Arab nations add names to terror list

Arab countries put 12 organizations and 59 people on a terror sanctions list early Friday they described as being associated with Qatar, the latest in a growing diplomatic dispute that's seen the energy rich nation isolated by Saudi Arabia and others.

Qatar dismissed the terror listing as part of "baseless allegations that hold no foundation in fact," standing by earlier defiant statements by its top diplomat to The Associated Press that Arab nations had no "right to blockade my country."

The sanctions list further tightens the screws on Qatar and shows the crisis only escalating despite Kuwaiti efforts to mediate an end to the rift.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they sanctioned the groups and individuals because of "the continuous and ongoing violations of the authorities in Doha of Qatar's commitments and obligations."

Six of the organizations are already considered militant groups in Bahrain, which has been gripped by a government crackdown on dissent for over a year now.

Among the individuals named is Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric considered a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group.

Al-Qaradawi has been tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt since the 2013 military overthrow of elected President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member.

Other names involving Egypt include more Brotherhood members and those once belonging to Gamaa Islamiya, an Islamist group that carried out a series of bloody attacks in Egypt in the 1990s before renouncing violence in 2000s. One is the brother of the Gamaa Isalmiya assassin who killed Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in 1981.