US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday urged all countries to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Pompeo’s call came in a tweet which was posted a day after Britain’s finance ministry announced it had added the entire Hezbollah organization, including its political arm, to its list of terrorist groups subject to asset freezing.
“On this five-year anniversary of prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s death, we remember the 1994 AMIA Jewish center attack in Buenos Aires and his tireless efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. We call on all nations to designate Hezbollah as the terrorist organization it is,” wrote Pompeo, in a reference to the Jewish attorney who died two days after accusing former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner of a cover up in the 1994 bombing, which is attributed to Hezbollah.
Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz also welcomed Britain’s move to blacklist all of Hezbollah on Saturday, saying, "I applaud the British government for its decision to include all Hezbollah organizations, including the political echelon - under the legislation that allows freezing all of its assets as a terrorist organization.”
"This is a great achievement for the State of Israel in the fight against Iran and its proxies in the region, mainly Hezbollah," added Katz.
Britain’s finance ministry previously only targeted the Lebanese Shiite organization's military wing but has now listed the whole group after the government designated it a terrorist organization last March.
In 2013, the European Union blacklisted Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organization, while failing to blacklist the group’s political arm. Several EU members, however, blacklist the entire group as a terrorist organization.
The British move to designate the entire group followed warnings by MPs that the UK had drawn a false distinction by proscribing Hezbollah’s military wing but not its political side.
This loophole in British law had allowed participants in the annual Al-Quds Day to march through central London to wave the Hezbollah flag, featuring an assault rifle.