THISDAYonline

As the United States and UK forces pounded the cities of Afghanistan for the fourth consecutive day, US yesterday released a new list of 22 "most wanted terrorists" sought in connection with attacks on US targets since 1985. The list includes Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants in the al Qaeda Organisation.

This is as US Secretary of State, Mr. Collin Powell described the threat issued in a recorded statement by Sulaiman Abu Ghaith threatening more attacks as a "chilling challenge".

US President George W. Bush, who has declared bin Laden wanted

"dead or alive" unveiled the list of 22 most wanted terrorists during a visit to the headquarters of the FBI, which will jointly manage the initiative with the US State Department.

The FBI headquarters is at the epicenter of the massive investigation into the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that killed thousands in New York and Washington.

The United States offers rewards of up to five million dollars for information that helps thwart terrorist acts on US interests worldwide or leads to the arrest or conviction of someone in connection with such attacks.

The list includes Osama bin Laden, his two top deputies and several members of his al-Qaeda network implicated in earlier bombings overseas against U.S. interests.

``The FBI is still developing leads,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

Listed just below bin Laden's name among those indicted for the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were two Egyptians, Ayman al-Zawahri and Mohamed Atef, who have been identified as bin Laden's most trusted lieutenants. Officials have said evidence gathered since Sept. 11 has connected both men to the suicide hijacking plot.

The international police agency, Interpol, also issued an arrest warrant for al-Zawahri alleging that he ``masterminded several terrorist operations in Egypt'' and is ``accused of criminal complicity and

management for the purpose of committing premeditated murders.''

Al-Zawahri, a doctor by training, is the former head of the Egyptian al-Jihad group that merged in 1998 with bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Al-Jihad had been linked to terrorist activities dating to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the early 1980s.

Atef, a former police official, has been identified by U.S. authorities as a key military strategist and training director for bin Laden.

Others who made the US most-wanted list were several people identified last week by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a speech laying out evidence against bin Laden's network. They include:

-Ahmed Khfaklan Ghailani and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, whom Blair said were two al-Qaida operatives that bought a truck used in the U.S. embassy bombings in August 1998.

Other include those implicated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, June 14, 1985 during which US Navy diver Robert Stethem was tortured and killed. They are Imad Mugniyah, Hassan Izz-al-Din and Ali Atwa.

Also included is a suspect of World Trade Center bombing in February 26, 1993 Abdul Rahman Yasin.

Plot to blow up a dozen Boeing 747s belonging to US airlines in Asia in 1994-1995: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, June 25, 1996 in which 19 Americans died: Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, Ali Saed Bin Ali el-Houri Salih Mohammed al-Yacoub, Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser US embassy bombings in Kenya, Tanzania, August 7, 1998. 12 Americans were among the 224 dead. The suspects: Osama bin Laden, Muhammad Atef Ayman al-Zawahiri, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani ,Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah ,Anas al-Liby, Saif al-Adel Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali and Mushin Musa Matwall Atwah.

In an apparent response to the Wednesday's call by al Qaeda for Jihad and threatening that US will never know peace until Americans left all Muslem lands, US Secretary of State Collin Powell said the statement is a "chilling challenge".

Powell told NBC's Today show that US would meet the challenge from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network which warned the United States would face further attacks by hijacked planes in a jihad against the nation.

"It's a chilling challenge. But I assure you we will meet that challenge. We will pursue this campaign until that spokesman will no longer have any reason to make such boasts," Powell said in response to comments by al-Qaeda spokesman Abu Ghaith.

Ghaith issued the call to jihad in Arabic in a pre-recorded message broadcast by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television station Wednesday, nearly a month after hijackers rammed fuel-laden passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing around 5,500 people. A fourth plane crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania.

Yesterday, Kuwait stripped Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the official spokesman for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, of his nationality.

Meanwhile Britain rejected on Wednesday accusations by a French parliamentary report that the City of London was indifferent to money-laundering and a favoured centre for terrorist investments. Government officials said the suggestion was "offensive" and insisted that the City of London had one of the most stringent set of laws to combat money-laundering.

"No one is denying that, despite strong controls, there have been cases of money laundering in the UK, just as there have in many other countries including France," a government spokeswoman said.

"The point is that we have laws against it, and when we discover money laundering we prosecute.

"To suggest that the City facilitates financing of terrorists through front organisation is an offensive allegation and it's groundless," she said.

The French report prepared by a working group at the French National Assembly said that the City was "very attractive for money launderers" because of permissive legislation regarding trusts guaranteeing anonymity for beneficiaries and because some financial professionals were not regulated.

City banks have been criticised for handling cash allegedly looted by former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. Several accounts in London linked to terrorism have moreover been frozen in the wake of the events of September 11.

But British officials said that the report failed to take into account measures implemented in recent years to tighten the loopholes in the City and force banks to sit up and take notice when suspicious transactions passed through their accounts.

"It doesn't give any credit to things that have been done in the past few years," said a source close to the fight against money laundering.

"It's a mixture of half-truths, some facts in there, they haven't just conjured it out of thin air," the source said. "It's a very skewed view, lots of inaccuracies, groundless charges and wild accusations."