The UN Security Council moved on several fronts to tackle the global upsurge in terrorist attacks, calling on all countries to prosecute or extradite terrorist suspects and starting a process that could lead to a greatly expanded list of terrorists subject to sanctions and punishment.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the council on Friday backed away from authorizing a new blacklist, but it authorized a "working group" including all council nations to study measures to be taken against terrorists and terrorist groups that are not affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
The council has already imposed stiff sanctions against those groups -- requiring all 191 UN member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against a list of those linked to the Taliban or al-Qaeda and to freeze their financial assets.
But this will be the first time the council examines what actions to take against other terrorists, and the seven co-sponsors of the resolution, including Russia and the US, are expected to make an expanded terrorist list a priority in the working group.
US Ambassador John Danforth said he believes the resolution "sets in motion a process in which a list is going to be created."
Russia introduced the resolution last month after militants staged a series of attacks there, including the suicide hijacking of two planes and the hostage-taking of a school in Beslan that killed more than 330 people. It was adopted a day after a spate of deadly car bombings targeted Israelis in Egyptian resorts in Sinai.
Russian UN Ambassador Andrei Denisov said "the unprecedented escalation of international terrorism" proved the need for more decisive Security Council action to develop a global anti-terrorism strategy with "strong practical measures."
Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the resolution and a separate council statement strongly condemning the latest beheading of a British engineer in Iraq and attacks in Sinai and Pakistan send out "a very loud and clear signal to the rest of the world that the United Nations is determined to fight terrorism wherever it comes from and wherever it takes place."
Russia's original draft called for the council to compile a new list of terrorist suspects not linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban who would be subject to extradition and possible sanctions.
But Algeria and Pakistan, the only Muslim nations on the council, objected to the list and to a provision they argued would be used to label freedom fighters as terrorists. There were also complaints that the original draft was attempting to define terrorism, something the UN General Assembly has been trying to do for years, so far unsuccessfully because of the difficult problem that one nation's terrorist can be another's freedom fighter.
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