LONDON - Britain ordered a freeze Thursday on the assets of Tawhid wal Jihad, the hardline insurgent group led by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi behind a spate of hostage-takings and executions in Iraq.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown told parliament he had "instructed the Bank of England to freeze with immediate effect the assets of Tawhid wal Jihad, the terrorist group which publicly admitted involvement in the murders of Kenneth Bigley and five other hostages and has perpetrated a range of terrorist acts across Iraq."
He said the decision had come out of meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"We must do all in our power to ensure there is no hiding place for terrorists and no hiding place for those who finance terrorism," Brown said.
Bigley's death was confirmed by his family last week after an Arab television channel received a video of his execution by his kidnappers, but his body has yet to be recovered.
The 62-year-old engineer was abducted in Baghdad Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) on September 16 along with two US colleagues who were beheaded last month.
Zarqawi, 37, whose real name is Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, is Iraq's most-wanted man with a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, and is a suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.
His group posted a video on the Internet Wednesday showing the beheading of two men it claimed were in the Iraqi intelligence service.
The Treasury said it was unclear whether Tawhid wal Jihad had any funds held with British-based institutions.
"We don't know at this stage. What this does is trigger the process whereby the banks are required to look for them and freeze them if they find them," a spokesman said.
Other countries were expected to take similar action through a concerted United Nations process, he added.
"We're confident from having spoken with different countries that they'll take action through the next day or so through the UN," he said.
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