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U.S. moves against Iran-based Martyrdom Foundation
Treasury department claims organization funding Hizbullah
The Bush administration took action Tuesday against an Iran-based foundation, including its US branch, for allegedly providing support to Hizbullah, which the United States has blamed for bloodshed in Lebanon.
The Treasury Department's action covers the Martyrs Foundation and Goodwill Charitable Organization of Dearborn, Michigan, which the government identified as a fundraising office for the foundation.
"We will not allow organizations that support terrorism to raise money in the United States," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Two Lebanese - Qasem Aliq and Ahmad al-Shami - were also covered by Tuesday's order.
The US identified Aliq as a Hizbullah official who was once the director of the Martyrs Foundation's branch in Lebanon. The US says he is currently a director of Jihad al-Bina, a Lebanon-based construction firm allegedly formed and operated by Hizbullah.
Shami had worked for the foundation in Lebanon and has been in "frequent contact" with the Goodwill Charitable Organization, the department said. Goodwill Charitable Organization sent him money to distribute to the Martyrs Foundation, the department said.
The action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets found in the United States that belong to those identified on Tuesday must be frozen. Americans also are forbidden from doing business with them.
There was no current telephone listing for the Goodwill Charitable Organization (GCO).
The department called the GCO "a Hizbullah front organization that reports directly to the leadership of the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon.
"Hizbullah recruited GCO leaders and had maintained close contact with GCO representatives in the United States," the department alleged.
The Goodwill Charitable Organization has allegedly provided "financial support to Hizbullah directly and through the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon," the Treasury said.
"Hizbullah's leaders in Lebanon have instructed Hizbullah members in the US to send their contributions to the GCO and to contact the GCO for the purpose of contributing to the Martyrs Foundation," it added.
"Since its founding, the GCO has sent a significant amount of money to the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon," it said.
The department alleged that the Martyrs Foundation channels financial support from Iran to Hizbullah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as other terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, Israel has arrested an Israeli Arab woman suspected of aiding Hizbullah in Lebanon, the security services said Tuesday, in a rare case of alleged espionage among Israel's large Arab minority.
Shin Bet said it arrested the woman on June 30 at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and Israel.
The woman, whose name was kept secret by court order, told interrogators she was recruited by Hizbullah while she was a university student in Jordan, the agency said in a statement. She was told that as a member of Hizbullah, she would be assisting in the transfer of cellular phones and memory cards
from Jordan into Israel.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that her indictment says that upon completing her studies, the suspect was given a portable device to transfer into the hands of Hizbullah operatives working in Israel and the territories. The transfer was never completed because no one came to pick up the device.
The suspect has visited Jordan several times since then, and has maintained contact with the woman who allegedly recruited her. She was arrested upon returning from her last visit.
Shin Bet has previously arrested less than a dozen Israeli Arabs on espionage charges. Officials said the agency believes the Lebanese-based group has an entire branch dedicated to drafting spies in Israel, particularly among its Arab citizens who make up some 20 percent of the population.
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