WASHINGTON,February 24 2012(Reuters): The US Treasury slapped sanctions on Thursday against three men it said were members of Jema’ah Ansharut Tauhid, or JAT, an Indonesia-based militant organization.Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the sanctions against Mochammad Achwan, Son Hadi bin Muhadjir and Abdul Rosyid Ridho Ba’asyir were intended to cut off their access to the international finance system by prohibiting US transactions with them. It said in a statement the move coincided with the State Department designating JAT as a terrorist organization. JAT is headed by Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who is also the co-founder of Jemaah Islamiya, or JI, a Southeast Asia-based militant group with links to al Qaeda. All three men have ties to JI, the Treasury said. “The OFAC is taking another step to ensure that terrorists are cut off from the international financial system and find it ever more difficult to carry out their acts of violence, no matter where they are based,” Treasury’s OFAC director, Adam Szubin, said in a statement. Al Qaeda is believed to have supported some JI attacks, including the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed more than 200 people. According to the Treasury, Achwan provided funding for an Aceh militant training camp in 2010. The militants, using the name “Al Qaeda in Aceh,” plotted to kill US aid workers and Western tourists. The Treasury said Son Hadi supplied explosives used in JI’s 2004 bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, which killed nine people and wounded 182.
