WHEN WILL EU SHUN HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS? FINAL Edition

• Published in: The Sun (Baltimore, Md. : 1837)
• Main Author: Resnick, Aaron
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore, Md Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 06.10.2006
• ISSN: 1930-8965

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the EU instituted a host of counterterrorism measures. One of the more important ones was establishing a definition of terror acts and a subsequent list of terrorist entities - groups and individuals operating on and outside EU soil. The EU's list mirrors the long-standing lists of the U.S. State and Treasury departments that are used to identify terrorists and prevent fundraising on U.S. soil, among other uses. Notable on the EU's inaugural list were the military wing of Hamas and Imad Mughniyah, widely known as Hezbollah's operations chief. In 2003, the EU finally realized, after a series of Hamas suicide bombings in Israel, that it could no longer separate Hamas' armed wing from its supposed political and social units, and thus designated the whole organization a terrorist group. In 2002, the EU added two more Hezbollah members to its terror list. France, with long-standing ties in the Middle East, banned the broadcast of al- Manar, Hezbollah's hate-spewing television station, in late 2004, well ahead of the Treasury Department's labeling the station a terrorist entity this year. Yet the EU, principally under pressure from France, continues to resist efforts to classify any part of Hezbollah as a terrorist group.