Germany’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, announced that his ministry has banned a Hezbollah front organization that was acting as a charity to gather millions of dollars for Hezbollah’s Shahid Foundation, which opposes “Israel’s right to exist.”
AFP reported that Germany’s investigation has been ongoing since 2009.
De Maiziere said German investigators first started monitoring the charitable organization’s activities in 2009. The interior ministry said that the group had raised almost 3.3 million euros ($4.54 million) between 2007 and 2013, sending the funds to the so-called Shahid (Martyrs) Foundation in Lebanon.
That foundation is blacklisted by Germany for actively recruiting fighters for Hezbollah; investigators said that the orphans and widows they support were often relatives of suicide bombers. The foundation is also accused of seeking new recruits among the bereaved children.
De Maiziere said that organizations that were hostile to Israel’s existence “may not seek freedom of association protection,”
Hezbollah (Arabic for Party of God) is the Iranian armed, funded and trained Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization whose stated aim is the destruction of Israel. In a December 2010 speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared “As long as there is blood in our veins, we will never acknowledge the state of ‘Israel.’”
Hezbollah maintains a high profile in Germany. As The New York Times reported two years ago, “Germany is a center of activity, with 950 members and supporters last year, up from 900 in 2010, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual threat report.” Hezbollah has also been tied to the international drug trade, smuggling narcotics from South America into Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
On July 22, 2013, the European Union foreign ministers unanimously decided to declare that the military wing of Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. The EU had previously resisted doing so despite the organization’s refusal to abide by UNSC Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament. Hezbollah had previously been blacklisted by the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK and the Netherlands.
The move by Germany came after Britain’s parliament recently added three Islamic terror groups to its growing list of groups and individuals banned under the UK’s Terrorism Act, and Bulgaria released new details about one of the Hezbollah terrorists who perpetrated the bus bombing in Burgas two years ago.
Benjamin Weinthal examined Europe’s “Hezbollah problem” in the April 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine.
[Photo: yeowatzup / Wikimedia Commons]
