The US on Thursday re-designated Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist group as it seeks to show the organisation is an Iranian proxy taking orders from Tehran.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement that it is re-designating Hezbollah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist "for service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force".
Hezbollah was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2001.
"This 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 underscores that Hezbollah operates with little to no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people or the Lebanese state."
The official added that Hezbollah is "not a Lebanese resistance movement", but Iran's "primary instrument" for conducting terrorism beyond its borders.
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control also announced it is designating 10 people who are part of a network responsible for transferring cash to Hezbollah.
The group and its allies exploit financing schemes, including oil smuggling, illicit shipping, commodities sales and bulk cash smuggling to generate and move funds across the region, the Treasury said.
It said a network of couriers travel on commercial airline flights from Lebanon across the region to Iran to move up to hundreds of millions of dollars between jurisdictions, providing an avenue outside the formal financial system for Hezbollah to obtain foreign currency and evade sanctions.
Hezbollah is a political party and an armed group in Lebanon. Sanctions seek to disrupt funding networks and isolate targets by imposing asset freezes, banning banks from dealing with named entities and prohibiting the flow of goods, services and material support.
The State Department official said Hezbollah remains the obstacle to Lebanon’s sovereignty, stability and economic recovery.
"The disarmament and dismantlement of Hezbollah is essential for any credible path forward for Lebanon, and we are working with partners to advance that goal," the official said.
The measures are separate from other action the US is expected to take against Iran.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the “most crushing economic operation ever taken” against any country, after Iran “tragically” failed to reach a deal with Washington.
Mr Trump, alongside Israel, launched a war against Iran nearly six months ago. Despite his repeated claims of victory, there is no end in sight to the conflict. Tehran's hardliners remain in power and the costs of the war have cascaded across the global economy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that the US was preparing to hit Iran with the "greatest co-ordinated economic isolation in the history of the world".
