Isolate Hizbollah

US sanctions on Iran and its Lebanese ally Hizbollah are working, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday on a visit to Beirut, calling on Lebanon to stand up to the Shi’ite group which he accused of “criminality, terror, and threats”. Lebanese politicians who met Pompeo, including President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil - all political allies of Hizbollah - said they had told him the group was part and parcel of Lebanese politics.

Pompeo, touring the Middle East to drum up support for Washington’s harder line against Iran, cited a speech by Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah this month asking the group’s supporters for funds as evidence US pressure was working. “Our pressure on Iran is simple.

It’s aimed at cutting off the funding for terrorists and it’s working,” he said, standing alongside Bassil after their meeting. “We believe that our work is already constraining Hizbollah’s activities,” Pompeo said Iran gave Hizbollah as much as $700 million a year. The heavily armed Hizbollah has a large militia that has taken part in Syria’s civil war alongside President Bashar Al Assad’s government, but it also has elected members of parliament and positions in the national unity government.