November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

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NEW YORK, Nov 28: The United Nations has asked all its 189 members to freeze assets of 152 Taliban officials, almost everyone who held a government post on behalf of the former rulers of Afghanistan.

The 11-page list, posted on Tuesday by the UN security council sanctions committee, adds another 127 names of individuals, groups or businesses associated with the Taliban or Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, accused of masterminding the Sept 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

Mulla Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s spiritual leader and founder, heads the list with Mulla Mohammad Rabbani, chairman of the council of ministers. The entire Taliban representation in Pakistan is included as well as its former consulate officials in various cities in that country.

The list incorporates many of the names and groups cited by the United States since Sept 11 in an effort to choke off funds in Osama’s network. The UN document is longer and has a wider global reach in making the freeze mandatory for all its members.

Trade and charity groups, some with their addresses, are named in capitals in each continent. The list includes the whole Al Barakaat financial network, a Somali-based operation, with branches in Europe and North America, the United States says was used by Al Qaeda.

Al Barakaat is used by thousands of Somalis abroad to send money to relatives at home. Other names are the Wafa Humanitarian Organization, with offices in Peshawar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. And the list included Afghan-related businesses, such as the Ariana airlines account in Citibank’s New Delhi, India, branch and the Agricultural Development Bank of Afghanistan in Britain.

The list was compiled by the UN security council’s committee enforcing resolutions adopted in 1999 and 2000 that call for a freeze in the Taliban funds as well as assets of individuals and entities associated with Osama.

The council’s sanctions panel of Afghanistan, headed by Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, on Oct 9 ordered all UN members to freeze assets of 13 individuals, three companies and 11 groups named two weeks earlier by the US government.

The United Nations moved quickly after the Sept 11 carnage in the United States, with two major resolutions, one a day after the attacks that more or less gave Washington the right to retaliate in self-defence. A sweeping measure, adopted on Sept 28, would freeze finances of terrorist suspects and crack down on their political and military backers. The list and the report is posted on the UN website: WWW.UN.ORG