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US Treasury Sanctions 7 Lebanese Tied to Hezbollah Finances

Hezbollah fighters hold flags, as they attend the memorial, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon, February 13, 2016. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters hold flags, as they attend the memorial, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon, February 13, 2016. (AP)
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US Treasury Sanctions 7 Lebanese Tied to Hezbollah Finances

Hezbollah fighters hold flags, as they attend the memorial, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon, February 13, 2016. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters hold flags, as they attend the memorial, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon, February 13, 2016. (AP)

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed new sanctions on seven Lebanese linked to the Iran-backed Hezbollah party and its financial arm.

The measures are the latest against Hezbollah, which Washington considers a terrorist group and has targeted with penalties for years.

The development comes as Lebanon is experiencing the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, including a loss of trust in the country’s once booming banking sector.

The Treasury said six of the seven sanctioned were the group's “shadow bankers,” who used the cover of personal accounts at certain Lebanese banks to evade sanctions against Hezbollah's financial arm. They transferred approximately $500 million over the past decade, it said.

The seventh sanctioned person, Ibrahim Daher, is one of Hezbollah’s chief financial executives who oversees the group’s overall budget, including the funding for its operations.

The Treasury said al-Qard al-Hasan — Hezbollah's financial arm which the US has sanctioned since 2007 — has taken a more prominent role over the years. Founded since 1982 and registered as a charity in Lebanon, the association is used by Hezbollah to gain access to the international financial system, the Treasury said.

While the alleged charity “purports to serve the Lebanese people, in practice it illicitly moves funds through shell accounts and facilitators,” the Treasury said. “By hoarding hard currency that is desperately needed by the Lebanese economy, (it) allows (Hezbollah) to build its own support base and compromise the stability of the Lebanese state.”

Al-Qard al-Hasan, considered Lebanon’s largest non-banking financial institution, stepped in amid the latest economic crisis to provide a vital lifeline for many. It has seen a significant increase in clients.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, recently said the association has provided $3.7 billion in loans to some 1.8 million people since its founding.

Hezbollah “continues to abuse the Lebanese financial sector and drain Lebanon’s financial resources at an already dire time,” said Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury's office of foreign assets control.

“Such actions demonstrate (Hezbollah's) disregard for financial stability, transparency, or accountability in Lebanon,” she added.

The Treasury said Daher leads Hezbollah's Central Finance Unit, overseeing its income, budget and coordinating payments of its members while the other six participated in shadow banking activities on behalf of Hezbollah, maintaining joint bank accounts in Lebanese banks that allowed for transfer of money within the formal financial system.

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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.