Britain has frozen the assets of five senior members of Palestinian militant group Hamas including its exiled leader Khaled Meshaal.
"This action has been taken because the treasury have reasonable grounds for suspecting that four of the individuals are, or may be, persons who facilitate or participate in the commission of acts of terrorism," a governmnet statemnet said.
It named the four as Meshaal, Imad Khalil, Musa Abu Marzouk and Usama Hamdan.
It said the assets of the group's new spiritual chief Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi - the hardline replacement for the assassinated Ahmed Yassin - had also been frozen because he "is or may be a person who commits, facilitates or participates in such acts".
Britian has in recent years frozen a total of some £70 million of assets linked to people it termed terrorists - although most have now been unfrozen.
At present 38 such bank accounts remain frozen in British financial institutions.