US State Dept. Labels Environmental Group a Hezbollah Front

Hezbollah has built military posts in recent months along the “Blue Line” between Israel and Lebanon under the guise of Green Without Borders, which purports to be an environmental organization.

By TPS

The U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that the United States has designated Green Without Borders and its leader Zuhair Subhi Nahla as a Hezbollah “cover.”

Hezbollah has built military posts in recent months along the “Blue Line” between Israel and Lebanon under the guise of Green Without Borders, which purports to be an environmental organization. Hezbollah launched its project in parallel to Israel’s construction of a fortified perimeter fence along the 140-kilometer border.

“Under Nahla’s leadership, GWB has functioned as a cover for Hezbollah’s terrorist activities,” stated Matthew Miller, State Department spokesman. “GWB sites have been used to conduct Hezbollah’s weapons training, to provide support for Hezbollah’s activities along the Blue Line in southern Lebanon, and to impede the freedom of movement of the U.N. Security Council-mandated United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.”

Miller added that the designation was part of broader efforts “to prevent and disrupt financial and other support for terrorist attacks in Lebanon, Israel and around the world.”

“The United States is committed to denying funding and resources to these terrorist support networks and will continue countering the threats they pose both locally and internationally,” Miller added.

Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an Arizona State University law professor, wrote that Green Without Borders is a “faux-environmental front group,” which supposedly fights forest fires.

“What kind of environmental organization just happens to build dozens of military outposts all along, and mere yards from, a tense international border?” he wrote.

The State Department’s declaration comes amid escalating tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border.

The Israel Defense Forces is bolstering its forces in the north in preparation for possible provocations by the Iran-backed terror group, which in April established an outpost on the Israeli side of the demarcation line. Part of the outpost was removed earlier this month, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has threatened confrontation if Israel attempts to dismantle the rest.

According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah is forbidden from operating near the border.