SLC condemns Iraq’s Hezbollah, Houthis terror listing as “US-driven”

Shafaq News – Baghdad

The State of Law Coalition (SLC), led by former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki, on Thursday urged caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to withdraw Iraq’s decision to classify Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis (Ansarallah) as terrorist organizations.

Earlier today, the Iraqi government added the two Iran-backed groups to its terrorism-finance blacklist in a move aimed at aligning with UN Security Council sanctions and international counterterrorism standards. The designations, issued by the Committee for Freezing Terrorist Funds and published in the Official Gazette Al-Waqai Al-Iraqiya (Issue 4848) on 17 November 2025, require the immediate freezing of all assets linked to both groups.

SLC lawmaker Ibtisam Al-Hilali told Shafaq News that the caretaker government “continues to issue incorrect decisions.” She argued that the cabinet used the end of the fifth parliamentary term and the absence of oversight to advance steps she accused of “serving US interests,” referring to Iraq’s submission of a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for US President Donald Trump and the blacklisting of groups she called “the Islamic resistance” in Lebanon and Yemen.

Al-Hilali pressed the Iran-aligned Coordination Framework—the predominantly Shiite political alliance that recently emerged as the largest bloc after the 2025 parliamentary elections and includes the SLC and Al-Sudani's Reconstruction and Development Coalition (Al-Ima’ar Wal Tanmiya)—to address the matter in its next meeting. She urged Baghdad to cancel the designations “immediately,” warning that leaving them in place would “push Iraq toward uncertainty,” in her words.