EU names terror groups

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A list of groups branded as terrorists by the European Union has been issued as part of a package of anti-terrorism measures.

The plans freeze the assets of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas Izzedine al-Qassam, which the EU said was the "terrorist wing of Hamas."

The EU has also named groups in Northern Ireland and Spain's Basque country as terrorists as part of a list of organisations which all 15 EU governments have accused of terrorist activity.

Individuals have also been targeted by the asset freeze and include Imad Mughniyeh who the EU named as a "senior intelligence officer" of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, along with two other Lebanese citizens, four Saudi nationals and a Kuwaiti, The Associated Press reported.

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The package also included a common definition of terrorist crimes accepted by all 15 EU nations, agreement to deny safe haven to terrorists, their supporters or financial backers and increased co-operation and information exchange among law enforcement agencies within the EU and other nations.

There are also plans for tighter monitoring of asylum seekers to ensure terrorists are not given refugee status.

It is the first time the EU has drawn up list of organisations accused of terrorist activity. The groups include the Basque separatist organisation ETA, Irish Republican Army dissidents and loyalist paramilitary groups from Northern Ireland, and the Greek far-left group November 17.

Twenty-one Spanish citizens accused of having links to ETA were also included.

The assets of citizens or groups inside the Union have not been immediately frozen because there is no EU-wide legislation yet for this.

But officials told the AP national governments would act individually against those domestic groups. They also said naming the groups as terrorists would further isolate them and make it easier for police around the EU to co-operate in operations against them.

Officials added that a separate classified list has been agreed of organisations and individuals suspected of terrorist links and subject to investigation by European police forces.

The measures were agreed on Thursday by an exchange of letters among EU governments, but full details were not made public until Friday.

Spain's Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy on Thursday called the list a "great step forward" because it included several organisations linked to ETA, which has claimed the killings of 800 people in a 33-year shooting and bombing campaign to secure independence for Spain's northern Basque region.

The list "confirms at the European level what we all know in Spain ... ETA is not just the gunmen, but a broad conglomerate of groups and organisations," Rajoy said.

Until now, some EU nations had no legal definition of terrorism, or specific anti-terrorism legislation, meaning terrorist groups could evade controls by moving around the 15-nation bloc which has largely abolished internal border controls. The latest measures seek to close such loopholes.

The EU has already frozen the assets of dozens of groups and individuals linked to Afghanistan's Taliban, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, and other Islamic radical organisations.

An EU-wide arrest warrant for serious crimes to come into force 2004, and minimum prison sentences for terrorist crimes, have also been introduced since the September 11 attacks.

The Northern Ireland groups named by the EU as "involved in terrorist acts" on the list published on Friday included the Continuity IRA and Real IRA, four Northern Irish Protestant groups -- the Loyalist Volunteer Force, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders and the Ulster Defense Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters.

ETA is named with five groups linked to it. Also on the list are three Greek organisations, November 17, Revolutionary Cells and Revolutionary Popular Struggle, or ELA; a Spanish leftist group GRAPO; and the Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas Izzedine al-Qassam.