Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday brushed aside a recent European Union decision to blacklist the military wing of his Iran-backed group as a terrorist organization, telling a Hezbollah-controlled television station that he was only surprised that it “had taken so long” for Western leaders to issue the designation.

“Hezbollah leaders we were not surprised with the [EU] decision. Rather we expected it and in fact found it odd it had taken so long.” He said

Nasrallah made the comments on Al Manar TV via video link from an undisclosed location during the annual Iftar of the Women’s Directorate of the Islamic Resistance Support Association at the Hashem Complex in the Lebanese capital.

Addressing the EU, Nasrallah said: “At Hezbollah, we know that any decision has a goal and the goal here is clear: it’s to subjugate us and force us to retreat, regress, be hesitant, and instill fear in us.”

“I tell you that you will only reap failure and disappointment,” he added.

Other Hezbollah figures were less circumspect, with Hezbollah’s head of international relations Ammar Moussawi lashing out against the Europeans and describing the E.U.’s decision as an “insult because it equates resistance with terrorism.”

The E.U. decision came after intelligence was presented in European capitals describing in detail Hezbollah’s campaign to target and murder civilians across the Continent and demonstrating the group’s responsibility for a July 2012 bus bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria that killed six. Today Bulgarian investigators released more details about the bombing, to which they had previously linked Hezbollah, including the identities of the suspects.

The Western-backed, anti-Syrian March 14 coalition issued a statement blasting Hezbollah for activities beyond Lebanon’s borders:

“Hezbollah’s activities outside Lebanon contributed to listing its military wing as a terrorist organization,” the March 14 General Secretariat said in a statement issued on Wednesday following its weekly meeting.

The coalition also said that “March 14 had warned the party several times of negative consequences entailing its involvement in the Syrian crisis.”

March 14 called on Hezbollah to “return to Lebanon under Lebanon’s conditions… and to hand its weapons to the Lebanese Armed Forces and immediately withdraw from Syria.”

Hezbollah militarily controls southern Lebanon and has thus far refused to cede sovereignty to Beirut.

[Photo: Kodak Agfa / Flickr]