"The right move to place on a terrorism list is the one who supports Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people and the Zionist occupation and aggression on Arab states," Hezbollah said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press Saturday.

"The one who deserves to be at the top of a terrorist list is the one who is leading the major state terrorism, U.S. President George Bush and his aides who have filled the world's skies with flying prisons in a breach of international laws and spread torture bases from Europe to Asia as they did in the cellars of Abu Ghraib and the Guantanamo detention center," the statement said.

It was referring to abuse of detainees in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay detention center by U.S. military personnel.

In its report, the U.S. State Department included Hezbollah, along with al-Qaida and the militant Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in a list of "active extremist and terrorist groups" in the Middle East.

The report said Hezbollah continued to provide support to "Palestinian terrorist groups to augment their capacity for conducting attacks against Israel."

"Hezbollah also continued to call for the destruction of Israel and used Lebanese territory as a staging ground for terrorist operations," it said.(AP)