UN MAKES SUBSTANTIAL FORMAT CHANGES TO ITS AL QAIDA AND TALIBAN CONSOLIDATED LIST
By Victor Comras
The UN Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee issued a Bulletin July 25th advising the international community of important changes to the way it maintains the consolidated list of individuals and entities designated as members or associates of al Qaida and the Taliban. This list serves to identify the individuals and entities that are the target of obligatory UN Security Council sanctions measures. These measures require all countries to deny those on the list access to financial transactions and economic resources, and to freeze their assets. It also prohibits individuals on the list from cross border travel and provides that all countries should adopt measures to assure they cannot obtain weapons or explosives.
The UN list now contains 213 individuals associated with Al Qaeda and 143 associated with the Taliban. It also names 122 al Qaeda entities and one Taliban entity. In the past these individuals and entities were listed in alphabetical order and each time a name was added the number next to their name on the list changed. From now on, permanent reference numbers will be assigned to each designated individual and entity. These reference numbers can serve as a standard reference guide to those on the UN list. And it is hoped that other countries may adopt a similar nomenclature to maintain a common standard of reference regarding such designated individuals and entities.
The permanent reference number will consist of three letters and two numbers. The first letter, T or Q, indicates Taliban or Al-Qaida. The second letter, I or E, indicates individual or entity. The third letter represents the first letter of the last name. The first number represents the order in which the individual or entity was added to the Consolidated List. The second number represents the year the individual or entity was added to the Consolidated List. Both the Taliban and the Al-Qaida sections of the Consolidated List will be maintained alphabetically.
As an example, the permanent reference number assigned to Usama Muhammed Awad bin Laden is QI.B.8.01 where Q indicates that he appears on the Al-Qaida section of the Consolidated List, I indicates that he is an individual, B that his last name starts with a B, 8 that he was the eighth individual to be added to the Al-Qaida individuals section of the Consolidated List, and 01 that he was added in 2001.
Another improvement to the list will be the inclusion, where possible of the names of listed individuals in original script as the names would appear in the individuals travel documents. Transliterations will also be used as required.
POSTSCRIPT: A colleague from the original UN Al Qaida Monitoring Group has reminded me that in paragraph 17 of our report to Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee and the Security Council dated 29 April 2002, we recommended the use of permanent serial numbers and suggested that the list be maintained both alphabetically and chronologically. It is gratifying to see that this recommendation also has finally, if belatedly, been adopted by the Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee.