Fed: US should list Khazal as designated terrorist: expert

AAP General News (Australia)
12-23-2003
Fed: US should list Khazal as designated terrorist: expert

CANBERRA, Dec 23 AAP - Convicted Sydney terrorist Bilal Khazal should be listed by
the United States as a specially designated terrorist, a US expert on radical Islam said
today.

Khazal and his brother Maher Khazal have both been sentenced in absentia to 10 years
in jail after being found guilty in Beirut's military court of helping to finance a terrorist
campaign in Lebanon, including the April bombing of a McDonald's outlet.

Jonathan Schanzer, a fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said
Canberra should approach the US to include Bilal Khazal on the same designated terrorist
list as Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants.

"Khazal seems to have many, many links to terrorist organisations and terrorist activities,"

Mr Schanzer told ABC radio.

"If you start to put it together ... it becomes very, very clear that this is a man
that at least on the surface appears to have significant ties to al-Qaeda and that should
be a major concern to the international community."

Listing Khazal as a specially designated terrorist would be a good start to thoroughly
investigating his terrorist links, Mr Schanzer said.

"It gives the US government carte blanch to begin to look into the finances of individuals,
to look into their network, to look into really any sort of ties that they might have
to al-Qaeda in order to take action against them," Mr Schanzer said.

"If they want to launch a more significant investigation into him and into his cohorts,
this would essentially allow US law enforcement to do so."

AAP rmg/maur/br

KEYWORD: BROTHERS SCHANZER

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