Lebanon orders Iran’s ambassador out, escalating a postwar crackdown on Tehran’s influence

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry declared Iran’s ambassador to Beirut persona non grata Tuesday, ordering him to leave the country by the end of the week.

The decision was the clearest sign yet of deteriorating relations between the two countries and raises tensions within Lebanon over the role of Tehran and its Lebanon-based ally, the militant Hezbollah group.

The decision is the latest step taken by Lebanon’s government against Iran after the most recent Israel-Hezbollah war broke out on March 2, during which Israel’s military killed several members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in strikes around the long-suffering country.

Hezbollah triggered the latest war by firing rockets into Israel two days after Israel and the United States began their attacks on Iran, in which they killed top Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah said one of the reasons it attacked Israel was to avenge the killing of Khamenei, who was one of the most important Shiite Muslim religious figures worldwide.

IRG directing Hezbollah ops in Lebanon, prime minister says

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is commanding Hezbollah’s operations in Lebanon, adding that the firing of missiles toward Israel threw the small nation into a broad confrontation that the Lebanese government "was not willing to get involved in.”

"It is not the duty of the Lebanese to avenge Khamenei’s killing,” Salam said, adding that Iranian operatives in Lebanon use fake IDs and passports to move around.

Salam also said the IRG was behind the firing of drones from Lebanon toward the Mediterranean island of Cyprus earlier this month.

Hours after Hezbollah fired rockets on March 2, triggering the war that has so far killed 1,072 people in Lebanon and wounded nearly 3,000, Salam’s government declared all military activities by the Iran-backed group illegal. He also said the group should hand its weapons over to the state. The government also ended visa-free entry to Lebanon for Iranian citizens.

Salam said after the emergency Cabinet meeting in early March that only the state should decide on matters of war and peace and called on security agencies to prevent the firing of missiles or drones from Lebanon and detain those behind the launch.

Decision deepens divisions within Lebanon

The move to expel Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon reflects the deep divisions in the Mediterranean nation that has been deeply divided for years between a Western-backed coalition and another that is led by Hezbollah and supported by Iran.

Even before the resurgence of war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon had made moves to reduce Iran's once-considerable influence. Iranian commercial planes have been banned from landing at the Beirut airport for more than a year out of fears that they would bring in weapons or cash for Hezbollah and might lead to Israel striking the airport.

Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi posted on X that he instructed the ministry’s secretary-general to summon the Iranian chargé d’affaires in Lebanon to inform him of the decision to withdraw the approval for the designated Iranian ambassador to Beirut.

Raggi added that Iran’s new ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Shibani, will be declared “persona non grata, and requested that he leaves Lebanese territory no later than 29 March 2026.”

The ministry later said the move does not mean that Lebanon is severing its diplomatic relations with Tehran.

The decision by the ministry was harshly criticized by Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon, while cleric Ali al-Khatib, a top Shiite religious figure in the country, called on the government to abolish the decision that he described as “reckless and hasty.”

The Shiite mufti in Lebanon, Ahmad Kabalan, said the ambassador should not leave the country, adding that “we will not allow the reckless authority to slaughter Lebanon politically.”

Hezbollah rejected the decision, saying this “reckless and condemned step serves neither Lebanon’s supreme national interests, nor its sovereignty or national unity; rather, it constitutes a blow against them.”

Others praised the move saying it comes after many years of Iranian activities in Lebanon.

Samir Geagea, the leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces Party that has the largest bloc in parliament praised the move by the state “especially given the accumulation of damage caused by Iran in Lebanon over decades.”

Israel says it has been targeting Revolutionary Guard

Since the latest war began, Israel says it targeted Iranian-linked commanders in attacks in Lebanon’s capital and suburbs.

On March 8, an Israeli strike hit a hotel in Beirut’s Raouche district, a major seaside tourist area, killing four Iranian citizens. Another Israeli strike on Monday in Beirut’s southeastern suburbs of Hazmiyeh killed Mohammed Ali Kourani a Lebanese official in the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force. Kourani had escaped a strike on a hotel in a nearby area earlier this month.

Since the early 1980s, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard helped develop Hezbollah, which has since grown to become the largest and most powerful group in Lebanon. Over the past four decades that followed its formation, Hezbollah has received billions of dollars in funding as well as different types of Iranian weapons.

After Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war ended, Hezbollah was the only group to be allowed to keep its weapons as it was considered a resistance movement fighting Israel that was occupying parts of southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has fought three major wars with Israel since it withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000 ending an 18-year occupation. The 14-month war that ended in November 2024, severely weakened the group, with many of its political and military commanders killed.

During the Sept. 17, 2024 pagers attack by Israel that wounded thousands of mostly Hezbollah members, Iran’s then-ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was wounded as he was carrying a pager.

When Hezbollah leader and once of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in September 2024, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general was killed with him.

Today, Hezbollah remains Iran’s most trusted and reliable ally in the region despite the setbacks that it faced.

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Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb and Abby Sewell contributed to this report.