The Obama administration on Tuesday designated Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspect of last November’s terror attacks in Paris as a “global terrorist,” The Hill reported.
The decision means that sanctions freezing any assets in U.S. jurisdiction and forbidding Americans to do business with him will be impose.
Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels on March 18 after four months on the run as Europe’s most wanted man.
According to the State Department’s Tuesday morning designation, he is “an operative” of the Islamic State (ISIS) and had an integral role in the November Paris attacks.
“Today’s action further notifies the U.S. public and the international community that Abdeslam was actively engaged in terrorism,” the State Department said in a statement quoted by The Hill.
“Terrorism designations is one of the ways the United States can expose and isolate organizations and individuals engaged in terrorism, impose serious sanctions on them, and enable coordinated action across the U.S. government and with our international partners to disrupt the activities of terrorists,” it added.
Abdeslam was originally planning to blow himself up along with the nine other Paris attackers, but backed out at the last moment.
Last week Belgian authorities decided to extradite Abdeslam to France.