US Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea met Prime Minister Saad Hariri
...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too....and parliament speaker Nabih
KnobbyBerri
Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah...
Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as
The Resistanceand purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
sock puppet...
on Monday, during a two-day visit to Leb.
During the meetings, Billingslea warned that US sanctions may extend beyond direct affiliates of Hezbollah, according to a source present at the talks.
"The US will sanction any group that provides material support to Hezbollah, be it through supplying weapons or money," the source quotes Billingslea as saying.
But sanctions "will not target groups who are only tied to Hezbollah politically," he adds, easing concern that the group’s political allies, including President Michel Aoun
...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
’s Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
and Berri’s Amal Movement, could be targeted.
As well as maintaining a large paramilitary force that has fought both Syrian rebels and Israel, Hezbollah is a key political force in Leb.
Billingslea, who arrived in the country on Sunday for meetings with banking and government officials, aims to "encourage Leb to take the necessary steps to maintain distance" from the group, says a statement released by the US embassy in Beirut.