UN tightens al-Qaeda sanctions

The resolution aims to target more clearly those supporting Bin Laden

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution that expands the organisation's sanctions against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taleban.

The US-drafted resolution was adopted unanimously by the 15 members.

Under the current programme UN member states must impose a travel ban against a number of associated individuals and groups, and freeze their funds.

The new resolution clarifies and defines who should face sanctions, according to a US mission spokesman.

The new list includes those said to participate in financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating acts to support the outlawed groups.

Those who recruit, supply, sell or transfer weapons to Osama Bin Laden or al-Qaeda would also be subject to sanctions.

Sanctions shall also be extended to "any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative thereof", as well as any group or individual recruiting for them, or supplying them with arms.

"What the council is looking at is to pursue any act of terrorism from wherever they are coming," said the current Council president, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis.

Government measures

The new resolution also sets out more steps for governments to follow.

A monitoring team to assess national efforts to implement sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taleban shall be set up, according to the Associated Press.

And the resolution calls on governments to invalidate more quickly stolen or lost passports.

It also asks the worldwide police agency Interpol to add the council's list to its own databases.

The list now includes 143 individuals and one entity associated with the Taleban and 182 individuals and 117 entities associated with al-Qaeda, the Associated Press reports.