Honduras declares Hezbollah a terrorist organisation

The Honduran government has formally declared Hezbollah, Lebanon’s radical Shia Islamist group, a terrorist organisation.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and we will include it in the registry of persons and institutions linked to acts of terrorism and its financing,” Honduras’ deputy security minister said in a prepared statement.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz welcomed the move and called it “an important step in the global war on terror. I applaud the Honduran government for its important decision to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and to impose sanctions against the group.”
First founded during the 1975-90 Lebanese Civil War by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah has also been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The group has been responsible for multiple acts of terror both in Lebanon and across the globe, most notably in 1983 when two Hezbollah suicide bombers drove a truck laden with explosives into American and French military barracks that housed peacekeeping contingents from both countries. The attack killed more than 300 people, including 241 US Marines and 58 French soldiers, as well as six civilians.
Between 1982-92, Hezbollah was also involved in the kidnapping of 104 European, British, and American officials during the height of the civil war, seven of which were executed while being hostage.
Hezbollah was also responsible for the July 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America. The attack on the Israeli cultural centre killed 85 innocent civilians and wounded hundreds of others. That attack came only two years after a Hezbollah-aligned group bombed Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires, which left 29 dead and 242 wounded. In the case of the AMIA bombing, high-ranking members of the government of Iran and the Revolutionary Guards were indicted in the attack which led Interpol’s general assembly to issue red notices for five Iranian officials in 2007.
The US has been campaigning to have more Latin American countries sanction the group as a result of Hezbollah’s increased presence in the region and its alleged ties to South America’s drug cartels as well as its support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro.
Colombia, Argentina and Paraguay already labelled Hezbollah as terrorists. Last week, Guatemala’s president also signalled that he would add Hezbollah to the country’s list of terrorist groups.