UNITED NATIONS:  A US-Yemeni cleric tied to the 2009 failed bombing of a US airliner was Tuesday added to a United Nations terror blacklist targeting associates of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, UN and US officials said.

The latest target is Anwar al-Awlaqi, a senior member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) who is wanted for his part in the plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit last December 25 with 290 people on board.

A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Awlaqi was put on the blacklist of a UN panel set up under Security Council resolution 1267 in 1999 to slap sanctions on individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The source who is close to the panel said the move means that the US-born cleric, who is believed to be hiding in Yemen, faces an immediate assets freeze and travel ban by all states.

In Washington, the State Department said in a statement that the UN`s blacklisting "highlights the threat al-Awlaqi poses to the international community."
Daniel Benjamin, State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, said the UN move is "in direct response to the operational role he plays in AQAP, and most importantly because of the integral part he played in planning AQAP`s attempted destruction of Northwest Airlines flight 253."

Awlaqi, 39, is specifically accused of helping prepare Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to carry out the failed Christmas Day plot.

Last Friday, the US Treasury Department also froze Awlaqi`s US-held assets and banned any American from engaging in transactions with him.
Benjamin said the tandem actions by the UN and the Treasury Department "will help stem the domestic and international flow of finances to al-Awlaqi, and to AQAP, which is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization."

US President Barack Obama`s administration has authorized the targeted killing of Awlaqi, a rare move against an American citizen.

The order was approved after US intelligence agencies concluded that the cleric was now directly involved in plots against the United States, and not merely publicly encouraging such attacks.

The cleric has backed the targeting of American civilians and in Internet videos has urged Muslims to follow the example of Major Nidal Hassan, a US Army psychiatrist accused of fatally gunning down 13 colleagues during a rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in November.

Awlaqi was jailed in Yemen in 2006 on charges of kidnapping a Shiite teenager and, separately, for his involvement in an al-Qaeda plot to kidnap a US official.
But he was released from detention in December 2007 and subsequently went into hiding in Yemen.

BDST: 0922 HRS, July 21, 2010