BERN, Sept 13 (AFP) - Switzerland said Monday it had completed a blacklist of people and groups linked to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, adding eight individuals and six organizations to a list of those already subjected to financial sanctions and barred from entering Swizerland.
Six of the eight new people on the list live in the Varese region in northern Italy, near the border to the Swiss canton of Ticino.
The residence of the two others is not known, according to information published by the Federal Department of Economy.
The six new organizations on the list are all branches of the Al-Hamarain organization based in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Netherlands.
In all, 174 individuals and 111 organizations are now on the Swiss terrorist blacklist. In addition, 82 bank accounts with combined holdings of about 34 million Swiss francs (27 million dollars, 22 million euros) have been blocked.
Switzerland was the first country to launch financial sanctions against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in October 2000 when it began blocking bank accounts following a United Nations embargo.
Since then it has added names to the list on several occasions.