First 20 tanker trucks of Iranian fuel arrive in Lebanon from Syria, busting U.S. sanctions

A convoy of tankers carrying Iranian fuel has arrived in Lebanon, Press TV reports.

Lebanon media also reported that the tankers loaded with Iranian mazut had entered the village of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in Lebanon’s northeastern Baalbek-Hermel province on Thursday.

The media director of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah said that the tankers will first stop between the villages of Ain and Laboueh and that their last station would be the entrance to southern Baalbek.

Speaking on Wednesday night, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged people not to gather to observe the convoy both for their own safety and the movement of the tankers.

Announcing that ships carrying Iranian fuel would set sail for Lebanon last month, Nasrallah warned the Israeli regime and the US that the resistance group regarded the convoy as part of the “Lebanese soil.”

Lebanese media have said that Iran’s fuel shipment to Lebanon will open a new horizon in relations between the two countries and set the stage for the defeat of US hegemony in the region.

Earlier, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem described the shipment as a political, social and moral achievement in the face of the US oppression.

The Americans, he added, were surprised to see that Iranian fuel-laden vessels have broken the siege of Lebanon and provided the Lebanese with the vital product.

In early September, the Iranian ships unloaded their fuel cargo at Syria’s Baniyas port, from where it was transferred to Lebanon via tankers.

Lebanon has been mired since late 2019 in a deep financial crisis that has caused the Lebanese pound to lose around 90 percent of its value to the dollar.

Severe fuel shortages and wide-scale power cuts have paralyzed the Mediterranean country.

The US has exacerbated the crisis by imposing a siege on Lebanon in a bid to force the formation of a Western-friendly administration there.