The Department of State has designated the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Hizbollah operative Husain Ali Hazzima as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. Husain Ali Hazzima is the Chief of Hizbollah Unit 200. Hizbollah was designated as a Foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in 1997 and as an SDGT in 2001. Unit 200 is the Intelligence Unit of Hizbollah, and it analyzes and assesses information collected by Hizbollah military units.
BLA is an armed terrorist group that mostly targets armed forces and civilians mostly in ethnic Baloch rural areas of Pakistan. BLA have been carrying out attacks for the past year. The suicide attack in August 2018 on Chinese engineers in Balochistan, a November 2018 attack on Chinese consulate Karachi and a May 2019 attack on luxury hotel Gawadar Karachi.
Jundallah, which was designated as an FTO and SDGT in 2010, began using the new name Jaysh al-Adl and associated aliases in 2012. Since its inception, the group has engaged in numerous attacks that have killed scores of Iranian civilians and government officials, including a February 2019 suicide bombing and the October 2018 kidnapping of Iranian security personnel.
Today’s actions notify the U.S. public and the international community that Hazzima and BLA have committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism, and that Jundallah, having adopted the new name Jaysh al-Adl, continues to engage in terrorism that threatens the national security of the United States. Terrorist designations expose and isolate organizations and individuals, and deny them access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist the law enforcement activities of U.S. agencies and other governments.
