The United States has prepared a list of individuals and companies in Southeast Asia whose funds will be frozen in the hunt for members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, diplomats and analysts said.

The list would be the first that the US Treasury has issued for the region in its campaign to track the financing behind militants blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and other terror acts in Southeast Asia.

A total of 18 individuals and 10 companies or charities are on the list being put together in Washington, according to sources in contact with the Treasury who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"One reason it is taking so long to announce this could be resistance on the part of the governments because of the political embarrassment it might cause," said one source.

But diplomats said there should be little reason for alarm. Most of those likely to be named are already in custody or are known suspects with alleged links to al Qaeda or to its southeast Asian ally, Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the sources said.

Following the arrest of several members of JI in connection with last October's Bali bombing, Washington has designated the organisation a terrorist group - adding it to a worldwide list of 34 such organisations - and has frozen its assets.

JI's alleged leader, Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, has been handed over to prosecutors to face trial for treason. Police say JI dreamt of forging a Muslim state spanning the southern Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and southern Thailand.

One of those named on the new list for Southeast Asia is a former Malaysian army colonel arrested last month for alleged involvement in the militant JI network, the sources said.

Abdul Manaf Kamsuri was the third former or serving member of the Malaysian military to have been arrested under the Internal Security Act, used extensively by authorities for nearly two years now to hold suspected Islamic militants without trial.

Excel Setia, a company Kamsuri ran from the Malaysian offshore haven of Labuan and which has been effectively dormant for about two years, is one of the 10 organisations whose assets are to be frozen, the sources said.

A Malaysian security source said one of Kamsuri's partners in Excel Setia was Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, a 40-year-old Malaysian businessman arrested in Singapore in December 2001 after police uncovered a plot to attack the US and other western embassies.

Faiz is described by Singapore as one of the leaders of JI's cell in Malaysia, and he had visited Afghanistan in 1999 to meet al Qaeda operatives. Faiz showed them a videotape of potential targets in Singapore. US forces found that videotape in the house of an al Qaeda operative after entering Kabul in late 2001.

The other partner was Zulkepli Marzuki, a 34-year-old Malaysian accountant-cum-businessman, who is still on the run.

JI, which was founded by Indonesian preachers who fled to Malaysia in the 1980s, raised funds by demanding members give five percent of their income to the group.

"Faiz was pretty well-off, his companies won decent sized contracts and his personal donations were pretty large," said the security source. Most others had less to spare.

One of Asia's most wanted men, the Indonesian-born Hambali, or Riduan Isamuddin, who is believed to have a seat on al Qaeda's military committee, was small time when it came to business.

He used his contacts to bag a drainage contract in the little town of Banting near the port of Klang on Malaysia's west coast, but supplemented his income selling kebabs, and peddling traditional medicines and potions.

The shortage of funds fatefully drove some JI members to try robbing banks. Some were caught after a shootout with Malaysian police in early 2001, alerting police to JI's existence.

An FBI official said this week that the US government was likely to announce the freezing of the accounts of some individuals and companies in Asia with suspected al Qaeda links.

The crackdown on illegal money flows since September 11, 2001, has forced al Qaeda to channel funds away from the Middle East and towards Asia, Dennis Lormel, the chief of the FBI's anti-terrorist financing unit, said in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia were sources of concern due to possible terrorist financing, Lormel said.

More than 160 countries now have blocking orders in force and hundreds of accounts worth more than $70 million have been blocked worldwide, a US Treasury official said late last year.