[Pfc.Green]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. diplomat took aim at Hezbollah on Thursday, saying the United States would go after the group he called "the A-team of terrorists."

"Hezbollah made the A-team of terrorists, maybe al Qaeda is actually the B-team," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in answer to a questions after a luncheon speech.

"We're going to go after them just like a high school wrestler goes after opponents, we're going to take them down one at a time," Armitage said.

Like al Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Hezbollah is on the State Department's 2001 list of "designated foreign terrorist organizations."

Hezbollah is "known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-U.S. terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April 1983 and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983," according to the State Department.

Three Hezbollah members are on the FBI ( news - web sites)'s list of 22 most wanted "terrorists" for the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, during which a U.S. Navy ( news - web sites) diver was murdered, the State Department said in its 2001 report "Patterns of Global Terrorism."

Hezbollah operates in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, and has established cells in Europe, Africa, South America, North America and Asia, the report said.

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Hezbollah=shitheaded murderers, M16: M16: