Britain has frozen the assets of a London-based Saudi opposition group accused of having links with the notorious terrorist group Al-Qaeda, the Treasury announced on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury said "The Chancellor (Gordon Brown) today instructed the Bank of England, acting as HM Treasury's agent, to direct all UK financial institutions to freeze any funds held for or on behalf of the entity, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia immediately."

The British action against the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) comes three days after Washington named its head, Saad al-Faqih, as a suspected Al-Qaeda financier. On Thursday, the United Nations also listed the Saudi exile as an associate of al-Qaeda.

Brown's order means that it is now a criminal offense for British financial institutions to hold or deal with funds held by MIRA.

It is one of several similar freezes ordered by the Treasury this year as part of anti-terrorism measures.

On Wednesday, the US authorities froze the assets of al-Faqih, Saudi Arabia's most prominent exiled dissident, who recently called for mass protests against the Saudi government.

US authorities said al-Faqih, 47, has maintained contact with Al-Qaeda since the mid-1990s. Among his associates were Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Khaled al-Fawwaz, who masterminded in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2004)