Bahrain’s parliament voted on Tuesday to label the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group as a terrorist organization.
The move to designate Hezbollah a terrorist entity comes on the heels of EU talks about banning Hezbollah within the 27-member body because of terror operations. Last week, a Cyprus criminal court convicted a Hezbollah member for plotting to kill Israeli tourists on the small Island. In addition to the foiled Cyprus plot, Bulgaria’s interior minister issued a report last month asserting two Hezbollah operatives participated in the terror attack on an Israeli tour bus in the Black Sea resort of Burgas. The bombing in Burgas resulted in the deaths of five Israelis, their Bulgarian bus driver, and injuries to 32 Israelis.
Bahrain has accused Hezbollah of seeking to overthrow its government in 2011. According to a report sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2011, the Khalifa family asserted that Hezbollah trained insurgents in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran to topple its government.
Major EU countries Germany and France have resisted including Hezbollah in the EU terror list because of insufficient legal evidence.
Last November Bahrain said that five home-made bombs that killed two people in Bahrain on November 6 bore the hallmarks of Hezbollah. The official Bahrain News Agency quoted Information Minister Samira Ibrahim bin Rajab as saying the bombings were staged by terrorist groups trained outside Bahrain and based in countries including Lebanon. She said the groups were operating under principles set by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and that 19 pro-Iran satellite mediachannels were inciting their supporters in Bahrain to subvert the government.
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