Sulayman Khalid Darwish, a Syrian, has been designated by the U.S, Treasury Department as a financial supporter of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who is the leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq. The designation allows the U.S. to freeze all of Darwish's assets, but is not expected to have much of an impact other than that.

Douglas Farah

The U.S. Treasury Department just designated Sulayman Khalid Darwish, a Syrian, as a terrorist financier. He is the first person to be designated for directly offering financial support to the Zarqawi network (Jama'at al Tawid al Jihad) in Iraq. What is interesting about the designation is that is clearly shows a separate financial pipeline to Zarqawi, one that operates independently of the Baathist elements who finance themselves with Saddam's cash ... Darwish was responsible for sending $10,000 to $12,000 to Zarqawi every 20 to 25 days. He also is responsible for recruiting combatants for Iraq, and is an expert in forging documents. Replacing him in the latter operation may be the most difficult and most crucial for the network. While there are numerous replacements for bagmen and recruiters, a good document forger is hard to find.

Tipped by: Outside The Beltway (via The Counterterrorism Blog)