EU Adopts Measures to Close Loopholes in Anti-Terror War

The European Union adopted a package of anti-terrorism measures Friday, ordering the assets of Palestinian militants frozen and branding home-grown groups in Northern Ireland and Spain’s Basque Country as terrorist.

The EU ordered a freeze on assets of Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Izzidin al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas. Among other individuals, the freeze targeted Imad Mughniyah, whom the EU called a “senior intelligence officer” of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group.

The package also included a definition of terrorist crimes accepted by all 15 EU nations; agreement to deny safe haven to terrorists and their supporters or financial backers; enhanced cooperation and information exchange among law enforcement agencies within the EU and other nations; and tighter monitoring of asylum seekers to ensure that terrorists are not given refugee status.

For the first time, EU governments also drew up a list of domestic organizations accused by all 15 member nations of terrorist activity. They included the Basque separatist organization ETA, dissident splinter groups of the Irish Republican Army and anti-Catholic groups from Northern Ireland, as well as the militant leftist Greek group November 17.

EU nations have been rushing to better coordinate their efforts against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The new measures seek to close loopholes and prevent groups from evading police by moving across the open borders of the union.

They also represent a toughening of Europe’s approach to militant groups--both home-grown and from abroad, particularly the Middle East. The EU steps against Jihad and Hamas come after the union demanded this month that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat dismantle “the terrorist networks” of the radical groups.

The new measures were agreed upon Thursday by an exchange of letters among EU governments, but full details were not made public until Friday.

The EU has already frozen the assets of dozens of groups and individuals linked to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime, Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, and other Islamic radical organizations. The union has also introduced an EU-wide arrest warrant for serious crimes, to take effect in 2004, and established minimum prison sentences for terrorist crimes.

The latest measures close some gaps. Because some EU nations had no legal definition of terrorism or specific anti-terrorism legislation, law enforcement agencies said groups could evade controls by moving around inside the 15-nation bloc, which has largely abolished internal border controls.

With the decision, the union did not immediately freeze assets of citizens or groups within the union because there is no EU-wide system that would enable it to do so, as there is for foreigners. But officials said national governments would act individually against those domestic groups.

EU officials also said there was an agreement on a separate classified list of organizations and individuals suspected of terrorist links and subject to investigation by European police forces.

The EU list published Friday of groups “involved in terrorist acts” included the Continuity IRA and Real IRA; four Northern Irish Protestant groups--the Loyalist Volunteer Force, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders and the Ulster Defense Assn./Ulster Freedom Fighters; and the Basque Homeland and Freedom separatist organization, known as ETA, and five groups linked to it.

Also on the list were three shadowy Greek organizations: November 17, Revolutionary Cells and Revolutionary Popular Struggle; a Spanish leftist group called GRAPO; and the Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas’ Izzidin al-Qassam.

The external security organization of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which was on a list distributed by diplomats Thursday, was not on the list published in the EU’s official journal Friday. The list Friday, however, included individuals accused of Hezbollah links.