NOVANEWS
Britain reportedly files official request to blacklist Lebanon-based group
Times of Israel
After months of debate, the European Union on Tuesday moved closer to add Hezbollah’s military wing to its list of terror groups, diplomatic sources said.
Britain filed a request for the EU to address the blacklisting of the Lebanese-based organization in June, diplomatic sources in Brussels told AFP, paving the way for the move.
US and Israeli officials for months have been pressing the European Union to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Israel and Bulgaria have accused Hezbollah of carrying out a bombing in the coastal resort town of Burgas last year, which killed five Israelis and their local bus driver and injured dozens. US President Barack Obama repeated the call during his visit to Israel in March.
“When I think about Israel’s security, I think about five Israelis who boarded a bus in Bulgaria, who were blown up because of where they came from; robbed of the ability to live and love and raise families,” Obama told a convention center in Jerusalem packed with cheering university students. “That’s why every country that values justice should call Hezbollah what it truly is: a terrorist organization.”
Hezbollah receives military training, financial support and weapons from Iran. According to the Middle East Forum, a conservative American think tank, the US estimates that Iran provides the Shiite terror organization with $60 million-$100 million annually. Hezbollah is also a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and its fighters have joined in the Syrian civil war on Damascus’s behalf in the past two years.
The group has been accused of several major terror attacks in the past 20 years, including the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 85 people.
