Report on frozen terror assets released

WASHINGTON , Oct. 10 (UPI) -- More than half of all terrorist groups' assets frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department are assets allegedly linked to al-Qaida.

The Treasury Department recently published its annual list that denotes the frozen assets of individuals or organizations alleged to have ties to terrorist organizations or state sponsors of terror. Officials say a designee on the Treasury Department list has all its assets in the United States blocked.

According to the released report on the 2007 calendar year, terrorist organizations and individual terrorist threats have over $20.7 million in assets frozen. The al-Qaida terrorist network makes up more than $11.3 million of that figure in frozen assets, the Counterterrorism Blog reported.

The blocked assets cited in the Treasury Department report, which is mandated by U.S. law, saw an increase of almost 46 percent over the amount blocked in 2006.

"The increase in blocked terrorist organization assets in 2007 is due to new or additional blockings, interest paid on blocked funds, and increased share price on certain blocked securities," according to the Treasury Department report.

The total amount of assets from state sponsors of terror that were frozen was over $315 million.