Hezbollah can ‘weather storm’ of Iran cash loss

Palestinian supporters demonstrate in Gaza City in support of Hezbollah

V HEZBOLLAH IN Lebanon is likely to suffer a 40 per cent drop in funding from its main financier, Iran, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and a sudden crash in oil prices, according to counter-terrorism expert, Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute.

In an online seminar hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, Dr Levitt, a former FBI analyst, said that, because Tehran had on three previous occasions, “very suddenly cut its funding for Hezbollah,” citing Israeli intelligence sources, “I should imagine it’s happening again”.

Iran has reported 92,600 cases of coronavirus with just under 6,000 deaths. The country has for now shifted its focus from spreading its Shiite influence outside its borders to domestic matters.

But Mr Levitt warned: “This has led Hezbollah to seek out its own source of income” and, with its many contacts in the West raising substantial funds, the organisation can weather the storm.

He said the terrorist organisation had been able to “find a gap in the seams of European law enforcement” and had discovered it was a “fairly comfortable place” in which to raise funds, partly due to European political decisions not to proscribe both wings of Hezbollah as a terrorist entities.

“To that end, the majority of its funds, finance for social welfare and political activities, finance terror in a more indirect fashion,” he said.

This has allowed fund-raising in “legitimate” areas such as fake orphanages and people with dual nationalities. Using criminal gangs it is also opening companies in Europe to launder cash and move weapons and aircraft equipment.

There are now renewed calls for more European governments to proscribe both Hezbollah’s political and military wings and to clamp down on illegal funding. The organisation is committed to Israel’s destruction and has been responsible for terrorist attacks across the globe, including the July 1994 car suicide bombing at the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people with hundreds injured.

Today, Hezbollah has tens of thousands of long-range rockets aimed at Israel, along with hundreds of thousands of medium-to-long range, and with fighting forces operating on the ground in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, its influence is far-reaching. In addition, its goal of radicalising Muslims against the West continues.

Although oil prices rose suddenly by 15 per cent over Tuesday night, US President Donald Trump continues to use his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and urges other countries to keep up the heavy sanctions. Dr Levitt believes this action by the US administration has cost Hezbollah’s Iranian funding as much as $280 million from an estimated $700 million annually.

Israel has long argued that Hezbollah exists only because of its Iranian funding, training and weaponry supplies and once that channel is cut, the group would collapse.

But we are a long way from that day, especially if Hezbollah is able to find gaps in European law by raising millions on false social welfare pretences.

Hezbollah only exists because of its Iranian funding’