Iran Establishes South American Bases To Strike U.S.
CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.
From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1985 Lebanese civil war.
An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in Lebanon in 1982 that the United States has labeled an international terrorist organization. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials.
U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. From the largely lawless region, it is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists.
They are men like Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim whom Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the center of the Tri-border region. There is nothing particularly distinctive about him, but beneath the everyday T-shirt he wears beats the heart of a devoted Hezbollah militiaman.
“If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead,” Meri said. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.”
traight shot to the U.S.
U.S. and South American officials warn that Meri’s is more than a rhetorical threat.
It is surprisingly easy to move across borders in the Triple Frontier, where motorbikes are permitted to cross without documents. A smuggler can bike from Paraguay into Brazil and return without ever being asked for a passport, and it is not much harder for cars and trucks.
The implications of such lawlessness could be dire, U.S. and Paraguayan officials said. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.
The CIA singles out the Mexican border as an especially inviting target for Hezbollah operatives. “Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico,” its Counter Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper.
“Non-Mexicans often are more difficult to intercept because they typically pay high-end smugglers a large sum of money to efficiently assist them across the border, rather than haphazardly traverse it on their own.”
Deadly legacy of a lawless frontier
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Tri-border has become a top-level, if little-publicized, concern for Washington, particularly as tension mounts with Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor. Paraguayan government officials told Telemundo that CIA operatives and agents of Israel’s Mossad security force were known to be in the region seeking to neutralize what they believe could be an imminent threat.
But long before that, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies regarded the region as a “free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism,” Louis Freeh, then the director of the FBI, said in 1998.
Edward Luttwak, a counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group, described the Tri-border as the most important base for Hezbollah outside Lebanon itself, home to “a community of dangerous fanatics that send their money for financial support to Hezbollah.”
“People kill with that, and they have planned terrorist attacks from there,” said Luttwak, who has been a terrorism consultant to the CIA and the National Security Council. “The northern region of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and even Brazil are large terrains, and they have an organized training and recruitment camp for terrorists.”
“Our experience is that if you see one roach, there are a lot more,” said Frank Urbancic, principal deputy director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office, who has spent most of his career in the Middle East.
A mother lode of money
Operating out of the Tri-border, Hezbollah is accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks in nearby Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the early 1990s in operations personally masterminded by Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mugniyah.
Mugniyah is on the most-wanted terrorist lists of both the FBI and the European Union, and he is believed to work frequently out of Ciudad del Este.
For President Bush and the U.S.-led “war on terror,” the flourishing of Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere demonstrates the worrying worldwide reach of Islamist radicalism. In the Tri-border, Hezbollah and other radical anti-U.S. groups have found a lucrative base from which to finance many of their operations.
Smuggling has long been the lifeblood of the Tri-border, accounting for $2 billion to $3 billion in the region, according to congressional officials. Several U.S. agencies said that Arab merchants were involved in smuggling cigarettes and livestock to avoid taxes, as well as cocaine and marijuana through the border with Brazil on their way to Europe. Some of the proceeds are sent to Hezbollah, they said.
Many Arabs in the Tri-border openly acknowledge that they send money to Hezbollah to help their families, and the man in charge of the local mosque in Ciudad del Este, who asked not to be identified by name, declared that Shiite Muslim mosques had “an obligation to finance it.”
But the U.S. government maintains that the money ends up stained with blood when it goes through Hezbollah, which is blamed for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1980s, as well as the kidnappings of Americans, two of whom were tortured and killed.
Patrick M. O’Brien, the assistant secretary of the Treasury in charge of fighting terrorist financing, acknowledged flatly that “we are worried.”
“Hezbollah has penetrated the area, and part of that smuggling money is used to finance terrorist attacks,” he said.
In Paraguay, looking the other way
The biggest obstacle in the U.S. campaign to counter Hezbollah close to home is Paraguay, whose “judicial system remains severely hampered by a lack of strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism legislation,” the State Department said in a “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report.
Since 2004, a draft bill to strengthen money laundering laws has been stalled in the Paraguayan legislature, and the government of President Nicanor Duarte has introduced no draft legislation of its own.
Hampering reform efforts is an endemic reluctance in Paraguay to acknowledge the problem.
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Interior Minister Rogelio Benitez Vargas, who supervises the national police, claimed that Hezbollah-linked smuggling was a relic of the 1980s. Today, he said, the Triple Frontier is a safe and regulated “commercial paradise.”
But authorities from the U.S. State and Treasury departments to Interpol to the front-line Paraguayan police agencies all paint a different picture. Eduardo Arce, secretary of the Paraguayan Union of Journalists, said the government was widely considered to be under the control of drug traffickers and smugglers.
Without interference, thousands of people cross the River Parana every day from Paraguay to Brazil over the Bridge of Friendship loaded with products on which they pay no taxes. As police look the other way, he said, some smugglers cross the border 10 to 20 times a day. Earlier this year, Telemundo cameras were present as smugglers in Ciudad del Este loaded trucks headed for Brazil. They could have been laden with drugs or weapons, but no authorities ever checked.
Direct link to Iran alleged
José Adasco knows better than most why Hezbollah has the region in a grip of fear.
In 1992 and 1994, terrorists believed to be linked to Hezbollah carried out two attacks against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital. In the first, a car bomb exploded at the Israeli Embassy, killing 29 people. Two years later, a suicide bomber attacked the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a Jewish community center, killing 85 more.
Adasco, who represents the Jewish association, has never been able to forget that day and the friends he lost.
“Really, to see the knocked-down building, [to hear] the screams, the cries, people running — it was total chaos. Chaos, chaos. It is inexpressible,” he said.
An investigation by Interpol and the FBI found not only Hezbollah’s involvement, but Iran’s, as well. The Argentine prosecutor’s office said the Iranian president at the time, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ordered the attack to retaliate against Argentina for suspending nuclear cooperation with Iran.
A warrant for Rafsanjani’s arrest remains outstanding, and the prosecutor’s office continues its investigation 13 years later.
Hezbollah tells its story
Alberto Nisman, the Argentine district attorney leading the investigation, said the connection between the Hezbollah attack and the Tri-border is unquestionable. Among other things, he said, the suicide bomber passed through the area to receive instructions.
In the intervening years, Hezbollah has spread throughout Latin America.
On their Web page, local Hezbollah militants in Venezuela call their fight against the United States a “holy war” and post photographs of would-be suicide terrorists with masks and bombs. There are also Web sites for Hezbollah in Chile, El Salvador, Argentina and most other Latin American countries.
“The Paraguayan justice [ministry] and the national police have found propaganda materials for Hezbollah” across the hemisphere, said Augusto Anibal Lima of Paraguay’s Tri-border Police.
And it is not only propaganda. In October, homemade bombs were left in front of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, which is next to a school.
Police arrested a student carrying Hezbollah propaganda in Spanish. One of the pamphlets showed a picture of children and said, “Combat is our highest expression of love and the only way to offer a healthy and uncorrupted world.”
Caracas police were able to detonate the bombs safely. Police Commissioner Wilfredo Borras said they appeared to be “explosive devices made to make noise and publicity” — very different from what would be used if the United States attacked Iran.
“In [the] United States, there are many Arabs — in Canada, too,” said Meri, the Hezbollah member who spoke with Telemundo. “If one bomb [strikes] Iran, one bomb, [Bush] will see the world burning.
“… If an order arrives, all the Arabs that are here, in other parts in the world, all will go to take bombs, bombs for everybody if he bombs Iran.”
Pablo Gato is a correspondent for Telemundo. Robert Windrem is an investigative producer for NBC News.
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No surprise there. Roughly half this country (and the rest of the world, minus our few allies) learned nothing over the past few years of fighting terrorism…other than to turtle themselves up and suck on their thumbs, pretending the world is full of sunshine, rainbows and lollipops.
I just hope and pray that when the day when push comes to shove comes along, less innocent people will die.
Seriously, if it wasn’t for that informant, some of our soldiers/sailors would have been murdered. I can (horrifically) imagine what else is in the works.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:36 amAs much as it is true and I believe we have to be careful and better control the borders, this is nothing more than the typical arab bravado, when crunch time comes, they are a bunch of cowards, remember the words of Moshe Dayan in 1967 (I believe) when he was asked how the israelis managed to defeat 3 different armies at the same time, his answer “we were fighting arabs!”, the famous arab street is full of it, if I had a peny everytime I heard an arab bullshitting i would be as rich as Trump…
May 9th, 2007 at 9:46 am@Rst:
As an army? Yeah, they’re a bunch of fucking wusses. They could never take ours on.
But just 19 managed to murder thousands in an act of terrorism. That’s where they’re dangerous and must never be underestimated.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:04 amLook at the Ft. Dix johnny jihadis — 3 or 4 of them illegal, crossed over at the TX-Mexico border? I don’t know and I can’t fathom WHY in the name of GOD we have not closed our borders and armed it to the teeth. The US government’s strange refusal to shut our borders down is beyond my ability to understand it.
The pictures I’ve seen of some of the trash the illegals leave behind is verrrry telling — why would someone crossing the river to pick peppers in New Mexico want to carry a picture of a mosque or the koran with them? Yet this is some of the garbage that is found in the ‘rest stops’ along the way. The evidence is in plain sight, yet our borders are still open — WHY?
As to the Arab rhetoric, I am bored with it and say to them “Bring it sheetheads”. Next time, we glass Mecca, so just keep going on with the bullshit.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:34 amIacobus:
What is amazing is how downplayed this whole thing is. People saying these guys were a bunch of idiots, ‘no direct ties to international terrorism’, ‘just wannabes’, etc.
What I’m saying on the street is “Ok, so if they’re not tied to AlQ, then they’re not as bad? They won’t be able to kill people? What?”
People that think Richard Reid is dumb only think that because he did not succeed. Same with the Ft. Dix 6.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:37 amTom Clancy wrote The Teeth Of The Tiger in 2003 and detailed how islamic animals were brought across the border from mexico using drug routes
Clancy unfortunately is an ally of Gen. Zinni whom I loath politically. Clancy has not published anything lately, is it that he has some of his ‘inside intel’ curtailed?
We simply are going to have to take some domestic hits in the war to exterminate them.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:06 amKathy Ozanne,
I like your style, “glass Mecca”, pretty good.
The reason the border stays open and nobody polices illegals is simply that the immigrants provide cheap labor. Period. The economy (at least in TX) is dependent on it. I do not really like it, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of illegals are hard working and do not cause trouble. I would not believe it if I had not seen it myself.
Life is a tradeoff, and we are trading security for cheap labor. Sucks, but true.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:21 amI miss Rummy and his colorful remarks… 3rd day of boot and he is thinking, I can’t wait till this shit is over with.. lol.. No computer to vent his frustrations, etc.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:41 amReno, you’re absolutely right about that. The majority of illegals are just as you say. But it seems that the minority are much more ’spotlighted’ than the others.
Every night on our local (Phoenix) news, when we hear of a crime or a DUI hit and run, etc., hubby and I play this little game “Guess what the last name is?” And you know, it feels shitty to realize that our attitudes have come to that…..
Friend of a friend knows people who go back and forth over the border all the time. Says it’s a hoot when they get rounded up by Border Patrol and they point out other members of their crossing group who 1)do not speak Spanish 2)are wearing brand new clothes and caps. And they’re classified as OTM’s, other than Mexican.
“Hey, we just got blowed up in Phoenix, but I can still get a housekeeper for $10/day!” Sheesh.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:53 amSure, the pigs sneak across the border, but Clinton imported 20,000 Albanian Muslims in the late 90’s and quartered them at: Fort Dix. With no background checks or anything. Put them on a one year fast track to US citizenship. These guys are white, European looking, for the most part. One of them shot up a mall recently, got killed for his trouble, and was sent back to Kosovo for a heroes funeral.
And now we get these six Dix dickheads.
We have not even begun to see the end of this.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:57 amA few years ago I read a series of articles on newsmax.com Re: Castro’s Marxist influence in South and Central America. There WAS a map showing the spread of Communist/Socialist/Marxist growth in the region, and how it is making its way northward to the USA. (The map seems to be off the site’s archive list), but here is one of the articles on the subject, with links to other within the article(s).
Latin America in Crisis: Castro’s Power Grows
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/3/15/172232.shtml
Latin America in Crisis: The Final Dominoes Fall
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/3/18/173533.shtml
Anyhow, anyone recall the movie “Red Dawn”? Just change the players a little and see this is how the jihdaists would have to come into our country with a full scale invasion aided by the South American Marxist states and leaders. Chavez and Iraq’s prez (he whose name I refuse to speak) are already butt-buddies of the first order, not to mention Castro is in their pants too …
May 9th, 2007 at 1:16 pmI don’t think it would shock me to find out there were
May 9th, 2007 at 1:18 pmBlack ops operating down there.If I was one of them I
belive I would sleep with one eye open…
Greetings:
My apologies for not being as colorful as Rumsfeld47 but I will try…
…but remember, I might have high school students reading over my shoulder so…
I predict a series of attacks this summer. I also predict a series of dead terrorists because they will not attack major cities because they know which side of their bread is buttered. So they will attack someplace like Kennesaw, GA and get their gluteals handed to them in job lots…
I predict a Pearl Harbor. Now, where is it going to be…?
Keep your eyes and ears open, people. It’s going to be a bumpy night.
Tim Roesch
May 9th, 2007 at 1:20 pmCommand Private Major
0311-
do you think Rummy has puked yet?
May 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pmGreetings:
I am wondering if it is time to put together (assuming it isn’t ‘already’ together) an informal connection between Minute Men, border land owners and others to see if we can’t see this coming.
My guess is they’ll move material through big ports to hit it but people through rural areas.
What do you all think?
Tim Roesch
May 9th, 2007 at 1:45 pmCommand Private Major
America is growing weary of ghetto types. Catch my drift? It’s not my fault.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:51 pmMaybe I should change my name to AllahesunMaricon for those fuggin Muslims (Allah enta fadiq means Allah is a faggot for those who haven’t figured that out yet). Anybody want to take a quick trip down to Paraquay with me….first I need to sight in my rifle and pick up some CompB…. I like Kathy’s idea about glassing Mecca too though. When will these countries get smart with this shit and kill these mother fuckers!!!!!! Why is it that it takes some catastrophic event to change peoples opinions for a year or two but then they stick their fucking heads back in the fucking sand!!! If people don’t pull their Goddamn heads out of the sand the Muslims will cut their heads off so they can’t stick it anywhere. You know what is ironic? So many Christians are being taught to be peaceloving, beatnick, hippy, pussies while the Muslims are training their kids to be fucking psychopaths. It’s time that Christians got back to their roots. Lets get back to some of that good Old Testament Christianity where they wiped out entire villages and shit. It’s time to start teaching our kids to fire a rifle and a pistol, how to fire and maneuver, how to stalk and get sight alignment sight picture. We don’t have to teach them to hate people, just how to kill them when the right time comes - you know what I mean? When do we get to fight back and not get told that we’re racists or biggots? Hey I can be multicultural, any white muslims wanna die (you do know that Muslims come in all colors right)? If there are any cuacasian Muslims who want to do harm to the United States and hurt Americans please identify yourselfs immediatley by replying to this post.
AllahEntaFadiq (yes, your god is a faggot)
May 9th, 2007 at 5:14 pmSince Chavez and ahmedinijad are buddies who hate Bush, isnt it conceivable that terrorist training camps are also in venezuela? Islamic terrorists thrive in poor countries because government forces are easily bribed. they can thrive in developed socialist styled countries because liberals are sheep unwilling to ffend anyone but their political rivals, and they thrive in places like the US because we havent the courage to call Islam what it really is: a contrary ideology to democracy and a threat. It escapes our condemnation under the veil of religion which affords it protection. But because of its expressed ideological dimension(muhammed was a statesmen as well as prophet you will hear from every muslim) it is in direct opposition to democracy and the establishment clause of our constitution.
As such Islam should be banned or better yet, labeled a political organization alone and monitored, memebers being regularly deported or imprisoned for subversive speech and acts against our citizens and government!
Marshall law against Islam
May 9th, 2007 at 5:16 pmNone of this is going to end in the forseeable future. The sad thing is that it appears much of America has no concept of how fanatical these people really are. I saw it in Al Anbar, and it won’t change, regardless of the geographic location of the fanatic. Paraguay, New Jersey, wherever. We’ll just go on worrying about who we might offend with security measures until our extremist buddies jam another good one up our backsides. Then Congress will point fingers and play the blame game. Again.
Iacobus - have to agree that much of the rest of the world is going (or already is) fetal on us. Hope they all wake up soon.
May 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pmGood work Pat posting this. But I posted almost the same thing over a year ago and got nothing but ho hums and “they don’t have a chance” type response.
Of course we won’t know for sure how it will work out until it happens, but our borders are still open and it looks like they will continue to be open. We are even building a highway from Mexico to Canada right through the heartland of this Republic for anyone who wants to use it.
It is going to be a race to see who will control our Republic, the Islamics or the Hispanics.
Papa Ray
May 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pmWest Texas
USA
0311@ “I miss Rummy and his colorful remarks… 3rd day of boot and he is thinking, I can’t wait till this shit is over with.. lol.. No computer to vent his frustrations, etc.”
How many time ya figure he’s been slammed up against the bulkhead? LOL
May 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pmdrillanwr - Red Dawn came to my mind recently, too.
These guys should feel the same intense fear that they inflict on others.
What’s the achilles heel?
May 9th, 2007 at 8:36 pmtom tancreedo (co-founder of the minutemen project) came and spoke at my college (msu) a month ago. You should see how some of the protestors responded to this…I have video, which hopefully will be in pats hands very soon (as soon as i get it back from the police as it is being used to prosecute two felony charges). The leftists are violently against any sort of security on the border because of “racism” and “murder” that the minute men commit. How are we supposed to keep these extremists out if we dont at least put our military there? The politicians have to be written too, otherwise they will adopt a “moderate” stance and allow basically anyone to cross. a new 9/11 is not far off if this shit continues mark my words.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:59 pmsnarfybobo,
the way to fight this is for private citizens to volunteer their time on the borders. organize and get bodies out there. when you catch illegals, use you legal guns to convince them to turn around! I am dead serious. Citizens need to do the work that PC politicians refuse to do.
May 10th, 2007 at 5:42 amTim:
“I am wondering if it is time to put together (assuming it isn’t ‘already’ together) an informal connection between Minute Men, border land owners and others to see if we can’t see this coming.”
I’m not sure but that may have already been tried. Again, I’m not sure. But dear God, what some of those border land owners are going thru is un freaking believable. Multi-generation family ranches that wake up every day to property damage, livestock theft or slaughter, finding dead bodies in the fields, etc. Gotten so bad for some of these folks that they no longer leave anyone home alone, especially their women. Reports of ’strangers’ knocking on the doors, looking thru the windows, etc. Stories of ranching families getting together for a meal, but doing it in shifts because you can’t leave your property unguarded.
I don’t know what the Minutemen are up to, but that’s easy enough to find out. I’m assuming there would have to be some kind of ‘orientation’ relative to what to look for, etc. I know I’d need the info.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:00 amEyes forward on Chevez. Heavily Catholic South America will be crushed town by town and they will flee to our borders for safety. Priest and nuns and the thousands of Christian missionerys helping the poor will be murdered and an attempt to crush Christianity will be vicious. Holy war? Oh yeah! Who’s minding the gate? Anyone not believe we are looking at a fifty year or more war? Seems our present administration gets it; I get it, folks on internet forums like this one get it,this countries citizens better get it.
May 10th, 2007 at 3:36 pmI wanna know how building a fence on our southern border can possibly be construed as “racist?” We hear it from Mexico, some traitor politicians and the MSM here all the time, yet no one kicks about it. Race has nothing to do with border control: I am sure we could find examples of all different races in the holding cells where we SHOULD be holding the gravy sucking dogs prior to deportation.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:47 pmWe all know commies suck,but at least the old-school Sovs KNEW who was entering and who was leaving their country. Whole divisions of KGB Border Guards controlled those borders with an iron fist. With all the money this country has, surely we can field a couple of battallions for the same purpose, maybe give the poor guys/gals something bigger than a freakin’ Glock to defend our borders with.