TEHRAN – Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday lashed out on Twitter at theUS and Saudi Arabia for imposing sanctions on leaders of its Lebanese allyHezbollah.
“Israeli snipers shoot over 2,000 unarmed Palestinian protestors on asingle day,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet referring to protests andclashes in the Gaza Strip that killed some 60 people this week.
The “Saudi response, on eve of Ramadan? Collaboration with its US patron tosanction the first force to liberate Arab territory and shatter the myth ofIsraeli invincibility. Shame upon shame,” he said.
The United States and six Gulf Arab states announced sanctions Wednesday onthe leadership of Hezbollah, as Washington seeks to step up economicpressure on Iran and its allies in the region after President Donald Trumpwithdrew this month from the 2015 nuclear deal.
The US and Saudi-led Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center said thesanctions were aimed at Hezbollah’s Shura Council, the powerful Lebanesegroup’s decision-making body, led by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qasim, and three otherShura Council members were listed under the joint sanctions, which aim atfreezing vulnerable assets of those named and blocking their access toglobal financial networks.
At the same time, the six Gulf members of the TFTC — Saudi Arabia,Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — declaredsanctions on another nine individuals and firms part of or linked toHezbollah that were already blacklisted by the US Treasury.
Hezbollah is a key player in Lebanese politics, and it maintains its ownarsenal of weapons and fighting force.
The group is fighting in Syria alongside President Bashar al-Assad’smilitary, and it has trained Iraqi Shiite militias which participated inretaking territory from the Islamic State group.
The sanctions by Gulf states follow two US moves this month to put pressureon Iran’s financial networks, including sanctions announced Tuesday aimedat an alleged financial pipeline that moved “hundreds of millions ofdollars” from Iran’s central bank through an Iraqi bank to Hezbollah.
The European Union has viewed Hezbollah’s armed wing as a “terrorist”organisation since 2013.
In 2016, the six Arab Sunni powers of the Gulf Co-operation Council –Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman -designated Hezbollah a “terrorist” organisation. – APP/AFP