U.S. Congress Votes to Sanction Banks Financing Hizbullah
The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to impose tough new sanctions on banks that knowingly do business with Hizbullah.
The bill passed the Senate last month. It now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature.
The legislation also targets Hizbullah's television channel al-Manar by aiming to cut the broadcast of satellite operators that air the channel's programming.
The House adopted the measure 422 to 0, following a unanimous vote in the Senate on November 17.
Obama will sign the legislation, a senior administration official told AFP, adding that the administration has worked with Congress for years "to intensify the pressure against Hizbullah," which the official described as "a terrorist organization."
The new rules direct the U.S. president to prescribe punishing regulations against financial institutions that conduct transactions with Hizbullah or otherwise launder funds for the organization.
It also requires the U.S. administration to present to Congress a series of reports highlighting the group's "narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, and operations of international groups linked to Hizbollah, especially in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia."
The administration will list those particular countries that support Hizbullah, or in which the group maintains a key logistical base.
"Hizbullah has had to cast a wide net because most Lebanese banks have not wanted to do business with them," a congressional expert on the legislation told AFP.
With participants in Hizbullah's global networks "in our cross-hairs, they should be worried," House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce told lawmakers Wednesday ahead of the vote.
"There is no question that Hizbullah is stronger than ever," said congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who described the group as a dangerous enemy to Israel and one that has amassed more than 150,000 rockets and missiles and gained hardened battlefield experience in Syria.
Source: Agence France Presse
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