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Hizbullah training for attacks on US - Telemundo

Florida-based TV network says terror group training suicide bombers in secluded South American region, brainwashing locals against Israel, US; Paraguay: Mossad, FBI agents operating to thwart plan


Hizbullah has set up a training facility in South America as part of its plan to launch terror attacks against the United States, the American Spanish-language Telemundo television network reported.

 
According to the report, the terror group is operating in a relatively secluded area on the Paraguay-Argentina-Brazil border, where it is collecting funds, brainwashing locals against the US and Israel and training the next generation of suicide bombers.

 
The activity is being conducted in forests near the city of Ciudad Del Este in Paraguay, which has a large Muslim population.

 
Washington fears that Hizbullah members are planning to infiltrate the US through its breached southern border with Mexico to carry out attacks.

 
It is suspected that Imad Mugniyah, the terror group’s elusive mastermind, is running the South America operation.

 
Paraguayan officials said Mossad and FBI agents are operating in the area to collect intelligence on Hizbullah’s intentions.

Hezbollah builds a Western base
From inside South America’s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S.

The Iranian-backed 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.”

Straight 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.

They come up through Mexico, to Arizona they will have a big suprise.  As most all in Arizona do have firearms, and know how to use them.

They will probably keep there heads very low through there. Their targets will probably be the bigger economic and Military areas.

I really think they will have a surprise waiting in just about every block of America. I hate to think about having to live that way, but I will defend my family and country. I'm sad to say that we probably will live like the people of Israel one day and lose the peace that has been dearly paid for by generations of brave men and women. It won't be the fault of our outstanding Armed Forces, rather wimpy politicians, liberals, and groups like the ACLU.

I agree. It is easy to see that it is coming.

How true!  Realizing the tremendous threat, our government still refuses to secure our borders.