(Reuters) France’s foreign ministry on Friday said there was no evidence to suggest the armed wing of Lebanon’s Hezbollah was storing chemicals to make explosives in France after a senior U.S. official said the group had set up caches in Europe since 2012.
Speaking on Thursday, Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, accused the Iran-backed group of smuggling and storing chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, from Belgium to France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.
“It stores these weapons in places so it can conduct major terrorist attacks whenever its masters in Tehran deem necessary,” Sales said in a briefing without elaborating or providing evidence of the activities.
