Hizbollah in Finanznöten

Laut einem aktuellen Bericht befindet sich die Hizbollah in akuten Finanznöten:

Hezbollah is facing a “financial crisis” and cannot pay its members as Israel’s offensive on the Iran-backed, Lebanon-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. 

AQAH, according to the report, suffered major blows in Israeli airstrikes in September on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh — a southern suburb of Beirut and Hezbollah stronghold. (...)

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 Europe 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 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.”