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“The Iran-backed group is smuggling and stockpiling chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, from Belgium into France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland,” Nathan Sales, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said Thursday.
Sales said in a statement that “the armed wing is storing these weapons in places so that it can carry out major terrorist attacks when it deems it necessary for its masters in Tehran.”
The US official did not provide further details or evidence of these activities.
Ammonium nitrate is an industrial chemical commonly used in the manufacture of fertilizers and as an explosive in quarries and mining. They are considered relatively safe if they are free from contaminants and stored properly.
The material is extremely dangerous if it is contaminated, mixed with fuel or stored unsafe, as happened in the port of Beirut in August when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded, destroying the port and killing 190 people.
“As far as we know, there is nothing concrete to confirm such a claim in France,” French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Mol told reporters in response to Sells’ allegations.
Unlike the United States, which has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization since 1997, France says that “its chosen wing has a legitimate political role.”
France is leading efforts to put Lebanon on a new path after decades of corruption that led to the country’s deepest crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Allies of Paris, Germany and Britain also classify the group as a terrorist organization, but French officials say the group’s ostracism would make it impossible to resolve the crisis.
Sales said that “the chemicals were smuggled into Europe in first aid kits, and that it is possible that they are in Spain, Greece and Italy.”
