LOC21:04
18:04 GMT
WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (KUNA) -- The US targeted Friday a terrorist in East Africa who established "intricate worldwide financial network to facilitate funds transfers" for the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.
The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has named Waleed Ahmed Zein, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), "for assisting in, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, IS."
Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said in this regard that Zein is "a dangerous terrorist who established an intricate global network of financial facilitators for IS, using hawalas and intermediaries to evade police detection and fund their deadly ambitions."
She affirmed the US "on is committed to targeting IS facilitators and their underground networks wherever they operate, in an effort to deny resources they need to carry out attacks."
According to the Treasury, Zein has served as an "important" IS financial facilitator in East Africa in recent years, establishing "an intricate IS financial facilitation network spanning Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Eastern Africa."
He was arrested by Kenyan security services in July 2018.
The Treasury stressed that today's designation is part of "a concerted effort to expose and disrupt IS-related financing activity around the globe, and follows numerous other U.S. government actions this year to target IS branches and networks in Somalia, West Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and the Philippines."
"Treasury's action furthers this Administration's continued campaign to ensure that battlefield successes against IS are sustained," it reiterated. (end)
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