Isis British jihadists join UN terror club: Who else is on sanctions list?
Four British militants with the Islamic State (Isis) have joined a long list of jihadists subject to UN sanctions. The names of Omar Hussain from High Wycombe, Nasser Muthana from Cardiff, Aqsa Mahmood from Glasgow and Sally-Anne Jones from Chatham, now feature alongside those of dozens of Islamist militants and leaders from all across the world.
The list of individuals and groups was first drawn up in 1999 to target al-Qaeda but has since extended its reach to all Islamic extremists. Inclusion entails global asset freezes and travel bans, and also aims at discouraging would-be jihadists.
Following the latest addition, it now contains the names of 72 organisations and 231 people, of whom six are British nationals. The other two are radical cleric Abu Hamza who was jailed for life in New York in January 2015 after being found guilty on terror charges, and east Londoner al-Qaeda suspect Mohammed al Ghabra.
Hussain, 27, Muthana, 20, Mahmood, 21 and Jones, 46, join an undesirable club including some of the most prominent names of global terrorism.
Islamic State (Isis) chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been a member since 2011 when his organisation was a simple spin-off of al-Qaeda in Iraq. His former boss and now rival al-Qaeda leader Ayman Mohammed al-Zawahiri was one of the first to be listed in January 2001.
The heads of IS and al-Qaeda's many powerful regional offshoots are also on the list. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian-based Boko Haram militant group that has been wreaking havoc in the north of the African country, was added last year. Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, the emir of al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, was listed two years earlier, while al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) chief Karim al-Wuhayshi, aka Abu Basir, has been the subject of a travel ban and assets freeze since 2010.
Other high-profile sanctioned individuals include one-eyed Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar and IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani.
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