Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, has mocked United States sanctions targeting funding for his group. In a speech broadcast by Al Manar, the Shiite party’s television station in Lebanon, Nasrallah said the sanctions would have no effect.
He said: “We do not have any business projects or investments via banks."
Nasrallah added that Hizbollah’s survival depends on Iran. “We are open about the fact that Hizbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said, stressing that his group “will not be affected" by any type of sanctions.
“As long as Iran has money, we have money … Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it."
Hizbollah recently suffered significant losses in Syria, but Nasrallah has vowed to continue the battle and send more fighters there.
Nasrallah’s speech is the first time since Hizbollah’s inception that its leader has publicly confirmed the extent of the support it obtains from Iran, including arms, money, logistics, food and rockets.
Nearly three years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran fostered the birth of Hizbollah. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, and later his successor Ayatollah Khamenei, played a critical role in turning the militant group into one of the most powerful regional proxies of our generation.
Iran also helped Hizbollah to become a political reality in Lebanon, where it has won elections, has seats in the parliament, and has a deal of influence.
It is intriguing that Nasrallah’s public admission comes after the nuclear agreement with the P5+1 nations and the subsequent lifting of sanctions against Iran. The reintegration of Iran into the global financial system, as well as the flow of money from the increase in oil sales, appears to have relieved, emboldened and empowered Hizbollah.
Iran used to give about $200 million (Dh734m) a year to Hizbollah but the leadership in Tehran had to cut this back when the United Nations Security Council sanctions took effect. Hizbollah was a major loser due to those sanctions, and has been a major beneficiary of the decision to lift them.
While Iran views Hizbollah as a legitimate sociopolitical organisation, the United States and others, including the Arab League, have long listed it as a terrorist group.
The US Congress voted to impose sanctions on Hizbollah by targeting Lebanese banks that are “knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or transactions" for Hizbollah.
Nasrallah responded by saying that his group “totally rejects" the law.
American president Barack Obama had hopes that the nuclear agreement, the removal of sanctions and engagement with Tehran would make Iran’s behaviour more moderate. he army has been cracking down on terror cells across Lebanon. In April, a cell was captured in the Wadi Khaled region in Northern Lebanon’s Akkar, according to Sheikh Nabil Rahim, a member of the Salafi community in Tripoli.
In June, another cell was apprehended in the northern area of Kherbet Daoud. Its members had launched several attacks on the Lebanese army and assassinated Badr Eid, the brother of a former pro-Syrian Alawite MP in 2015. Both cells were taking their orders from ISIL.
The most recent confirmed ISIL attack took place last November, when two suicide bombers targeted a busy shopping street in Beirut’s southern suburb of Bourj Al Barajneh, killing 43 people and wounding more than 239.
Local experts believe the Qaa attack was orchestrated by ISIL, which has yet to admit to the bombing.
Areas such as Tripoli, Akkar in Northern Lebanon and Ersal and Majdel Anjar in the Bekaa have been flashpoints for jihadi activity in recent years. Terror organisations have proliferated since the beginning of the Syrian crisis and the subsequent involvement of Hizbollah in the conflict.
Lebanese Sunnis support the Syrian rebels, and many of the jihadists who went to Syria originate from Northern Lebanon and the Bekaa.
A cleric from the Mankoubin neighbourhood, an area of Tripoli from which dozens of residents fought in Syria, estimates the number of Lebanese to have waged jihad across the border at more than 1,000.
“Last year, there was a real fear of Lebanese fighters returning home, but increased border control has led to the arrest of dozens of militants and prevented others from returning, which has contributed to an improvement of the security situation," the source said.
Many Lebanese ISIL fighters who fled the organisation because of ideological differences are now either stuck in Turkey or have joined the flow of refugees into Europe.
Danger still lies within the large Syrian refugee community and in the convergence of Lebanese and Syrian jihadi capabilities. Military sources underline that several cells comprising Syrians have been arrested in recent months.
Improved cooperation between the various intelligence services, mainly the Lebanese army, the security forces and state intelligence – despite political rivalry between them – as well as a constant flow of intelligence from foreign countries and from Hizbollah, has significantly curbed terror groups’ ability to operate in Lebanon.
But now, terror groups appear to be striking back. In the case of the Qaa bombing, the suicide attackers were most probably smuggled in from Syria.
Risks are also associated at the Lebanese level with individuals possibly attempting shooting operations in the style of the recent Paris attacks. Last November, shootings and bomb blasts left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded in the French capital. In May, the Lebanese interior ministry thwarted an ISIL scheme to carry out an operation in an area crowded with cafes and nightclubs in Beirut.
Salafist sources worry about freshly radicalised youth who may have spent time in prison.
The writer is an Iranian¬-American Harvard scholar and president of the International American Council on the Middle East
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Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman
Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.
Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman
Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.