Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), vice chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance, recently sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin urging the exploration of sanctions against Qatar-based terrorism financiers.
Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), David Trott (R-MI), and French Hill (R-AR) also signed the letter.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain have placed sanctions on nearly 90 entities in Qatar for their involvement in providing material support to fund terrorism. The UAE determined that more than 40 of those individuals and organizations provided support to Al-Qaeda and its associated networks. The U.S. and the United Nations have sanctioned some, but not all, of the 90 identified entities.
“As a global leader in combatting terror finance, we must support international efforts to punish those who provide the financial means by which to conduct violent terror attacks,” the letter said. “With that in mind, we respectfully request that you conduct a timely review of the list of entities sanctioned by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and UAE to determine if the U.S. can similarly designate any of the other persons and entities as terrorist financiers who have not yet already been sanctioned by the U.S. government.”