The United States Tuesday blacklisted the Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group in Syria linked to al Qaeda in Iraq, accusing it of being a terror group trying to 'hijack' the legitimate struggle of the Syrian rebels. In designating the group a foreign terrorist organisation, the State Department said that while al-Nusra portrayed itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition, "it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes."

The group has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings that killed scores of people, and has said it hopes to replace the Assad family's four-decade-old dictatorship with a strict Islamic state. The US Treasury, meanwhile, announced sanctions against the leaders of both Al-Nusra and militias backing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Treasury Department designated two of the Al-Nusra Front's senior leaders, Maysar Ali Musa Abdallah al-Juburi and Anas Hasan Khattab, for sanctions.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012