Hezbollah is running out of money, as three of its main sources of cash dry up, the Voice of America (VOA) reported on Friday.
The Iranian terrorist proxy relies on three key funding channels: Al-Qard al Hasan, or AQAH, a Hezbollah-owned quasi-bank operating without a government banking license; Licensed Lebanese commercial banks: and cash from Iran, Researchers told the broadcaster.
Israel targeted AQAH in its initial airstrikes during the current campaign in Lebanon. They hit Hezbollah’s “cash storage centers, including a large part of the AQAH vaults,” leaving the group in a “financial crisis,” VOA reported, quoting a Sept. 30 report by Murr Television, aka MTV Lebanon.
Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, also told the VOA that Israel “destroyed” most of AQAH’s branches.
“Hezbollah is facing a very serious financial problem. They are unable to pay rank and file members who have fled their homes and need to feed their families,” Khashan said.
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), a group of Israeli intelligence veterans, describes Al-Qard al-Hasan (“The Benevolent Loan”), as an institution that mainly provides interest-free loans to the Shi’ite community in Lebanon.
The main idea is to support Shi’ite society so that it in turn will support Hezbollah, becoming a “resistance society,” ITIC explained.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned AQAH in 2007 and individuals associated with it in proceeding years. The sanctions did not, however, affect the number of loans provided by the organization, which continued to grow, ITIC said.
David Asher, a former U.S. Defense and State Department official who focused on Hezbollah’s drug trafficking and money laundering operations, told VOA that the group is in “deep trouble” as it is also losing access to Lebanese banking.
“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” Asher said, now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.
“These Lebanese bankers, most of them billionaires, see the wind is blowing against Hezbollah, so they are not going to let it take millions of dollars out of their banks, which still have cash despite being bankrupt on paper,” Asher said. “They know that if they do, Israel probably will eliminate them, too.”
Another Hezbollah funding source is cash delivered by plane from Iran. It, too, is drying up.
On Sept. 27, Israel warned it would not allow hostile flights carrying weapons to land at Beirut’s airport. The next day, an Iranian flight from Tehran made a U-turn over Iraqi airspace.
Lebanon’s Transport Ministry said it had ordered the Iranian plane to turn around after an Israeli threat that it would use force against Beirut’s air traffic control tower if the plane attempted to land.
“I’ve heard from my Israeli counterparts that the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons,” Asher said.
