Europe moves to include Hezbollah in terrorism lists

Ali Ragab

It seems that Hezbollah’s activity in Europe will be strictly countered by the governments of the old continent, which decided to cut off the terrorist arms of Iran in Europe. A number of  ministers in the British government started to discuss the ban of the Lebanese group “Hezbollah” in the United Kingdom; aiming at forcing Iran to stop supporting outlaw armed groups around the world.

Military and political wings of Hezbollah

The British government has been banning the armed wing of Hezbollah since 2008, but it did not ban the political wing, which made the group find a legal existence for the past years. In July 2013, some European Governments followed their British counterparts by putting Hezbollah on the European Union list of terrorist organizations, according to diplomatic sources. However, the European governments also kept the political wing unbanned. Hezbollah represents an Iranian arm with which it finds a way to interfere in Europe and the world.

Being politically unbanned, Hezbollah continued it’s suspected activity in the U.K. and European Union. In October 2015, American and French authorities arrested two Hezbollah members. One of them was arrested in Atlanta, US and the other in Paris over money laundering as they were smuggling drugs and buy cocaine and weapons for Hezbollah and other independent criminal groups in Iran, according to the US channel  Al-Horra.

The detention of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi,  over of involvement in a bomb plot against an Iranian opposition rally in France, increased the US-UK pressures on Europe to make it categorize the political wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, according to Skynews Arabia.

US-British efforts

European countries are facing US pressures to categorize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and obstruct Iran in Europe. In 2016, US senator Jeanne Shaheen proposed a draft law that states the US should  press EU to consider all wings of Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.

Also US congressman Ted Deutch proposed another draft law discussing the same topic in May 2016.

The American project aims at:

Firstly: Boosting cooperation between borders of the EU countries to counter Hezbollah.

Secondly: Arresting members of Hezbollah and their active supporters.

Thirdly: Freezing financial assets of Hezbollah including the assets that they pretend to use in charity work.

Fourthly: Banning all the activities that include donations for Hezbollah, according to Lebanese website Ganobia.

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The British-US efforts to categorize the political and military wings of Hezbollah as terrorists come as a result of a study done by the Dutch intelligence that shows that there is no difference between the political and military wings of Hezbollah. The study revealed that there is one coordinating council that control both wings.

Why should Europe consider Hezbollah as a terrorist organization?

Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Stein program on counterterrorism and intelligence, said that Hezbollah became deeply involved in terrorist operations in Europe. It also launched other criminal activities like European currency fraud, money laundering and drug smuggling.

Levitt also said that Hezbollah uses Europe as a base in which he can collect money and buy weapons.

Sheikh Hassan Mashimsh, former leader in Hezbollah, said that the groups is very active in Europe and it own cultural centers in different countries including Germany, France, Sweden and Denmark. These centers play the same role of mosques.

European Union

Algerian expert in Iranian issues Yehia Bozeidy told el-Margee website that EU and UK won’t categorize the political wing of Hezbollah as terrorist because this categorization is not based on objectivity.

“There are criminal acts that the group has committed in Syria and other countries and it doesn’t made it terrorist. As long as Europe’s interest hasn’t been damaged, it won’t categorize Hezbollah as terrorist group,” Bozeidy said.

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On the other side, Lebanese political analyst Nedal el-Sabee, said that the decision of categorizing Hezbollah as terrorist group is part of the US plan to besiege Iran and Shi’ite milita in the area.

He added that the expected UK’s decision won’t affect the political situation in Lebanon. Lebanon has a large number of seats in the parliament inside the government can’t be completed without Hezbollah.