The US State Department on Tuesday designated Jawad Nasrallah, son of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, as a global terrorist and accused him of carrying out attacks against Israel in the West Bank.



The department also blacklisted Al-Mujahidin Brigades (AMB), which it said had links to Hezbollah and had plotted a number of attacks against Israeli targets from a base in the Palestinian Territories.



“Today’s designations seek to deny Nasrallah and AMB the resources to plan and carry out terrorist attacks,” the State Department said in a statement. It said the actions denied Nasrallah and AMB access to the US financial system.



More sanctions would be announced later in the day, the State Department’s top counter-terrorism official Nathan Sales said separately without elaborating.



“We will be making some additional announcements at the State Department’s briefing later this afternoon,” Sales told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.



Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri blamed Hezbollah for what he called “a big obstacle” in efforts to form a new government.



Hezbollah, a heavily armed Shiite Muslim group, has been pressing a demand for one of six Sunni Muslim lawmakers allied to it to get a cabinet position. Hariri has refused to give up one of the seats allocated for his mainly Sunni party.

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:54 - GMT 06:54