US renews terror label on Abu Sayyaf

WASHINGTON — The Abu Sayyaf’s label as an international terrorist group was renewed by the United States Thursday even as the status of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) was put under review.

The US on Thursday redesignated 25 militant groups as "foreign terrorist organizations," including Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, extending for two years travel and financial sanctions on them and their members.

In a notice published in the Federal Register, the State Department renewed the groups’ blacklistings, all of which had been due to expire on Friday.

The remaining 11 groups on the list of "foreign terrorist organizations" will face similar redesignation next year, the department said.

"By re-certifying them as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’... we preserve the US government’s ability to take action against them," spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement.

Boucher added that Secretary of State Colin Powell made the decision "in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury after a thorough review of these groups’ terrorist activities over the past two years."

Sanctions reimposed against the groups include a ban on US visas, freezing their assets in the United States and a prohibition on any US citizen or person under US jurisdiction providing assistance to them, he said.The 25 groups affected by Thursday’s move were all placed on the blacklist in 1997 or 1999.

They are the Abu Nidal Organization, the Abu Sayyaf, Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo or Aum Supreme Truth cult, the Basque separatist group ETA, Gama’a al-Islamiyya of Egypt, the militant radical Palestinian group Hamas, and the Harakat ul-Mujahideen, among others.

The Lebanese-based Hezbollah, al-Jihad of Egypt, the radical Israeli group Kahane Chai, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, the armed Iranian resistance movement Mujahedeen e Khalq (People’s Mujahedeen), Colombia’s leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), Palestinian Islamic Jihad

The 11 "foreign terrorist organizations" whose designations will be reviewed next year are the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Lebanese-based Asbat al-Ansar, the NPA, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jemaah Islamiyah — the al-Qaeda affiliate that operates in Southeast Asia, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Lashkar I Jhangvi, Northern Ireland’s Real IRA, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat of Algeria and the right-wing Colombian United Self-Defense Forces or AUC.

"As we carry on the global campaign against terrorism, we hope this list will help isolate these terrorist organizations, to choke off their sources of financial support, and to prevent their members’ movement across international borders," Boucher said.– AFP, Marvin Sy