A U.N. committee announced Tuesday that it has put the network of alleged terror mastermind Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi on its list of groups subject to U.N. sanctions. The Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban said it had added al-Zarqawi's network, Jama'at al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad - known as Tawhid and Jihad - to the list on Monday. It said the group is also known as the Monotheism and Jihad Group. The group apparently has changed its name according to an Internet statement released Tuesday, two days after it announced its merger with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.
The sanctions committee could add the new name as another alias, if requested by a member state. The Security Council shifted sanctions from the government of Afghanistan to al-Qaida and remnants of the Taliban in January 2002, after a U.S.-led force ousted the Taliban. The sanctions require all countries to freeze assets and impose an arms embargo and travel ban on the 316 individuals and entities on a U.N. sanctions list for links to the two groups. |