Lebanon: US sanctions Hezbollah financing network

Milano, Aug. 21 (LaPresse) – The United States announced new sanctions yesterday against a network of people who allegedly funneled cash into Lebanon on behalf of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group. In a statement, the US Treasury Department said the network operated by Turkish businessman Yunus Alper Yilmaz uses couriers traveling on commercial flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran “to transfer up to hundreds of millions of dollars between different jurisdictions, providing a channel outside the formal financial system” to funnel funds to Hezbollah. The Treasury also redesignated Hezbollah, already subject to sanctions by Washington, as an Iranian proxy acting on behalf of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, rather than as an entity operating autonomously. The redesignation aims to emphasize that Hezbollah “threatens peace, undermines the sovereignty of the Lebanese state and endangers the security of our regional allies” as well as “operating with little or no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people or the Lebanese state”, according to the US statement.