Hezbollah is facing a "financial crisis" and cannot pay its members as Israel’s offensive on the Iran-backed, Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...-based terror group continues, according to a recent media report.
Voice of America reported on Friday that the group’s main cash source is the al-Qard al-Hasan (AQAH) nonprofit, citing researchers in Lebanon and the United States, as well as the US Treasury Department.
Founded by Hezbollah as a charitable organization in 1982, AQAH has grown into a major institution with branches throughout Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. It operates as a quasi-banking institution without a license, the report added.
The US blacklisted AQAH in 2007, saying Hezbollah uses it as a cover to manage the group’s financial activities and gain access to the international financial system. In 2021, further sanctions were announced.
Apart from AQAH, Hezbollah also relies on Lebanon’s commercial banks and cash that arrives via plane at Beirut’s airport, Voice of America said.
AQAH, according to the report, suffered major blows in Israeli
...
KABOOM!...
s in September on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh — a southern suburb of Beirut and Hezbollah stronghold.
The airstrikes targeted Hezbollah’s "cash storage centers, including a large part of the AQAH vaults," and left it in a "financial crisis," the report said, citing MTV Lebanon, one of the country’s leading TV networks.
With most of AQAH’s branches destroyed, Hezbollah was left unable to pay its members who have "fled their homes and need to feed their families," the report said, citing Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.
Hezbollah is also losing access to its other cash sources: the Lebanese banking system and Beirut’s airport.
David Asher, a former US Defense and State Department official who targeted Hezbollah’s global drug trafficking and money laundering networks, told VOA on Wednesday, "I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah."
Asher, also a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, added that he is in contact with sources in Lebanon recruited by the US to provide information about Hezbollah and that the group is in "deep trouble."
The bankers, "most of them billionaires," fear Israel could "eliminate them" if they provide Hezbollah with money, he said.
According to Khashan, Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
used to smuggle cash to Hezbollah via regular flights to Beirut, evading the Lebanese government’s customs department. He said that now, the government is asserting more control over the airport, and there is no cash flow.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on September 27 that Israel would be patrolling the airspace at Beirut’s international airport and would "not allow the transfer of weapons to the Hezbollah terror group, in any way."
Hagari did not mention flights carrying cash, though the next day, according to Rooters, Lebanon’s transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft headed for Beirut not to enter its airspace, warning that it would use force if the plane landed.
Asher also told VOA that his Israeli counterparts had informed him that "the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons."
Nevertheless, Kashan told VOA that Hezbollah’s lack of cash was unlikely to stop it from continuing its offensive against Israel.