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JTIC Briefing: Terrorist financing in Indonesia
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| 23 December 2004 |
By Richard Evans, Editor of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC)
An alleged leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines has been officially designated a terrorist by the US Treasury Department for his suspected involvement in the kidnapping and beheading of US nationals.
The US Treasury Department has blacklisted Khadafi Abubakar Janjalani, of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), under Executive Order 13224 on terrorist financing and has ordered any US assets held by him to be frozen. The order makes it illegal for any US national to offer support or financial assistance to a designated individual.
In a dossier released this week, Treasury officials accuse Janjalani of involvement in the kidnapping and eventual beheading of two Filipinos and a US national, Guillermo Sobero, in May 2001. Sobero, two other US citizens and 17 Filipinos were abducted from the Dos Palmas resort on the island of Palawan by heavily armed ASG fighters. Sobero was decapitated a month later, but the ASG held onto the two US missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, for another year before Gracia Burnham was rescued on 7 June 2002. Martin Burnham was killed in a gun battle between his captors and Philippine armed forces.
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