The Arab League on Friday declared Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’a movement Hezbollah a ‘terrorist’ organization, only days after Sunni-dominated Arab Gulf states made a similar move. With the exception of Lebanon and Iraq, having expressed “reservations,” all member states of the pan-Arab body voted in favor of the decision, the League said in a statement read out by Bahraini diplomat Wahid Mubarak Sayar at a news conference. “The resolution of the League’s council [of foreign ministers] includes the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group,” the statement read. The decision was taken at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers at the organization’s headquarters in Cairo. The move came just days after former Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, was voted in as the Arab League’s new Secretary-General. Hezbollah, a majority-Shi’a political organization with a military wing, is fighting on the side of the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, together with Iran and Russia. The Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil explained on Twitter his country’s position regarding the Arab League’s designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group, saying the bloc’s resolution was “not in line” with the Arab League’s…
