UK adds Hezbollah's military wing to terrorist list

Britain on Wednesday moved to ban the entire military wing of Hezbollah, adding it to its list of designated terrorist groups.

Toughening its stance on the Shiite Lebanese movement, the Home Office (interior ministry) move makes it a criminal offence to belong to, raise funds and encourage support for the group's military wing.

The ministry said it took the action because Hezbollah's military branch was supporting militants in Iraq and Palestinian terror groups.

London has already banned Hezbollah's External Security Organization (ESO), which it considers the organization's "terrorist wing".Home Secretary Jacqui Smith laid the order in parliament, which, if approved, would substitute the existing proscription against the ESO."Hezbollah's military wing is providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs," junior Home Office minister Tony McNulty said."Hezbollah's military wing also provides support to Palestinian terrorist groups in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad."It is because of this support for terrorism in Iraq and Occupied Palestinian Territories that the government has taken this action."Proscription of Hezbollah's military wing will not affect the legitimate political, social and humanitarian role Hezbollah plays in Lebanon, but it sends out a clear message that we condemn Hezbollah's violence and support for terrorism," he said.The home secretary can proscribe any organisation she believes is "concerned in terrorism", which means committing, participating, preparing for, promoting, encouraging or otherwise being concerned in terrorism in Britain or abroad.Groups can also be banned for glorifying terrorism.Proscription also makes it a criminal offence to wear clothing or carry articles in public "which arouse reasonable suspicion that a person is a member or supporter".More than 40 groups are classed as international terrorist organisations

-- including the ESO

-- and proscribed under Britain's Terrorism Act 2000.Two are proscribed for glorifying terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2006.

Fourteen organisations in Northern Ireland, among them the Irish Republican Army (IRA), are proscribed under previous legislation.Hezbollah is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organisations and as such Washington has no dealings with the group.

The movement is taking part in Lebanon's new government of national unity.Hezbollah, which claimed to have forced Israel's pullout from south Lebanon in May 2000 after two decades of occupation, sees itself as the legitimate "resistance" to the Jewish state