The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on two al Qaeda leaders based in Pakistan, including the terror group’s top strategist and propaganda chief Abu Yahya al-Libi, The Economic Times said on Saturday.
Sanctions were also imposed on a senior al Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauritani, who was in charge of the group’s external operations and had planned attacks on European economic targets. The sanctions put into effect an assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo against the two, who participated in the “financing, planning, facilitating and perpetrating” of terror acts for al Qaeda.
An al Qaeda commander in Pakistan, al-Libi provided financial assistance to the terror group’s fighters in Afghanistan. The Libya-born has also been a top al-Qaeda strategist, field commander in Afghanistan and an instructor at training camps for the group. A prominent figure in al Qaeda’s media operations, he has been referred to as its “propaganda chief”, being second in visibility only to top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
As of April 2010, Al-Libi had released 68 messages on behalf of al Qaeda and had urged Pakistanis to attack their government. Al-Mauritani was in charge of al-Qaeda’s external operations as of mid-2010. He was planning an attack on European economic targets and had the support of Osama bin Laden, who had at the time devoted most of the organisation’s funds to support Al-Mauritani’s plan.
Al-Mauritani was wanted in Mauritania for planning an attack in 2005 against the Mauritanian military. He was arrested in the suburbs of Quetta in Pakistan early last week.
