BEIRUT: Lebanon must cut Iran-backed Hizbollah from the financial sector, a US official on combating illicit finance said on Tuesday, two weeks after Washington began a new push to disrupt the militant group’s global financing routes.

On a two-day visit to Lebanon, the US Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea “urged Lebanon to take every possible measure to ensure (Hizbollah) is not part of the financial sector.”

Billingslea also “stressed the importance of countering Iranian malign activity in Lebanon,” a statement from the United States embassy in Lebanon said.

The Iran-backed, Shi’ite Hizbollah is classified as a terrorist group by Washington, but sits in Lebanon’s delicate national unity government.

US officials say Hezbollah is funded not just by Iran but by global networks of people, businesses and money laundering operations. Separately, eight rights groups including Human Rights Watch called on Lebanese authorities on Wednesday to investigate reports of a massive espionage campaign traced back to a government security agency.

Digital researchers last week said they had uncovered a hacking campaign using malware-infected messaging apps to steal smartphone data from people in more than 20 countries, including journalists and activists.

The report tracked the threat, which the researchers dubbed “Dark Caracal”, to a building in Beirut belonging to the Lebanese General Security Directorate.

Eight rights groups and media organisations called on Lebanon’s general prosecutor on Wednesday to investigate who was behind the campaign. “If these allegations are true, this intrusive surveillance makes a mockery of people’s right to privacy and jeopardises free expression and opinion,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Lebanese authorities should immediately end any ongoing surveillance that violates the nation’s laws or human rights, and investigate the reports of egregious privacy violations.”  Lebanese President Michel Aoun led a delegation to Kuwait on Tuesday, his government’s first visit to the Gulf since the shock resignation and return of the prime minister late last year.

The “positive” visit, with talks on bilateral issues, was “an achievement in itself,” said Lebanon’s Minister of State for Administrative Reform Inaya Ezzeddine, speaking at a reception for the Lebanese community in Kuwait City.