Argentina Labels Hezbollah Terrorist Organization, Orders Asset Freeze

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th July, 2019) Argentina's authorities have designated the Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement as a terrorist organization and ruled to freeze finance assets belonging to the group.

"I am ordering to freeze assets of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, its military wing and its leader," Mariano Federici, the head of the Financial Intelligence Unit of Argentina (UIF-AR), which is part of the country's Finance Ministry, said on Thursday, as quoted by the Clarin news outlet.

Argentina has previously followed UN guidelines on terrorist organizations and did not have its own list of such groups. However, the United Nations does not recognize Hezbollah as a terror group.

The Latin American country's decision to create its own list of terrorist organizations has been reported to be timed to the 25th anniversary of the violent attack on the Mutual Israelite Association of Argentina (known by its acronym AMIA) community center in Buenos Aires in 1994. The terror act left 85 people killed and hundreds of others injured.

Argentina accused Hezbollah of carrying out the attack but the group denied having any role in it.

Hezbollah is also believed to be behind the terrorist act against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which killed 29 people and left more than 200 others injured.