The United States fears the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah may be planning imminent attacks in Europe and around the world, a senior security official in Washington said Friday.
“Our assessment is that Hezbollah and Iran will both continue to maintain a heightened level of terrorist activity and operations in the near future,” said Daniel Benjamin, the US State Department’s counter-terrorism coordinator.
“We are increasingly concerned about Hezbollah’s activities on a number of fronts, including its stepped up terrorist campaign around the world,” he said.
“And we assess that Hezbollah could attack in Europe or elsewhere at any time with little or no warning,” he warned, in a conference call with reporters to announce new US sanctions against Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah is a Shiite armed faction that within Lebanon operates as a political party and as a “resistance” force to counter Israel, and which Western powers says runs an international militant network.It is backed by Damascus and Tehran, and has been accused both of carrying out recent bomb attacks on Israeli targets in Europe and Asia and of backing Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on an armed revolt.
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