US designates Moroccan group as foreign terrorists

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States added the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), a band with reputed links to last year's bloody Madrid bombings, to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

A notice posted in the Federal Register said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had concluded there was "sufficient factual basis" to include the GICM on the list that already carried more than 40 groups.

US intelligence analysts said the GICM, known by its French initials, emerged in the late 1990s and included members who trained in Afghanistan and support Al-Qaeda.

It is said to have ties to other North African militants, including those in Europe, and engage in the trafficking of forged documents and possibly the smuggling of weapons.

Suspected members of the GICM are believed to have ties with those responsible for the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid, in which 191 people died, and the May 2003 Casablanca attacks that left 45 dead.

Designation as a foreign terrorist organization prohibits anyone in the United States from giving material support to the GICM and bars representatives of the group from entering the country.

It also obliges financial institutions to freeze any assets of the organization and report them to the government.