Saudi Kingdom Determined to Fight Hezbollah

Riyadh, Oct 25 (Prensa Latina) The Saudi government is determined to confront the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah and halt what it calls its ''terrorist activities'', according to comments from officials on new sanctions against the Shiite group.

Sources of the Council of Ministers reaffirmed their determination to work with their partners worldwide to expand the fight against Hezbollah (Party of God), an organization that Riyadh and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf categorized this year as 'terrorists'.

The Lebanese party has rejected all Riyadh's accusations and has attributed its comments to its close relationship with Iran - Saudi's main rival in the region - and to its support for President Bashar Al-Assad in his fight against terrorist groups in Syria, as Damascus are funded by the Al-Saud monarchy.

According to the state news agency SPA, the cabinet said it would continue its policy of



imposing sanctions against individuals and companies allegedly linked to Hezbollah, as it did on Thursday in two such cases.

Saudi Arabia charged Muhammad al-Mukhtar Kallas, Hasan Jamal-al-Din and the Global Cleaners company, under a local law against terrorism, and proceeded to freeze their assets and revoke their commercial license.

Kallas and Jamal-al-Din are identified by the United States Department of the Treasury as suspected accountants of the Hezbollah financier Adham Husayn Tabaja.

'We will continue to work with our partners worldwide to reveal their criminal and terrorist activities,' said the Saudi government after a meeting chaired by King Salman bin Abdudlaziz Al-Saud on cutting sources of funding for Hezbollah.

The US Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it had applied similar sanctions against four individuals and a firm, whose assets in the US were frozen.