US and Europe say Hezbollah is determined to maintain overseas footprint

Iran-backed group 'remains a dangerous organisation', Law Enforcement Co-ordination Group hears

Hezbollah supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs. AFP

The US and Europol have assessed that Lebanon’s Hezbollah remains intent on preserving its overseas operations, the State Department said in a media note on Thursday.

The State Department, Justice Department and Europol convened the 14th meeting of the Law Enforcement Co-ordination Group on “countering Hezbollah’s terrorist and illicit activities” on July 9 and 10. Law enforcement, prosecutors and financial practitioners from approximately 30 governments from across the Middle East, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and North America also participated in the session.

Despite suffering setbacks over the past year in its war with Israel, the LECG assessed that the Iran-backed armed group “remains a dangerous organisation, determined to maintain its overseas footprint, with the ability to strike with little to no warning against targets around the world”.

Once regarded as Iran’s most formidable proxy, Hezbollah was dealt heavy blows in its year-long war with Israel. The Israeli military campaign eliminated the group's longtime leader and top commanders, destroyed large parts of its arsenal and infrastructure and penetrated its internal security networks.

The organisation, however, is still believed to possess medium and long-range missiles, and it continues to command a broad Shiite support base.

LECG members discussed Hezbollah’s “shaky financial state and agreed that it may seek to increase its fund-raising and procurement activities in the Western Hemisphere, Africa and other locales”, the media note read.

It added that participants highlighted recent actions that governments have taken to counter Hezbollah’s “financial mechanisms and criminal schemes”.

The Lebanese government is under pressure to disarm Hezbollah across all Lebanese territory and reassert state sovereignty. US envoy Thomas Barrack was in Beirut this week to seek the government’s response to a US proposal on removing weapons from the Iran-backed group.

The US plan ties reconstruction aid and a halt to Israeli army operations to Hezbollah’s full disarmament around the country. Since the US-brokered ceasefire took hold, the armed group has pulled back almost all of its fighters from the Israeli border, though Israel insists it must be disarmed nationwide.

Despite the truce, the Israeli army continues to bomb southern Lebanon almost daily and maintains control over five military posts along the border. It has also occasionally targeted Beirut's southern suburbs and the Beqaa Valley since the ceasefire.

A man was killed in an Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon on Thursday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, after Israel announced it was carrying out “special, targeted operations” against Hezbollah.

“One man was killed and two others wounded in an Israeli enemy drone strike that targeted a motorcycle in the village of Mansouri” near the coastal city of Tyre, the ministry said.

Israel claimed the man killed was a Hezbollah artillery commander in the coastal sector.