U.S. Waited 10 Months to Freeze Assets
Friday October 12 1:56 PM ET
By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the United
Nations and the European Union directed their members to freeze the assets of five lieutenants of Osama bin Laden , including his brother-in-law and financial handler.
The U.S. government didn't do it until Friday.
Members of Congress want to know why TREASURY OFFICIALS officials charged with
disrupting the finances of terrorists didn't follow the lead of some of the
closest U.S. allies back in January.
``There was a lack of connecting the dots that has existed because these
entities have not had a history of communicating with each other, of
sharing information,'' said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance
Committee, said, ``If our law officers are overlooking the E.U.'s frozen
assets list, they're missing an obvious piece of the anti-terrorism pie.''
The Office of Foreign Assets Control, the primary agency charged with
freezing terrorist assets, declined to address specific names that have
made or missed their terrorism list.
The list consists of ``names of individuals and entities we feel quite certain
are connected with bin Laden and al-Qaida,'' spokeswoman Tasia
Scolinos said. ``We plan to freeze additional assets of additional parties in
coming weeks.''
One government official familiar with the list, who would speak only on
condition of anonymity, said accounts might sometimes be left open to
monitor who is using them.
Thirty-nine new groups and individuals were added to the list Friday. Last
month, President Bush froze the assets of 27 groups
and individuals suspected of terrorism or involvement with terrorists.
Among those added Friday were Sa'd Al-Sharif, bin Laden's
brother-in-law and suspected head of his financial organization.
Others include Amin Al-Haq, bin Laden's security coordinator; Bilal Bin
Marwan, a top lieutenant; aide Saqar Al-Jadawi and Ahmad Sa'id
Al-Kadr, thought to be an Egyptian and Canadian national.
All have been named since January on a terrorist list issued by the U.N.
Security Council's Afghanistan sanctions committee,
of which the United States is a member. The European Union has
ordered its members to freeze the assets of the five since at least March.
U.N. Security Council members, like the United States, are expected to
freeze accounts of those on the sanction list.
The council first imposed sanctions on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban in
1999 to pressure it to give up bin Laden.
The U.N., believing bin Laden was bankrolling the Taliban, later sought to
block his assets and those of his associates. The goal was to damage his
al-Qaida network and make the Taliban likelier to hand him over.
A new monitoring group set up by the Afghanistan sanctions committee
will soon begin reviewing whether member nations are complying. There
are no official consequences for noncompliance.
In the European Union, regulations freezing terrorist assets are binding on
member nations. The countries' finance ministries are charged with
carrying out the directives.
Roughly $24 million in assets, nearly all of it connected to bin Laden, his
al-Qaida network or the Taliban, has been frozen by the U.S. and other
countries in the past month.
Nearly $4 million has been frozen in the United States. Several million in
additional assets are under review to be possibly blocked, a Treasury
official said.
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