these individuals by the United Nations (UN), reported Washington File. The list, submitted to the UN by Germany, includes Al-Zarqawi, who provided financial and other support to the terrorists who assassinated US diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan last October.
Zarqawi has also been involved in smuggling terrorists into Israel and arranging training for Jordanian terrorists in Al-Qaeda camps. In his speech to the United Nations Security Council last February, US Secretary of State Powell revealed that under the regime of Saddam Hussein, Zarqawi and his network found refuge in Iraq and established a poisons and explosives training camps in the country.
The other five designated men are members of Zarqawi's German-based terrorist cell Al-Tawhid, an organization with close links to Al-Qaeda. The German government has established that Zarqawi serves as the operational leader of the cell.
Al-Tawhid member Shadi Abdalla was instructed to identify potential targets in German cities and to obtain the necessary weapons. In March 2002, he ordered a pistol fitted with a silencer and a crate of hand grenades from Djamel Moustafe, a supporter of the cell based in Dusseldorf. However, before the weapons could be delivered, Abdalla and Moustafe, along with three other named terrorists Ismail Shalabi, Aschraf Al-Dagma and Mohamed Abu Dhess were arrested. All five of them are currently in detention awaiting trial.
Since September 11, 2001, 173 countries have issued blocking orders to freeze terrorist assets and $136.8 million has been frozen worldwide. With the most recent US designation, the United States has now listed a total of 320 individuals and organizations as terrorists and terrorist supporters. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
