Actions Target Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah’s Support to the
Assad Regime and Hizballah Senior Officials
WASHINGTON – The
U.S. Department of the Treasury today imposed sanctions against Hizballah's
leadership in Lebanon, further exposing Hizballah’s active support to the
regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as its role in terrorist
activities.
Hasan Nasrallah, Hizballah's Secretary General, is being
designated today pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13582, for providing
support to the Syrian government. Mustafa
Badr Al-Din and Talal Hamiyah, two senior terrorist leaders of Hizballah, are
being designated today pursuant to E.O. 13224, for providing support to Hizballah’s
terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world.
“By aiding Assad’s violent campaign against the Syrian
people and working to support a regime that will inevitably fall, Hizballah’s
ongoing activity undermines regional stability and poses a direct threat to
Lebanon’s security,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence David S. Cohen. “Hizballah’s actions, overseen by Hasan
Nasrallah and executed by Mustafa Badr Al-Din and Talal Hamiyah, clearly reveal
its true nature as a terrorist and criminal organization.”
Hizballah and its leader Hasan Nasrallah have sought to
depict their organization as a social and political party, as well as a
resistance movement. These efforts are
belied by the facts: Hizballah consistently
uses terrorism against civilian targets to achieve its goals, and this trend
has only increased recently. The last
year has witnessed Hizballah’s most aggressive terrorist plotting outside the
Middle East since the 1990s. Moreover, in
recent months Hizballah has also played an increasingly active role in providing
support to the Government of Syria, further enabling the regime to carry out
its bloody campaign against the Syrian people.
Under the Assad regime, Syria has been a longstanding
supporter of Hizballah -- providing safe haven to Hizballah and routing weapons,
in many cases from Iran, to Hizballah in Lebanon. Hizballah, under the direction of Nasrallah,
is now returning the favor by providing training, advice, and extensive
logistical support to the Government of Syria as the Assad regime continues to
wreak havoc on the Syrian people through the use of terror and violence --
Hizballah’s area of expertise.
Today’s designations build upon a number of actions that the
U.S. government has taken against Hizballah over the years for its support for
terrorism and its role in supporting the violence being perpetrated by the
Assad regime against the Syrian people. Hizballah
was designated for its support to the Government of Syria pursuant to E.O.
13582 in August 2012. It was also named
a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to E.O. 13224 in October 2001,
and listed in the Annex to E.O. 12947 as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT)
in January 1995. Hasan Nasrallah was designated
pursuant to E.O. 12947 in January 1995.
Hasan Nasrallah
Since the beginning of the Syrian people's courageous
campaign in early 2011 to secure their universal rights, Hizballah
Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah has overseen Hizballah’s efforts to help the
Syrian regime’s violent crackdown on the Syrian civilian population by providing
training, advice, and extensive logistical support to the Government of Syria. Hizballah has directly trained Syrian
government personnel inside Syria and has facilitated the training of Syrian
forces by Iran's terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods
Force (IRGC-QF). Also under Nasrallah, Hizballah
has played a substantial role in efforts to expel Syrian opposition forces from
areas within Syria and coordinated its support to the Government of Syria with
IRGC-QF and senior Syrian government officials. Indeed, under the direction of
Nasrallah, Hizballah since mid-2012 has escalated its support to the Government
of Syria.
Mustafa Badr
Al-Din
Mustafa Badr Al-Din is a senior Hizballah official who is
believed to have replaced his cousin, Imad Mughniyah, as Hizballah's top militant
commander after Mughniyah's 2008 death. In June 2011, the prosecutor of the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon charged Mustafa Badr Al-Din with the attack on February
14, 2005 that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 21 others.
Talal Hamiyah
Talal Hamiyah is the head of Hizballah's External Security
Organization (ESO), which maintains organized cells worldwide. The ESO is the Hizballah element responsible for
the planning, coordination, and execution of terrorist attacks outside of
Lebanon.
Identifying
Information
Individual: Mustafa Badr Al Din
AKA: Badreddine,
Mustafa Youssef
AKA: Badreddine,
Mustafa Amine
AKA: Saab, Elias Fouad
AKA: Sa'b, Ilyas
AKA: Issa, Sami
AKA: Dhu Al-Fiqar
DOB: April 06, 1961
POB: Al-Ghobeiry,
Beirut, Lebanon
Individual: Talal Hamiyah
AKA: Talal Husni Hamiyah
AKA: Ismat Mezarani
DOB No. 1: 27 Nov 1952
DOB No. 2: 5 March 1958
DOB No. 3: 18 March 1960
DOB No. 4: 8 December 1958
POB No. 1: Taria, Lebanon
POB No. 2: Tarayya, Lebanon
POB No. 3: Sojad, Lebanon
Citizenship: Lebanese
Nationality: Lebanese
Individual: Hasan Nasrallah
AKA: Nasrallah, Hasan
Abd-al-Karim
DOB No. 1: 31 Aug
1960
DOB No. 2: 31 Aug
1953
DOB No. 3: 31 Aug 1955
DOB No. 4: 31 Aug
1958
POB: Al Basuriyah,
Lebanon
Passport: 042833
(Lebanon)
Title:
Secretary-General of Hizballah
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