US designates Hezbollah an Iranian proxy, sanctions funding network

The US Treasury labels Lebanon-based group ‘an extension’ of the IRGC’s Quds Force and takes aim at financing.The United States has changed its designation of Hezbollah to that of an Iranian proxy and announced sanctions against an alleged funding network.The re-designation of the Lebanon-based armed group and sanctioning of the financing network, which the US Treasury linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was announced on Thursday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3‘Tremendous costs’: Can Trump stop other countries from trading with Iran?list 2 of 3How China and Russia could hobble Trump’s plans to isolate Iranlist 3 of 3US Treasury secretary says new economic measures will ‘collapse’ Iranend of listThe move comes as the US prepares economic measures which it says will crush Iran’s economy and “collapse” the “regime” in Tehran.The US Treasury said in a statement that Hezbollah’s legal designation, previously that of a “terrorist organisation”, had been changed to take into account the group’s “service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”, particularly the elite Quds Force.The US designated Hezbollah as a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997, then updated its label to a “specially designated global terrorist” group in 2001.The new re-designation “specifies that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, not a stand-alone operation as implied by the previous designation”, a State Department official said.“This action builds on years of US designations that have repeatedly documented the operational, financial, and logistical integration between Hizballah and the IRGC-QF,” the official added, calling Hezbollah “an extension” of Iran’s Quds Force.“This underscores that Hezbollah operates with little to no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people, or the Lebanese state.“It is not a Lebanese resistance movement,” as Hezbollah describes itself, the official said.