Hezbollah’s Safieddine dismisses US sanctions, says ‘won’t be able to harm resistance’

Three days after he was blacklisted by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in an unprecedented “joint terrorist designation ” Hezbollah executive council chief Sayyed Hashem Safieddine stressed Sunday that the U.S. administration will not be able to “harm the resistance.”

“America’s malice and siege against our region, countries, homelands and societies prove that it has become a lot weaker than it was in the previous years and decades, and that can be evidenced by the skepticism on (Donald) Trump’s continued leadership of the United State of America and the daily attacks on him from most U.S. media outlets and the world’s media empires,” Safieddine said during a Hezbollah ceremony in the South.

“When the U.S. administration was in a good situation, it did not manage to harm the resistance, and therefore this handicapped and mad U.S. administration led by Trump will not be able to harm the resistance and they will not get anything,” the Hezbollah official added.

“What they will get is further screaming in the media and everything they have done will come to an end,” Safieddine stressed.

He also underscored that “through its culture, the blood of its martyrs and its honorable, sacrificing and cognizant people, the resistance will maintain its firmness and steadfastness and its resolve will be stronger than before.”

“The victories in the upcoming months and years will be better than the victories that were achieved in all the previous days,” Safieddine went on to say.

Safieddine’s blacklisting on Friday by Washington and Riyadh came on the eve of Trump’s landmark visit to Saudi Arabia.

“The aim of the summit is to work towards the establishment of a new partnership to confront extremism and terrorism and reinforce the values of tolerance and better living for the future of our generations in the Arab region,” Saudi envoy to Lebanon who delivered the invitation to PM Saad Hariri said last week.

“The action against Safieddine is the latest example of the strong partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia in combating the financing of terrorism,” the U.S. State Department said last Friday.

The official Saudi news agency SPA confirmed Safieddine’s listing, and alleged he had given his organization advice on carrying out “terrorist acts” and on supplying support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“As a result, any of his assets held in Saudi Arabia are frozen, and transfers through the kingdom’s financial sector are prohibited,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Safieddine is the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, which runs the group’s political affairs and social and economic programs in Lebanon’s Shiite community.

He is a cousin of Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah and he is considered a potential candidate to succeed him.

Most participating countries in the summit have already labeled Hezbollah as a terrorist organization .

Hezbollah is close to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main rival for power in the region, and has played a key role in boosting the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad. The Saudis also accuse Iran and Hezbollah of fanning the war in Yemen by supporting the Houthi rebels.