US Sanctions Squeezing Iran-Backed Hezbollah In Lebanon

Amid US-Iran tensions, economic crisis are deepening now in Lebanon after Washington slapped sanctions on the Iran-backed Hezbollah and warned they could soon expand to its allies. The Trump administration has intensified sanctions on the Lebanese militant group and institutions linked to it to unprecedented levels, targeting lawmakers for the first time as well as a local bank that Washington claims has ties to the group.      

“We have taken more actions recently against Hezbollah than in the history of our counterterrorism program,” Sigal P Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury, said in the United Arab Emirates last month.

Mandelker said Washington is confident the Lebanese government and the central bank will do the right thing here in making sure that Hezbollah can no longer have access to funds at the bank.

Hezbollah, whose Arabic name translates into “Party of God,” was established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The group, which enjoys wide support among Lebanon’s Shiite community, runs institutions such as hospitals, clinics and schools.

Today, it is among the most effective armed groups in the Middle East with an arsenal more powerful than that of the Lebanese army, and has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad’s forces in that country’s civil war.

Last year, the relations between Washington and Tehran soared after US President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear accord with Iran, negotiated under former president Barack Obama. 

The United States also imposed sanctions on Iran’s sovereign wealth fund, whose board of trustees includes President Hassan Rouhani, as well as Etemad Tejarate Pars, a company that the Treasury Department said had sent money internationally on behalf of Iran’s defence ministry.

Earlier, Trump while addressing the UNGA had already ruled out any possibility of easing economic pressure on Iran. Tensions between Iran and US ratcheted up after the Trump administration announced that it would unilaterally force all countries to stop buying Iran’s oil, which is its major export.