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Source: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1779821
Hizbullah's Global Trail of Criminality and Corruption
(Arab News-Saudi Arabia) Baria Alamuddin - Many essential medicines are unobtainable in mainstream Lebanese hospitals and pharmacies. Yet in Hizbullah-land, a parallel system of health facilities exists where a full spectrum of cheap, Iran-imported drugs are readily available. With its system of parallel ATMs from which dollars are miraculously available, parallel schools, parallel banks, parallel economies, parallel systems for paying salaries - Hizbullah is profiteering from Lebanon's demise. Hizbullah demands continued control over Lebanon's finance, health and transport ministries precisely because of the multiple opportunities for criminal gain. Lebanon's airport, ports and borders are nodes for smuggling arms and narcotics. Lebanese financial institutions have been sanctioned for laundering funds for Iran. Hizbullah was designated one of the top five global criminal organizations by the U.S. State Department in 2018. Lebanese emigre clans operate vast narcotics networks embedded along the Venezuelan coast, primarily targeting the U.S. Hizbullah's spiritual advisers during the 1990s ruled that the narcotics trade was "morally acceptable if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of a war against the enemies of Islam." I've always been proud to be Lebanese, but it's a source of intense shame when the world sees our beautiful nation hijacked by Hizbullah's corruption, criminality and terrorism. The writer is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK.