Hezbollah’s presence in Donald Trump’s backyard

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2018/05/16/ANALYSIS-Hezbollah-s-presence-in-Donald-Trump-s-backyard.html

By Tony Duheaume Special to Al Arabiya EnglishWednesday, 16 May 2018 Text size A A A

Now that Donald Trump has pulled America out of the Iran deal, he must remember that close to home, he is being faced across the Mexican border by Hezbollah, one of the deadliest non-state adversaries to threaten the US in recent times, a terror group that is a solid proxy of the Iranian regime.
With Hezbollah aligned to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds Force, which is used to carry out the former’s foreign terror operations, all three share the same radical ideology, as well as the same goals in Mexico and South America, which is to use their links to the area to make vast sums of money through the drugs trade.



Being involved in the area, enables these groups to fund their various nefarious military projects, in an ongoing quest to export Iranian revolutionary ideology across the globe, and setting up home in Mexico, also gives them a back door to the US, their biggest enemy.

With Hezbollah now well-established in Mexico, it has aligned itself to the ultra-violent Los Zetas drugs cartel, the most sophisticated and second most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, with whom it has developed a strong working relationship, through the illegal drugs industry.

Hezbollah cadres stepped in to train drug cartel “street soldiers” in the construction of sophisticated explosive devices, urban warfare, ambushing techniques, sniping, and the creation of sophisticated tunnels for which to enter the US, of the type it had perfected in Gaza, and along the Lebanon-Israel border to thwart Israeli patrols.

Through its smuggling programs to outwit the Israeli army back in Lebanon, Hezbollah has developed a great expertise in evading border patrols, which it shares with the Los Zetas, giving the Mexican crime group a massive edge on law enforcement officers.

With the Mexican border running adjacent to the US, plus the fact that Hezbollah was already heavily involved in the South American drug trade, it was inevitable that the terror group would eventually become involved with the kingpins of the Mexican cartels.

With Donald Trump pulling out of the Iran deal, it is certain to leave the Iranian regime billions of dollars poorer, especially as new sanctions kick in. (AP)

Los Zetas of Mexico
Since Hezbollah arrived on the scene, the Lebanese terror group has become very useful to the Los Zetas, as at the time, the narco-gangsters were seeking inventive ways with which to smuggle their product into the US, as well as being on the lookout for mercenaries to train them in the art of urban warfare.

Where Hezbollah’s involvement in Mexico is concerned, it gives it a firm base in a country that spans four US states, and six of its own, containing forty-five Mexico/US crossings, with 330 ports of entry, along a border that is close to 2,000 miles long.

With two scrub-filled deserts, the Sonoran and the Chihuahuan straddling both countries, plus two rivers, the Colorado and the Rio Bravo, the area is criss-crossed with smuggling routes, allowing the Lebanese terror group the perfect opportunity for numerous entry points, along a border that is impossible to police.

Then by using the two main north-south routes up through the US, the Interstate-35 corridor and Highway 59, it allows Hezbollah access to a vast number of towns and cities, with which to setup and supply its sleeper networks. Many of these sleeper cells have laid dormant for years, but should the US decide to carry out aggressive acts against Iran, these sleeper cells can be activated at any time, causing mayhem across America.

With Hezbollah known to have indoctrinated a vast number of local Lebanese communities, they have built up a vast pool of human labor to aid them in their nefarious activities. With the group known to have over 100 sleeper cells throughout Latin America alone, a large contingent of its converts have settled in Mexico to become cartel foot-soldiers.

Often under the guise of missionaries, Hezbollah operatives that are well-experienced in the art of indoctrination, have been diligently at work radicalizing moderate Muslims, in an effort to bring about the Quds Force dream of carrying out a spectacular attack on US soil, which makes the threat from Hezbollah ever more severe.

Through creating such a large community of followers in the area, the Iranian regime has gained a strategic advantage against its main Western enemy, coming in the form of setting up Hezbollah operations close to the US border, with the ability to supply its sleepers on American soil with weapons and various other logistical support.

Having succeeded in doing so, through many years of negotiating with Mexican drugs gangs that operate close to the border, and through building a strong alliance with drug cartels throughout Latin America, Hezbollah has been given the opportunity to strike at the heart of its arch enemy.

Ungoverned region
As far as Hezbollah is concerned, not only has it had a presence in Latin America since the mid-1980s, but much of its activities are confined to areas where local law enforcement agencies are powerless to counter their infiltration, including a swathe of land known as the Tri-Border area, where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet.

In this ungoverned region, where bribing government officials and law officers is the norm, with their power superseding local government, through the wielding of vast amounts of illicit drugs cash, numerous terrorist and narco gangs coexist, using the area as a base for their operations.

So, with the myriad of smuggling routes Hezbollah has opened across South America, plus its strategic alliance with the Mexican mafia, and its numerous sleeper cells set up across the US. Iran’s proxy group now has the ability to smuggle anything across the Mexican border, including drugs, weapons, and if deemed necessary, chemical agents or biological weapons, which have the potential to create mass death tolls in major US cities.

But what has always endeared Iran to certain Latin American countries, is the fact that they share the same anti-US sentiment and policies, and like Iran, want to put an end to American expansion wherever it may appear, using whatever means they have at their disposal.

For years now, evidence has been mounting on how deeply involved Hezbollah is in drug trafficking in Latin America. With Iran having 11 embassies across the area, it has made it much easier for Hezbollah to operate there, as with Hezbollah’s activities being closely involved with Iran’s IRGC Quds Force, all of Hezbollah’s Lebanon-based agents operating there, are aided by a myriad of Iran’s secret service agents, who operate from within Iranian embassies under the guise of diplomats.

Illegal drug trafficking doesn’t just make millionaires out of narco gangsters, it also finances terror groups, and from intelligence gleaned by the CIA, it has been established that through a Colombian-based network, part of the money to finance the attack on New York’s World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, came from drug-related activity.

At the present time South America is very important to Hezbollah. With Iran having felt the pinch from international sanctions for many years, it had cut down the terror group’s funding, which had been helping to train and direct its terror operations, and which had only resumed again after the group had obtained vast amounts of cash, from the billions returned to the Iranian regime for “complying” to the Iran deal.

‘Multi-million-dollar crime empire’
So, with Donald Trump pulling out of the Iran deal, it is certain to leave the Iranian regime billions of dollars poorer, especially as new sanctions kick in. Hezbollah has always been prepared for this, in the setting up of its multi-million-dollar crime empire, and knowing, how in the future, it might not be able to rely on its Iranian paymasters, the need to become more self-sufficient will become even greater.

With this being the case, it makes the Mexican mafia crucial allies, as dealing in drugs can bring in multi-millions for Hezbollah, plus they get the chance of arming the enemies of the US within its borders, and at the same time, are given the opportunity to build up bases from which to strike the Americans on their home ground.

As early as 2003, the then CIA director George Tenet had testified before Congress, stating that 12 Hezbollah cells had been identified operating in the US, and were conducting surveillance operations.

If you add this to 2011 Congressional Research report, reporting that Hezbollah cells were known to be present in 15 US cities, including Huston and Nashville, with Hezbollah having become even more entrenched since that time, how many more cities now contain active cells ready to strike?