G7 vows to disrupt global terrorist financing
( 2001-09-26 10:56 ) (7 )

The Group of Seven financial powers announced on Tuesday a global campaign to disrupt networks that finance terrorists following the September 11 kamikaze attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

"Since the attacks, we have all shared our national action plans to block the assets of terrorists and their associates," the G7 finance ministers said in a joint statement issued in Washington after a telephone conference.

"We will integrate these action plans and pursue a comprehensive strategy to disrupt terrorist funding around the world," said G7 members Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

US President George W Bush, taking aim at main terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, ordered on Monday that banks freeze the US assets of bin Laden and 26 other individuals and groups.

The measures target 11 terrorist groups, 12 individual terrorist leaders, a firm that serves as a front for terrorism, and three non-profit groups with alleged links to suspected militants.

Bush also warned foreign financial institutions that they could see their own US assets seized if they failed to cooperate with Washington in hunting down terrorists' war chests.

Governments around the world backed the campaign.

Japanese Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa announced his government was preparing to freeze such assets in Japan. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, on a visit in Washington, was to discuss the issue with Bush.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Beijing backed the fight against terror financing.

The Philippines said it was probing the money trail left by the Abu Sayyaf, a self-styled group of Islamic separatists named by the Bush administration.

In Europe, the French foreign ministry said it had already frozen 4.27 million euros (US$3.94 million) in assets linked to the Taliban and bin Laden.

Germany's economy ministry said 13 bank accounts linked to bin Laden and holding 1.35 million euros had been closed.

Switzerland's Federal Justice Office said the government had agreed to a US request for help and one Swiss bank account was frozen.

Liechtenstein Prime Minister Otmar Hasler declared the principality's total support in the fight against terrorism.

"We welcome the actions taken by other countries in recent days and call on all nations of the world to cooperate in this endeavor," the G7 statement said.

"In particular, we stressed the importance of more vigorously implementing UN sanctions on terrorist financing."

The G7 also urged the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based inter-governmental group fighting money laundering, to include terrorism financing in its work.

The group's ministers and central bankers are to meet in Washington on October 6 to review the global economy and the campaign against the financing of terrorism, a US Treasury Department official said.

"The world is joining the United States shoulder to shoulder to fight this war against terrorism on multiple fronts, including the financial one," said Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer.

But experts predicted an arduous, long-haul struggle to track the funds of terrorists who frequently use cash or informal networks and can move nimbly across national borders.

Former US president Bill Clinton's administration tried to trace the funds of bin Laden and al-Qaeda in 1998 after attacks on US embassies in Africa but failed to find any money, the New York Times said.

"High hopes have often been expressed for countering terrorism by interdicting its financial lifeblood," said Paul Pillar, CIA national intelligence office for the Near East and South Asia.

"But the use of false names on accounts, the commingling of funds used for terrorism with those used for legitimate purposes and other practical problems often dash those hopes," he said in a report.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors are to hold a meeting in Washington on October 6, a US Treasury spokesman said in Washington on Tuesday.

The meeting had been postponed after the cancellation of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings, scheduled for September 29-30, because of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The G7 usually meets on the sidelines of those meetings.