US Sanctions on Hezbollah: Five Key Levels



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Washington has opened a new chapter in the sanctions dossier against Hezbollah, and everyone and what is happening around it. The addition of the names of the two former ministers, Ali Hassan Khalil and Youssef Fenianos, to the US sanctions lists is just an introduction to what the US government intends to fight against the party. Analysts and people familiar with the party’s files in Washington indicated in recent hours that additional packages of sanctions will be imposed on the Lebanese figures in the coming weeks. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is actively updating its regulations to intensify pressures that could produce results. The US administration, which has been working for years to financially and economically besiege Hezbollah, has finally included the factor of political pressure on Hezbollah’s allies to complete the offensive.

International terrorism
In American circles, Hezbollah’s confrontation, its funding, presence, and ties is divided on many levels. Including the party on the lists of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997, and its promotion to the lists of international terrorist organizations in 2001, was of no use to Americans. In fact, it increased the party’s affiliations and deepened its ties with designated terrorist organizations and governments. This can be translated through thousands of documents published by the CIA years ago, referring to the party’s contacts and relations with al-Qaeda after the events of September 11, to the roses that were scattered in the Arabian Sea after the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. It should also be mentioned here. The advice that the Secretary General of Hezbollah gave to Al-Qaeda in 2012 on the fighting in Syria. The first to pay the price and be the victim is you, as happened in Afghanistan and other countries.

Terrorist financing
The United States Congress passed the Act to Combat International Financing for Hezbollah in 2015, as a terrorist organization operating on more than one economic level. In addition to financing its terrorist activity, the law linked the party with activities related to drugs, drug trafficking, arms and human trafficking, and more. The aforementioned law expanded the scope of the work to prosecute the party, its leadership, its institutions and any natural or legal person associated with it. It was further reduced. Anyone who is economically active in the interest of the party, with any coverage and in any sector, is subject to prosecution and sanctions. Anyone who revolves around its orbit has been accused or accused. This led the party leadership to seek other financing methods.

Cassandra Project
According to investigators from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, dozens of people affiliated with or close to Hezbollah in the context of drug trafficking have been monitored to smuggle and launder their money. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah had previously denied all of these accusations years ago as they also damage Hezbollah’s legitimate and religious image. However, the US Judiciary issued dozens of court orders against those close to the party, on charges of black trade between the United States and South America and Africa, perhaps the most prominent of them is Ayman Gomaa, accused of drug trafficking and money laundering for the match. The Cassandra investigators accuse Hezbollah of resorting to drug trafficking and laundering its money to compensate for the economic losses it suffered as a result of the economic sanctions imposed.

Legally Magnitsky and Caesar
It is not yet clear whether the sanctions imposed on Khalil and Fenianus fall within the framework of the Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the United States government to impose sanctions on human rights violators in all countries of the world, thus freezing their assets and banning their activities in the United States. And reading the details of the text issued by the US Treasury indicates that the two former ministers were accused of assisting in Hezbollah financing and corruption operations alike. In other words, the recent sanctions activate the principle of “punishment” at various levels, in corruption, mismanagement, human rights, terrorism and their financing. Thus, it would become the Lebanese ruling system, with its officials sharing power with Hezbollah under threat of sanctions. As for the Caesar Law, it is directed directly against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as it is the effective link for the Iranian government on Syrian soil.

Final sanctions
The United States Treasury previously placed the Shura Council on Hezbollah and its members on sanctions lists in 2018, including its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, his deputy Naim Qassem, Muhammad Yazbek, Hussein al-Khalil and Ibrahim Amin al- Sayed. In addition to Talal Hamiyah, Ali Sharara, Hassan Al-Ibrahimi, Hashem Safi El-Din, Adham Tabaja and other entities such as Spectrum Group, Maher Trading and Al-Inma Group for Engineering and Contracting. He also added the names of Muhammad Bazzi, Abdullah Saffi al-Din, Qasim Hajij and Hussein Faour to the lists.

In July 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added the names of MPs Muhammad Raad, Amin Sherri and the party’s liaison and coordination unit official, Wafiq Safa, to the lists of sanctions. In addition, Salih Issa and Nazem Ahmed added it, at the end of the same year.

In addition to these levels, another level is represented by the sanctions against Lebanese banks, including the Jamal Trust Bank a year ago, and the Canadian Lebanese Bank before him in 2011. At the five levels at which the US administration persecutes Hezbollah and its officials and patrons around it, the dance of confrontation is spreading to various parts of the world. If the sanctions included the party’s leadership in Lebanon and Syria and its contacts with Iran, the financiers close to the party in Africa and Latin America were included in the sanctions lists. The geographical area expanded with the expansion of the levels of confrontation, also reaching Europe and East Asia. Between those cities, capitals and continents, millions of Lebanese are paying the price for the corruption of their ruling system, on the one hand, and the sanctions imposed on Hezbollah, on the other. The current sanctions scenario may contribute to transforming the situation in Lebanon into the reality of a besieged island whose models have multiplied since the 1970s, including those that continue to this day carrying the discourse of breaking pride. and imperialism.

Sanctions list



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