“Militant group Hezbollah has stored chemicals that can be used to make explosives in several European countries, a senior State Department official said Thursday as he appealed to countries in Europe and elsewhere to impose bans on the organization.”
“Hezbollah operatives have moved ammonium nitrate from Belgium to France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in recent years and are suspected to still be storing the material throughout Europe, said Nathan Sales, the State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism.”
“Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound commonly used as a fertilizer, but it can be used to make explosives. It can also be dangerous in storage, as demonstrated by the huge explosion last month in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.”
“Sales, without offering evidence, said the U.S. believes that Iran-backed Hezbollah has since 2012 transported ammonium nitrate around Europe in first aid kits with cold packs that contain the compound. The United States believes these supplies are still in place throughout Europe, possibly in Greece, Italy and Spain.”
“Sales made the remarks in an online forum hosted by the American Jewish Committee, which has called upon more countries to ban Hezbollah and its operations.”
“The EU lists Iran-backed Hezbollah’s military wing as a banned terrorist group, but not its political wing, which has been part of Lebanese governments in recent years. Some individual countries, including Germany and the U.K., have outlawed the group in its entirety. Sales called on more countries to do the same.”
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“Since delivering his remarks, France and Spain have disputed Sales’s account, and according to Greek newspaper Kathimerini, an investigation by law enforcement in Athens has also failed to substantiate the claims. of the American official.”
“Joe Macaron, a member of the Washington DC Arab Center, said the US official’s claims were part of Washington’s efforts to push Europe to take a more aggressive stance against the Lebanese group.”
“The US State Department backed Sales’s remarks on Wednesday, noting previous plots attributed to the Lebanese group in Europe, including the 2015 conviction of a Hezbollah operative in Cyprus over stocks of chemicals used to manufacture bombs.”
“Last year, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that in 2015, British authorities found a warehouse in London full of Hezbollah-linked explosives.”
“German Secretary of State Hans-Georg Engelke confirmed that Berlin had found Hezbollah-linked bomb-making equipment in the south of the country. “It was an amount that really worried us,” he said.”
“In 2013, Bulgarian authorities accused Hezbollah of being behind a bomb attack that targeted an Israeli tourist bus killing six people.”
Read more: US accuses Hezbollah of storing explosive chemical in Europe and France, Spain deny US claim Hezbollah is stockpiling explosives in Europe
2021-week09
