The US State Department froze the US assets of Algeria-based Islamic resistance movement Dhamat Houmet Daawa Salafia (DHDS) on October 20, 2003. The move is in accordance with an executive order on terrorism financing, which also bars US citizens from most transactions with the organization.
According to the department, DHDS is “well organized and equipped with military material, and has engaged in terrorist activity in Algeria and internationally. It is responsible for numerous killings since the mid-1990s, and has escalated its attacks in recent years.”
The State Department said that because it believed the group had ties to the Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, the US would support its inclusion on a United Nations (UN) sanctions list that would require all member states to impose an arms embargo on it, ban travel by its members and freeze its assets without delay.
The group, previously known as Katibat El Ahoual, emerged after its leader, Mohammed Benslim, broke from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), an extremist organization that aims to overthrow the secular Algerian regime and replace it with an Islamic state.
The GIA began its violent activity in 1992 after Algiers voided the victory of an Islamic opposition party in the first round of legislative elections in 1991. The grouped hijacked an Air France flight to Algiers in 1994 and has killed more than 100 men and women, mostly Europeans, in the country. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
