U.S. puts financial sanctions on group tied to Christmas Day bomb plot

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The U.S. State Department on Tuesday slapped financial sanctions on leaders of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda group that claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton approved sanctions that include a travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo against Qasim al-Raimi, a top military commander for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsuala. Raimi, whose name is also spelled al-Rimi, threatened new attacks against America, saying in an online magazine in February that his group “will blow up the earth from below your feet.”

Also a target was Nayif al-Qahtani, who manages the group’s operations in Yemen and has served as a liaison between the Al Qaeda cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has become increasingly worried about militants based in Yemen since Al Qaeda groups there and in Saudi Arabia merged last year to become AQAP, and began to openly target U.S. and other Western interests in Yemen and abroad.

This marks the second time terrorist leaders in Yemen have been the targets of sanctions. Administration officials decided to target AQAP just 11 days before the failed attempt Dec. 25 to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Clinton approved the latest sanctions on April 6, but they took effect Tuesday when they were published in the Federal Register.

-- Associated Press