I'm not sure you have to be an "expert" to notice...
U.N. measures aimed at crippling al Qaeda have had little impact on the threat of terrorism and need to be tightened, a panel of outside experts reported on Thursday.
| I'd suggest high explosives, but the UN doesn't do high explosives. They do meetings. And conferences. And seminars... |
No nation has ever reported blocking an arms sale or barring passage to anyone on the U.N. list of individuals or groups with suspected ties to Osama bin Laden or his al Qaeda network, the experts said in a report to the U.N. Security Council, which put the measures in place.
| I'd have to get out my heavy-duty calculator to confirm it, but I think, based on preliminary figures, that's a zero percent success rate... |
Just 19 states have recorded the presence within their borders of any person or organization linked to al Qaeda, although the number of countries in which al Qaeda is active is almost certainly higher, they said. And although 34 nations have reported freezing the assets of people or organizations believed to have ties to al Qaeda under the U.N. sanctions scheme, "in some cases it has been hard to tell what this means," the panel said. "It is not clear from all reports of asset freezing, for example, what those assets are, their value, or who owns them." Based on al Qaeda's continuing high level of activity and reports filed to date by 130 of the 191 U.N. member-states, "it would appear that the sanctions regime imposed by the Security Council has had a limited impact," the monitoring panel concluded.
| I'd call mostly ignoring them was a limited impact, yeah... |
The panel was asked to review the sanctions by a Security Council committee chaired by Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, who set a Monday news conference to discuss the findings.
| Ahah! Now we're talking! Discussions! |
A resolution approved by the council shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States requires U.N. members to freeze the assets of any person or group suspected of ties to al Qaeda or Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers. The measure also orders governments to block suspects' movements and bar them from obtaining arms, funds or other resources.
| That means the turbans are growing all those arms and ammunition in little garden plots out behind their garages, right? |
Munoz's committee is in charge of compiling official lists of suspected groups and individuals, based on information submitted by governments. While al Qaeda's access to funding has been reduced as a result of international action, "so too has its need for money," the panel said. And international regulation to crack down on terrorist financing "is only as strong as its weakest link," the report said, calling for tighter and more effective restrictions. Most nations have adopted laws imposing an arms embargo on al Qaeda and related entities, "but most al Qaeda-related terrorist attacks have involved arms and explosives not covered by the measures," the panel said. For example, the Madrid train bombing in March relied on mining explosives and mobile telephones, while a May attack on a residential compound in Khobar in Saudi Arabia used small arms and knives, it said. Based on evidence al Qaeda is seeking biological and chemical weapons as well as a so-called "dirty bomb" that would disperse low-level radioactive material, "there is a real need ... to try to design effective measures against this threat," the panel said. |