WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Treasury Department on Friday targeted one of Osama bin Laden's sons and three other alleged Al Qaeda operatives with Iranian ties under an executive order that freezes their assets under US jurisdiction and outlaws their supporters.
Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad, along with Mustafa Hamid, Muhammad Rab'a al-Sayid al-Bahtiyti and Ali Saleh Husain, are alleged to have worked for Al Qaeda in Iran, and some have ties to the Iranian government, said the department in a statement.
The designations, which prohibits transactions between the group and US citizens, were put in place to give Iran "public accounting of how it is meeting its international obligations to constrain Al Qaeda," according to Stuart Levey, the US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
The four men were all detained by Iranian authorities in 2003, said US officials, although Sa'ad bin Laden may not have been in Iranian custody since September 2008.
All are accused of ties with Iran before their arrest.
Sa'ad bin Laden "made key decisions for Al-Qaeda and was part of a small group of Al-Qaeda members that was involved in managing the terrorist organization from Iran," the department alleges.
Another of the accused, Mustafa Hamid, is accused of being a "senior Al-Qaeda associate who served as a primary interlocutor between Al-Qaeda and the government of Iran." The others are alleged to have conducted activities for Al-Qaeda while in Iran.
Executive Order 13224, designed to both target the operatives and those who support them, can have a "far reaching impact," said Levey.
"Even though individual terrorist attacks are relatively inexpensive to carry out, it costs a great deal of money for Al-Qaeda to operate globally," he said.
"Designations have a far reaching impact, deterring would-be donors from providing financial support to terrorism and leaving Al-Qaeda leadership struggling to identify much-needed funding resources."
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