It is a branch of the IRGC responsible for external operations and, according to the US Treasury, has provided material support to numerous terrorist groups, including the Taliban,
Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"With Iranian support,
Lebanese Hizballah has successfully exceeded 2006 Lebanon conflict armament levels.
For instance, there are Palestinian groups--Sunnis--that are supported and paid for by the Iranians and don't necessarily follow the same the ideology that the Iranians buy into (Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih) and there are many Shia militias, particularly the Iranian-backed groups, that are modeled on
Lebanese Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."
Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including
Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"Underwriting
Lebanese Hizballah, that presents a threat to the United States of America and Israel; underwriting the Houthis in Yemen, causing an enormous conflict to take place there in that country; the efforts in Iraq to undermine the Iraqi Government, funding Shia militias that are not in the best interests of the Iraqi people; their efforts in Syria; the list goes on," Pompeo said.
WASHINGTON: The Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center (TFTC)'s seven member nations took significant actions to disrupt an Iranian-backed terrorist group by designating the senior leadership of
Lebanese Hizballah.
Hamas,
Lebanese Hizballah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) maintain representative offices in Tehran, in part to help coordinate Iranian financing and training.
It studies primarily Islamic terrorist organizations such as the
Lebanese Hizballah organization, the Palestinian Hamas movement, and the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines, who utilize kidnapping as a strategy to collect ransom and to promote the goals of their organizations and patrons.
Iran's ties to terrorist groups, particularly the
Lebanese Hizballah with its global infrastructure, enable it to threaten its enemies with terrorist retaliation.
He also discovers that sectarianism in the region has largely been the product of the institutional weaknesses of Gulf states, leading to excessive alarm by entrenched Sunni elites and calculated attempts by regimes to discredit Shia political actors as proxies for Iran, Iraq, or
Lebanese Hizballah. Wehrey conducts interviews with nearly every major Shia leader, opinion shaper, and activist in the Gulf Arab states, as well as prominent Sunni voices, and consults diverse Arabic-language sources.
* The more Asad falls on hard times, the more Tehran has to scramble to prevent damage to its image with the "Arab street" and to its close ally,
Lebanese Hizballah.