U.S.: Cutting Funds Key to Cutting Terror
Yahoo News | February 05 2005 | ED JOHNSON/AP
 

LONDON - The international community must step up the financial war on terrorism and choke off funding for extremist groups, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor has told a gathering a finance ministers in London.

Taylor, who is attending a summit of the world's seven wealthiest nations, said the money channeled to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida and Hamas must be cut off.

"By breaking the financial backbone of terrorist groups and insurgents, we can encumber and thwart their short-term ambitions while rupturing and dismantling their long-term agendas," Taylor said in a dinner address Friday evening. "Choking off funds that aid terrorist efforts can lead to the ultimate ruin of terrorist organizations."

The United States has stepped up action against foreign financial institutions it suspects of money laundering, and using powers under the 2001 USA Patriot Act has cut them off from the U.S. financial system.

According to a text of his speech released by his office, Taylor called on other countries to adopt such measures.

"Though we have found this tool to be highly effective, it would clearly be most effective if employed multilaterally," said Taylor, who is attending the G-7 gathering in place of U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, who has a cold.

"The United States believes we should apply these lessons and deploy the full array of financial tools at our disposal to attack the financial underpinnings of all illicit activity, including organized crime, kleptocracy, narcotics trafficking and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, more than $140 million in financial assets belonging to suspected terrorist financiers has been frozen worldwide, the Treaury Department has said.

The Patriot Act, passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broadened the government's powers to go after money launderers and terror financiers. But critics of the sweeping anti-terrorism law contend that it gives too much power to the government and the Bush administration must lobby Congress this year to reauthorize the legislation.