The Arab League, comprised of 22 members (Syria has been suspended) and meeting in Cairo on Friday has declared the Lebanese group Hezbollah to be a ‘terrorist' organization.
Nearly all 22 Arab League members supported the decision, except Lebanon and Iraq which expressed "reservations", the bloc said in a statement read out at a news conference by Bahraini diplomat Wahid Mubarak Sayar.
"The resolution of the League's council [of foreign ministers] includes the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group," the statement said.
The announcement brings the League in line with the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel and the European Union (designated military wing) as an identified terror group.
ABC reports…..
The decision by the Arab League is a significant blow to Hezbollah and it is also likely to further aggravate tensions in Lebanon, undermining the country's delicate political balance amid fierce political infighting between groups loyal to Hezbollah and Saudi-backed factions.
…….
The GCC's and Arab League's decisions underline the steep price that Hezbollah's very public and bloody foray into Syria's civil war has had. Once lauded in the Arab world as a heroic resistance movement that stood up to Israel, Hezbollah has seen its popularity plummet among Sunni Muslims because of its staunch support for Assad.
In Lebanon, the main political divide pits a Sunni-led coalition against another led by the Shiite Hezbollah movement, which includes both political and military wings. The Mediterranean country has weathered a string of militant attacks in recent years linked to the war in neighboring Syria.
Some potential terror efforts have been reported thwarted in the Gulf states
In January, Bahrain said it had dismantled a "terror" cell allegedly linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah.
That same month, a lower court in Kuwait sentenced 22 people, all but one of them Kuwaiti Shiites, who were charged with spying for Iran and plotting Hezbollah-linked attacks in the Gulf country.
The Revolutionary Guards created Hezbollah (Party of God) in the 1980s. Funded by Iran, it is the only side not to have put down weapons after Lebanon's civil war from 1975 to 1990.