Taking aim at Iran, Hezbollah hit with new sanctions

WASHINGTON — Taking aim at Iran’s global footprint, the Trump administration on Friday hit six people and seven businesses linked to Hezbollah with terror sanctions, calling it “the first wave” in a pressure campaign that will escalate throughout the year.

The sanctions aim to squeeze Hezbollah financier Adham Tabaja, who is already designated by the U.S. as a global terrorist, by freezing out a network of companies in Lebanon, Ghana, Liberia and elsewhere. The Trump administration said companies and their executives act on Tabaja’s behalf, forming “conduits” of funding for the Lebanon-based militant group.

“We will be relentless in identifying, exposing, and dismantling Hezbollah’s financial support networks globally,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

The campaign comes as the Trump administration works to undermine Iran’s ability to stoke unrest and expand its influence throughout the region. Senior Trump administration officials said the U.S. estimates Iran sends Hezbollah about $700 million per year, arguing that Hezbollah has become the Iranian government’s primary tool to project its power in the Arabicspeaking world.

Formed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in 1982 to fight Israel’s invasion of Beirut, Hezbollah has morphed into a powerful political player in Lebanon, and is a member of the Mediterranean nation’s coalition government. The U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization and has hit the group with sanctions before.

More recently, the U.S. has grown concerned about the group’s involvement in other conflicts, including in neighboring Syria, where it has sent thousands of fighters to shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad. U.S. officials said Hezbollah is also helping train and advice Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen who are being pummeled by a Saudi-led coalition supported by the United States.

Trump officials said more sanctions would be coming against Hezbollah, the results of an investigation into the group that President Trump ordered last summer. They said there were “dozens” more financial networks linked to Hezbollah that could be targeted.

The first wave of penalties target Al-Inmaa Engineering Contracting, a company run by Tabaja and based in Hezbollah’s stronghold south of Beirut. The construction company is mostly active in predominantly Shiite areas in Lebanon such as Beirut’s southern suburbs and the southern market town of Nabatiyeh.

“We will no longer allow corrupt Hezbollah and other Iranian regime cronies to hide their crimes behind front companies,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Twitter.

The sanctions freeze any assets in the U.S. and bar Americans from dealing with those being sanctioned.