U.S. blacklists Yemen honey companies suspected of ties with Bin Laden

The United States has blacklisted three Yemeni honey companies suspected of funding terrorism.

Yemeni authorities have begun investigating Al-Nur Honey Press, Al-Shifa Honey Press and Al-Hamati Sweets Bakeries as part of a broader investigation by the U.S. into the funding of the suicide terror attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

The companies have denied any links to the U.S.'s chief suspect in the attacks, Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden or to his Al Qaeda network.

Company employees said the profits were to small to make any significant contribution to Bin Laden.

But both Al-Nur Honey Press and Al-Hamati Sweets Bakeries are owned by Muhammad Al-Hamati who appears on a second U.S. Treasury Department blacklist of about 39 people and groups suspected of being linked to terrorist funding. The Treasury Department had already ordered U.S. financial institutions to freeze the assets of about 70 individuals and groups cited on the first blacklist.

Meanwhile, Yemen has frozen the bank accounts of several individuals and groups named on another U.S. list.

On September 25, President George Bush issued a list of 27 individuals and organizations with links to Al Qaeda. The President instructed U.S. banks, financial institutions and branches of foreign banks operating in the U.S. and abroad to freeze all their assets.

On Monday, a bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood of the sea port city of Aden. A bomb also exploded on Sunday night. No injuries were reported from either of the explosions.