Saturday 20 September 2008

EU counterterrorism coordinator: Hezbullah not on terror list

"The European Union's counterterrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerckhove says Lebanon's Hezbollah is not on the list of terror groups. Gilles de Kerckhove said the EU would not put Hezbollah on the list of terror groups because several member states, including France, oppose such a move. The EU official made the comment in a seminar on 'Terrorism and Europe' organized at the European Parliament in Brussels.

According to de Kerckhove, the reluctance of several to take a step against Hezbollah lies in the fact that it is represented in the government of Lebanon. "It plays a role on the Lebanese political scene and several countries think that this could bring them closer to the democratic process," he added.

German Liberal MEP Alexander Alvaro, one of the co-sponsors of the call to blacklist Hezbollah, said that "900 Hezbollah sleepers are stationed within Germany."
.
"The situation is probably not very different elsewhere," underlining that a terrorist group label would enable the "drying out of its activities in Europe."
.
On the same subject:

No comments: