The US has frozen the financial assets of 10 Malaysians considered to be "global terrorists," including alleged key members of the al-Qaeda-linked Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah. The Malaysian suspects were in addition to 10 other suspects, mostly Indonesians, announced by US Treasury Secretary John Snow on Friday in Thailand, where he attended a meeting of finance ministers from the APEC forum. Snow said the US government has submitted the names he identified to the UN and wants members of the global body to similarly freeze their assets.
The US Office of Foreign Asset Control posted all 20 names on its Web site, seen over the weekend, saying the suspects "have been named as specially designated global terrorists."
Among the Malaysians were explosives expert Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, key suspects in the Aug. 5 attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people.
Five of the other Malaysians listed are among more than 70 suspected militants currently being held at a northern Malaysian prison center under the Internal Security Act, a security law that allows indefinite detention without trial.
Among the suspects in custody is Yazid Sufaat, who is accused of allowing al-Qaeda operatives and two of the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US to use his apartment on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur for meetings in 2000.
Jemaah Islamiyah is believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and has been blamed for a number of bombings in Asia, including the nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, on Oct. 12 last year that killed 202 people, and the Marriott attack.
A statement by Snow on Friday said that since the attacks on Sept. 11, the US and its allies have "designated" 305 people and entities as terrorists and supporters of terrorism, and have frozen more than US$136.7 million in assets worldwide.
The US move means that the "assets of these individuals will be frozen and financial institutions will not be able to continue to have financial relations with them," Snow said.
The US Office of Foreign Asset Control's statement identified the 10 Malaysian suspects as: Sulaiman bin Abas, Azahari bin Husin, Amran bin Mansour, Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, Abdul Manaf Kasmuri, Zulkifli Marzuki, Yazid Sufaat, Noordin Mohamed Top, Wan Min Wan Mat and Zaini Zakaria.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing