BEIRUT: A U.S. official Tuesday dismissed speculation that Washington was softening its position towards Hezbollah and Iran after the two were excluded from an annual terror threat report.
“Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S. national interests because of its support to the Assad regime in Syria, promulgation of anti-Israeli policies, development of advanced military capabilities, and pursuit of its nuclear program,” the official said, according to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.
The official attributed the exclusion of Iran and Hezbollah from its 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community report to "a format change."
The report, released on Feb. 26, excluded the two from its list of terror threats despite being named as threats in previous years.
In a 2014 report the National Intelligence director said that Iran and Hezbollah continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S. allies. The report claimed that Hezbollah had increased its “global terrorist activity.”
In the latest report, the terrorism section focuses exclusively on the rise of militant groups like ISIS and the Nusra Front.
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