A war of words is heating up between Hizbollah and Washington, with allegations and counter-allegations flying between the two foes as the crisis in Syria takes its toll on the Shiite militant group.
The feud began to deepen earlier this year
The cold war between Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbollah and the US – which blacklists the Lebanese group as a terrorist organisation – runs back decades.
But with political upheaval in the Arab world at a peak, tensions between the two are skyrocketing.
“This year was not the first time Hizbollah has exposed intelligence networks, whether working for the US or others, and the US criminal case against Hizbollah goes back months,” said Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre.
“But there’s no doubt that, given what’s happening in Syria along with the US withdrawal from Iraq ... we’re in a phase of high tension in which everyone’s raising the pressure on their opponent.”
The feud began to deepen earlier this year, when Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the Central Intelligence Agency of planting spies within his party’s ranks.
Nasrallah’s announcement in June, which the party hailed as a “victory” over the US, marked the first acknowledgment of infiltration by the movement founded in 1982.
The US filed a criminal lawsuit against a string of Lebanese financial institutions with alleged ties to Hizbollah on the grounds they were complicit in a massive scheme to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars.
US federal authorities say the companies were part of a scheme to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from narcotics dealing and other criminal activities in order to fund Hizbollah’s activities.
But Hizbollah has staunchly denied the charges, with the group’s second in command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, accusing Washington last week of waging a smear campaign against a Shiite Muslim group which, he said, would never follow a path “prohibited by religion”.
Hizbollah upped the stakes by accusing the “terrorist” US of being behind twin bombings in the Syrian capital on Friday which left 44 dead and 166 wounded, according to officials.