WASHINGTON, Jan 25: The United States has blocked the assets of two men for allegedly having ties to terrorist organizations.
The State Department said on Friday that both were linked to Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda.
An executive order identified the two men as Nurjaman Riduan Ismuddin, commonly known as Hambali, and Mohamad Iqbal Abdurrahman, known as Abu Jibril.
Both have close ties to Al Qaeda, the agency’s order said. Jemaah Islamiyah was declared a terrorist outfit by the US government on Oct 23.
The UN Sanctions Committee included Jemaah Islamiyah in its list of terrorist organizations two days after the United States added it to theirs. Since then, a number of other countries also have endorsed the US decision and have frozen the group’s assets.
The US on Friday also asked the UN Sanctions Committee to include the men on its consolidated list of groups and individuals whose assets UN member states are obliged to freeze.
The State Department identified Hambali as a senior leader of Jemaah Islamiyah with close ties to Al Qaeda. He also has a long track record of involvement in terrorist activities, including the targeting of US interests, the agency’s order said.
US officials say that Hambali was involved in a 1995 plot to bomb 11 US commercial airliners in Asia and directed the late 2001 foiled plot to attack US and Western interests in Singapore.
Hambali is the head of the group’s regional shura, or policymaking body. He is also considered the group’s director of operations, oversees its financing, and serves as the primary interface with Al Qaeda. He is suspected of being Al Qaeda’s operations director for the East Asian region.
According to the State Department, Hambali arranged for a courier to take surveillance videotape to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan proposing a bomb attack on Americans in Singapore, and made arrangements for the group’s members to train in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
Hambali also was allegedly involved in planning a series of bombings in Manila on Dec 30, 2000, that killed 22 people and injured more than 100.
One Jemaah Islamiyah member admitted to Philippine investigators that Hambali was involved in the Aug 1, 2000, bombing of the residence of the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia that killed two people and seriously injured the ambassador.
In addition, Hambali was involved in a series of coordinated bombings of churches in Jakarta and eight other cities on Dec 24, 2000, that killed 18 people and injured many others.
Indonesian police say they found documents implicating Hambali in that bombing.
The other suspect, Abu Jibril, is a close associate of Hambali. He was said to be Jemaah Islamiyah’s primary recruiter and second-in-command — running the group’s operations and heading its regional shura — before his arrest by the Malaysian authorities in June 2001, the State Department said.
Southeast Asian intelligence sources identify Jibril as a financial conduit for Al Qaeda.