For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 24, 2001
Will You Guys Post This One Instead??
Executive Order on Terrorist Financing September 24, 2001 ?we Will Starve Terrorists of Funding, Turn Them Against Each Other, Rout Them Out of Their Safe Hiding Places, and Bring Them to Justice.? President George W. Bush September 24, 2001 the President Has Directed the First Strike on the Global Terror Network Today by Issuing An Executive Order to Starve Terrorists of Their Support Funds. the Order Expands the Treasury Department?s Power to Target The Support Structure of Terrorist Organizations, Freeze the U.S. Assets And Block the U.S. Transactions of Terrorists and Those That Support Them, and
increases our ability to block U.S. assets of, and deny access to U.S.
markets to, foreign banks who refuse to cooperate with U.S. authorities
to identify and freeze terrorist assets abroad.
Disrupting the Financial Infrastructure of Terrorism
? Targets all individuals and institutions
linked to global terrorism. ? Allows the
Treasury Department to freeze U.S. assets and block U.S. transactions
of any person or institution associated with terrorists or terrorist
organizations. ? Names specific individuals and
organizations whose assets and transactions are to be blocked.
? Identifies charitable organizations that
secretly funnel money to al-Qaeda. ? Provides
donors information about charitable groups who fund terrorist
organizations. ? States the President's intent
to punish those financial institutions at home and abroad that continue
to provide resources and/or services to terrorist organizations.
Authorities Broadened The new Executive order broadens existing
authority in three principal ways: ? It expands
the coverage of existing Executive orders from terrorism in the Middle
East to global terrorism; ? The Order expands
the class of targeted groups to include all those who are ?associated
with? designated terrorist groups; and
? Establishes our ability to block the U.S.
assets of, and deny access to U.S. markets to, those foreign banks that
refuse to freeze terrorist assets.
Blocking Terrorist Assets ? The Order
prohibits U.S. transactions with those terrorist organizations,
leaders, and corporate and charitable fronts listed in the Annex.
? Eleven terrorist organizations are listed in
the Order, including organizations that make up the al-Qaeda network.
? A dozen terrorist leaders are listed,
including Osama bin Ladin and his chief lieutenants, three charitable
organizations, and one corporate front organization are identified as
well. ? The Order authorizes the Secretary of
State and the Secretary of the Treasury to make additional terrorist
designations in the coming weeks and months.
Other Actions in War on Terrorist Financing This Executive Order is
part of a broader strategy that we have developed for suppressing
terrorist financing: ? A Foreign Terrorist
Asset Tracking Center (FTAT) is up and running. The FTAT is a
multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist
funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place.
? The President, the Secretary of the Treasury,
the Secretary of State and others are working with our allies around
the world to tackle the financial underpinnings of
terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United
Nations. Already, several of our allies, including
Switzerland and Britain, have frozen accounts of suspected terrorists.
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