The United States implemented additional financial sanctions on Thursday targeting an alleged funding network for Hezbollah, while explicitly emphasizing the Lebanese militant group's deep integration with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The US Department of the Treasury announced that Hezbollah's official legal classification as a terrorist entity has been modified to reflect that it functions in "service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," specifically pointing to its elite Quds Force (IRGC-QF).

This policy revision coincides with American efforts to mediate direct diplomatic discussions between Israel and Lebanon, two nations that remain formally at war. Hezbollah has publicly opposed these negotiations.

The United States originally listed Hezbollah as a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997 before reclassifying it as a "specially designated global terrorist" entity in 2001.

According to a State Department official, the updated designation "specifies that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, not a stand-alone operation as implied by the previous designation."

The official noted that "this underscores that Hezbollah operates with little to no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people, or the Lebanese state."

Hezbollah entered the ongoing regional Middle East conflict in March by launching rocket strikes toward Israel in alignment with Tehran.

Israel countered with an intensive aerial bombardment and ground operation that Lebanese health officials report has resulted in more than 4,300 deaths.

"This action builds on years of US designations that have repeatedly documented the operational, financial, and logistical integration between Hizballah and the IRGC-QF," the State Department representative added, describing Hezbollah as "an extension" of the Quds Force rather than a "Lebanese resistance movement," which is how the organization self-identifies.

The latest sanctions target 10 individuals accused of participating in a covert financial pipeline that moves money to Hezbollah, an organization already subject to extensive American sanctions.

According to the Treasury Department's statement, "The network utilizes couriers travelling on commercial airline flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the UAE, and 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."

Source: AFP