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January 16, 2009: US Treasury Freezes Assets of Four Alleged Al-Qaeda Members

2009-01-16

The US Treasury Department freezes the assets of four alleged al-Qaeda operatives. The men are:
bullet Saad bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, who has just escaped from house arrest in Iran (see (Between December 2008 and January 2009)). The US seems to think he is linked to terrorist activities, although his family denies it;
bullet Mustafa Hamid, who the Treasury says is a key intermediary between al-Qaeda and the Iranian government;
bullet Muhammad Raba al-Sayid al-Bahtiyti, an Egyptian thought to be a trusted aide to al-Qaeda’s second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri;
bullet Ali Saleh Husain, a logistics operative for al-Qaeda.
In addition to freezing their assets, the Treasury Department prohibits Americans from having financial transactions with the men. [Wall Street Journal, 1/16/2009]