US blacklists Hezbollah-affiliated companies

The United States on Wednesday added a host of Lebanese individuals and entities it said were linked to the Martyrs Foundation to its designated list of “global terrorists”, Reuters reports.

US officials have previously targeted the Lebanon-based Martyrs Foundation, an organization the department has said channels financial support to several terrorist groups, including Hezbollah.

The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Wednesday that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had blacklisted Atlas Holding for being owned or controlled by the Martyrs Foundation, as well as senior Atlas official Kassem Mohamad Ali Bazzi, and 10 Atlas-affiliated companies.

Jawad Nur-al-Din and Sheikh Yusuf Aasi were also designated for being leaders or officials of the Martyrs Foundation, which was designated for supporting terrorism in July 2007. Mirath S.A.L., which is owned or controlled by Jawad Nur-al-Din, was also designated.

All property of those targeted that fall under US jurisdiction must be blocked and reported to OFAC, whose rules generally bar all US persons from dealing with them.

Those blacklisted are also to subject to secondary sanctions under which OFAC can penalize foreign financial institutions which deal with them.

Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organization in the US and has been sanctioned several times by the administration in recent years.

In July of 2019, the US Treasury placed two Hezbollah members of Lebanon’s parliament on its sanctions blacklist, marking the first time Washington has taken aim at the Iran-allied group’s elected politicians.