A massive worldwide raid on US and global businesses suspected of helping finance Osama bin Laden's financial network was orchestrated by the Bush administration yesterday. In Switzerland, two Arab financiers were questioned by police co-operating with the United States.
"Today, we are taking another step in our fight against evil," President Bush said, announcing the first major crackdown on companies, organizations and people suspected of aiding terrorists from US soil. US customs agents seized evidence at nine locations in four cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. Assets of nine organizations and two people in the US were frozen.
Targeting a second financial network, the US also asked allies to freeze assets that aid bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization in at least nine countries.
In all, the names of 62 entities and people were added to a list of suspected terrorist associates targeted by Bush in an executive order signed last month. The earlier list included 88 groups or people whose assets had been frozen because of their ties to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
The list targets assets in several countries, including Switzerland, Somalia, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas, Sweden, Canada, Austria, Italy and the United Arab Emirates.
The administration is urging governments to freeze the assets in banks within their borders.
The new list covers groups and people affiliated with two suspected bin Laden financial networks - al-Taqua and al-Barakaat. Both are informal, largely unregulated financial networks - sometimes called hawalas - that authorities say funnel money to al-Qaeda through companies and non-profit organizations they operate.
US Homeland Security Chief Mr Tom Ridge said he was hopeful the anthrax scare has ended, given the lack of new cases in the past few days. "I am hopeful, like the rest of America, that the anthrax has stopped permanently," Mr Ridge told reporters at the White House.
Meanwhile, the Northern Alliance said it seized a district near Mazar-e-Sharif from the Taliban yesterday and was closing in on the key northern city. Opposition troops took control of Shol Ghar district, about 30 miles from Mazar-e-Sharif , said Northern Alliance spokesman Mr Ashraf Nadeem. The Taliban denied they had lost Shol Ghar.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, speaking in the US early today called for the UN to play a key role in the military action against the Taliban.
"International solidarity in the fight against terrorism is crucial at this time, and we firmly believe that the United Nations has a pivotal role in achieving this," Mr Ahern told students and faculty at Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government.
"The humanitarian situation will, of course, only be properly resolved in the context of a political settlement which is a prerequisite for long term peace," he added.