BEIRUT, 27 September 2005 — Arab officials began yesterday to hammer out tough new steps to fight terrorist financing and money laundering, including curbs on bulk cash couriers, informal money transfers and the abuse of charities. The officials from 14 Arab members of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENA-FATF) also discussed pushing the fight beyond governments to the private sector, by helping vulnerable entities such as banks detect and fight dirty money.
“All our member states have suffered from terrorist attacks, and thus we have a true commitment to fighting money laundering and terrorism financing,” Muhammad Baasiri, the head of the regional body, told delegates at the start of a two-day plenary meeting in Beirut. Western officials have expressed concern that the 10-month-old group had not moved ahead fast enough.
Among the concerns is that only five of the member states have so far set up fully functioning financial intelligence units, which collect, analyze and exchange financial information to help fight money laundering and terrorism.
Meanwhile, Lebanon vowed yesterday to confront the wave of attacks against anti-Syrian figures after a top woman television anchor was targeted in a car bombing, adding to a climate of fear in the country. May Chidiac, 40, a Christian news presenter and political talk show host on LBC television, was maimed when a bomb planted in her car blew up on the northern outskirts of Beirut on Sunday. It was the 13th in a wave of bombings unleashed in February, when Lebanon’s billionaire former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a huge bomb blast on the Beirut seafront.
“It is a terrorist plot ... and the state is doing everything it can” to tackle the attacks, Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh told reporters after Prime Minister Fuad Siniora met with security chiefs.
