U.S. Treasury Imposes Sanctions against Nasrallah, Hizbullah Officials for Backing Assad, Terrorism
The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed on
Thursday sanctions against Hizbullah's leadership in Lebanon, further
exposing Hizbullah's active support to the regime of Syrian President
Bashar Assad, as well as its role in terrorist activities.
“Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary general, is
being designated today pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13582, for
providing support to the Syrian government,” said the Treasury in a
statement.
“Mustapha Badreddine and Talal Hamiyeh, two senior
terrorist leaders of Hizbullah, are being designated today pursuant to
E.O. 13224, for providing support to Hizbullah's terrorist activities in
the Middle East and around the world,” it added.
“By aiding Assad’s violent campaign against the Syrian
people and working to support a regime that will inevitably fall,
Hizbullah's ongoing activity undermines regional stability and poses a
direct threat to Lebanon’s security,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism
and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen.
“Hizbullah's actions, overseen by Nasrallah and executed
by Badreddine and Hamiyeh, clearly reveal its true nature as a
terrorist and criminal organization,” he continued.
“Hizbullah and its leader Nasrallah have sought to
depict their organization as a social and political party, as well as a
resistance movement,” said the statement.
These efforts are belied by the facts: Hizbullah
consistently uses terrorism against civilian targets to achieve its
goals, and this trend has only increased recently. The last year has
witnessed Hizbullah's most aggressive terrorist plotting outside the
Middle East since the 1990s, it revealed.
Moreover, in recent months Hizbullah has also played an
increasingly active role in providing support to the Government of
Syria, further enabling the regime to carry out its bloody campaign
against the Syrian people.
Under the Assad regime, Syria has been a longstanding
supporter of Hizbullah -- providing safe haven to Hizbullah and routing
weapons, in many cases from Iran, to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Hizbullah,
under the direction of Nasrallah, is now returning the favor by
providing training, advice, and extensive logistical support to the
Government of Syria as the Assad regime continues to wreak havoc on the
Syrian people through the use of terror and violence -- Hizbullah's area
of expertise.
“Today’s designations build upon a number of actions
that the U.S. government has taken against Hizbullah over the years for
its support for terrorism and its role in supporting the violence being
perpetrated by the Assad regime against the Syrian people,” said the
U.S. Treasury statement.
Hizbullah was designated for its support to the
Government of Syria pursuant to E.O. 13582 in August 2012. It was also
named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to E.O. 13224 in
October 2001, and listed in the Annex to E.O. 12947 as a Specially
Designated Terrorist (SDT) in January 1995. Nasrallah was designated
pursuant to E.O. 12947 in January 1995.
“Since the beginning of the Syrian people's courageous
campaign in early 2011 to secure their universal rights, Hizbullah
Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has overseen Hizbullah's efforts to
help the Syrian regime’s violent crackdown on the Syrian civilian
population by providing training, advice, and extensive logistical
support to the Government of Syria. Hizbullah has directly trained
Syrian government personnel inside Syria and has facilitated the
training of Syrian forces by Iran's terrorist arm, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). Also under Nasrallah,
Hizbullah has played a substantial role in efforts to expel Syrian
opposition forces from areas within Syria and coordinated its support to
the Government of Syria with IRGC-QF and senior Syrian government
officials. Indeed, under the direction of Nasrallah, Hizbullah since
mid-2012 has escalated its support to the Government of Syria.
Mustafa Badreddine is a senior Hizbullah official who is
believed to have replaced his cousin, Imad Mughniyah, as Hizbullah's
top militant commander after Mughniyah's 2008 death. In June 2011, the
prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon charged Badreddine with
the attack on February 14, 2005 that killed former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others.
Talal Hamiyeh is the head of Hizbullah's External
Security Organization (ESO), which maintains organized cells worldwide.
The ESO is the Hizbullah element responsible for the planning,
coordination, and execution of terrorist attacks outside of Lebanon.
Comments