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Iran has dismissed appeals by the Bush administration to end training of the Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement, one of 33 groups on the State Department list of terrorist organizations.
U.S. officials said Iran continues to finance and train Hezbollah insurgents in sabotage as well as operating anti-aircraft and other missiles. They said Iran provides as much $100 million a year to Hezbollah.
“There’s also no question, but that Iran has been very active in funding Hezbollah, and those folks have a way of leaving Iran and ending up in Damascus, probably by air, moving down through the Damascus-Beirut road into the Bekaa Valley, and then proceeding to try to commit terrorist acts and kill people,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Officials said Iran has transferred thousands of Katyusha rockets and short-range Fajr-5 surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah. The missiles have been deployed in southern Lebanon near Israel’s border and can strike strategic facilities in the Haifa area.
“Terrorists have declared war on civilization, and states like Iran, Iraq and Syria are inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing,” Rumsfeld said on April 1.
On late April 1, a 107 mm Katyusha rocket fired from southern Lebanon landed near the Israeli city of Kiryat Shemona. Israeli authorities said the rocket could have been fired by either the Iranian-backed Hezbollah or Palestinian insurgents.
So far, officials said, Iran has failed to respond to Western appeals for a halt in aid to Hezbollah. They said the administration does not plan in the short term to intensify diplomatic or military pressure on Iran. Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq, is regarded as the focus of the second stage of the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
The Bush administration has reassured Iran that the United States does not plan to target the Islamic republic and seeks a dialogue. The U.S. message came after Iran announced it had placed its military on alert against a military attack by Washington.
“There’s the political, the diplomatic, the economic, as well as the security side of relationships,” Rumsfeld said. “And there have been a number of international efforts to deal with Iran, and Iran obviously has been unpersuaded by them.”
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