| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Bilal Mansur designated Zarqawi financier |
| 2005-04-14 |
| The US Department of the Treasury today designated Bilal Mansur al-Hiyari, a Jordanian, for "providing financial support" to the Zarqawi network, an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group active in Iraq. "By designating financiers like al-Hiyari, we're making it harder and riskier for the Zarqawi network to raise and move money in support of its brutal attacks against US troops, coalition partners and the Iraqi people," said Robert Werner, Director of the Treasury's office of Foreign Assets Control. "Today's action is the third in a series of strikes by the US government to undercut the financial foundations of the Zarqawi network," he said. The US and Iraq are submitting al-Hiyari to the UN 1267 committee, which will consider adding him to the consolidated list of terrorists tied to al Qaeda, UBL and the Taliban. A treasury press release said that al-Hiyari became acquainted with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Zarqawi network's notorious leader, in 1989 when they met in Afghanistan. According to information available to the US government, their relationship continued through the mid-1990s, when al-Hiyari returned to Jordan where al-Zarqawi was serving out a sentence in Jordanian prison. According to information available to the US government, al-Hiyari traveled to Iraq in 2003 where he sent funds to support al-Zarqawi's operations through several of al-Zarqawi's messengers. In October 2004, the state security court of Jordan convicted al-Hiyari of providing funds to the Zarqawi network. Al-Zarqawi was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) on September 23, 2003. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |