The US amended Lebanese Hezbollah's terrorist designation, as it seeks to show the organisation is an Iranian proxy taking orders from Tehran rather than an independent Lebanese group.
The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control also announced it was designating 10 people who were part of a network responsible for transferring cash to Hezbollah.
The moves came after The National revealed this month a clampdown on potential funding flowing through Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport over the past year, following intense US pressure.
Customs checks on arrivals have become more stringent, with officers asking travellers where they have come from and checking for proof. Luggage scanners have also been upgraded, according to sources.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that it was redesignating 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”.
“This redesignation specifies that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, not a stand-alone operation as implied by the previous designation,” a State Department official said.
Hezbollah had been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2001.
“This underscores that Hezbollah operates with little to no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people or the Lebanese state,” the official added.
Hezbollah is “not a Lebanese resistance movement”, but Iran's “primary instrument” for conducting terrorism beyond its borders, they said.
Hezbollah, which is a political party and an armed group, responded in a statement on Friday, saying it “does not need anyone’s certification of its Lebanese identity or patriotism”. It described its relationship with Iran as “close and fraternal” due to its support for the group and for south Lebanon.
Before the recent war, Iran’s funding to Hezbollah was about $700 million a year, according to US State Department estimates.
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 travelled 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.
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 remained 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 cost of the war has 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”.
