Fighting Terrorist Funding
Finance ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC, met Thursday to draft an agreement aimed at combating the financing of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Security guards set up roadblocks at the entrance to the hotel at this beach resort at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula where the finance ministers from the 21-member group gathered behind closed doors.
The U.S. believes that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network engineered the Sept. 11 attacks, and it has moved to cut the group’s funding sources.
After the attacks, the United States and other nations blocked more than $112 million in assets Washington said were tied to funding terrorism worldwide. But U.S. Treasury officials say a more global effort is needed.
The APEC Financiers’ Group, a consultative body of banking executives from APEC countries, recommended the sharing of lists of people and companies identified as money launderers and financiers of terrorist campaigns.
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