The United Nations Security Council is today set to approve a major expansion of its program aimed at depriving al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban of the means to carry out "criminal terrorist acts."
A US-drafted resolution expands and better defines the groups covered by the existing council initiative, which was put in place after September 11th.
Co-sponsored by Japan, Russia and Greece, the measure also sets out additional steps governments must take to try to prevent individuals and groups tied to al-Qaeda or the Taliban from sponsoring, organising and carrying out attacks.
The text was finalised yesterday, three weeks after Washington first circulated it among the council's 14 other members. It is expected to be adopted unanimously.
Under the current program, intended to deprive suspected extremists of the money and other resources, a Security Council committee maintains a list of more than 300 names of businesses, organisations and individuals suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Putting names on the list obliges the 191 UN member nations to freeze their funds and other assets, block their travel and keep them from obtaining arms and other resources.
The draft resolution expands the initiative's reach by including any individual or entity "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of" al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
Also covered would be "any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative thereof" as well as any group or individual recruiting for them or supplying them with arms.
The draft also asks Interpol to add the council's listings to its own databases and call on world governments to promptly invalidate all stolen or lost passports.
UN counter-terrorism experts, in a report issued in February, said governments should work more closely with Interpol to identify lost and stolen passports in order to thwart terrorists planning and executing attacks.