Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) is a designation authorized under U.S. Executive Order 13224 [1], among other executive orders, and Title 31, Parts 595, 596, and 597 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, among other U.S. laws and regulations. SDGT designations are administered and enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department.
SDGTs are entities and individuals who OFAC finds have committed or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism, or who OFAC finds provide support, services, or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists and terrorist organizations designated under OFAC Counter Terrorism Sanctions programs, as well as such persons' subsidiaries, front organizations, agents, or associates. They are designated under OFAC's Counter Terrorism Sanction programs.
The designation SDGT is one of several types of designations of persons to whom one or more OFAC-administered sanctions apply; these include country-specific and counter narcotics trafficking, non-proliferation, and transnational criminal organization-related sanctions, as well as—potentially—diamond trading-related sanctions, although no persons had been sanctioned with respect to illicit trading in rough diamonds as of early November 2011. See OFAC Sanctions Programs and Country Information.
OFAC publishes an integrated list of persons designated under its various sanctions programs that is known as the Specially Designated Nationals List, under which SDGT listings are included. Individuals and companies designated as "Specially Designated Nationals" are known as "SDNs." Most SDGT SDNs are foreign persons, but in at least one case—that of the late Anwar al-Awlaki (also known by various aliases)--a U.S. person was designated as an SDGT; see Specially Designated Nationals List.
The main regulatory framework underlying the SDGT designation was established two weeks after the September 11 attacks in 2001, through Executive Order 13224,[1] by President George W. Bush.