ARE TERRORISTS ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER?

A couple weeks ago I made a statement that Hezbollah or Hamas was on our border with Mexico. My MOST FREQUENT commenter (the certificate of achievement and the secret decoder ring are in the mail), Salvage, essentially said that I was full of crap. While that may be true, I stand by my assertion that we have Middle Eastern terrorist organizations on our border and throughout Central and South America, too.

Below I've posted just a few excerpts from articles and even one scholarly document to prove my point.

Now, I think that one could logically ask what the intentions of these groups are? Are they setting up an eventual attack on the United States and Canada? Or, are they just running organized crime operations that would make the Mafia proud, looking to fatten their wallets to finance global terrorism? Personally, I think it's both.

Iran's connection to Venezuela and their shared hatred of the U.S. is well documented and very much out in the open. Iran's ties to Hezbollah/ Hamas are documented as well.

Again, I think there is very little question as to the presence of Islamic terrorists on our border and in Central and South America. The only real question is their intent. Whatever their final objective I know it'll be bad for us.

From Adam Housley of Fox News:

"“Hezbollah are absolute masters at identifying existing smuggling infrastructures,” says former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun, adding that the group “is developing relations with those responsible for operating those smuggling operations and then forming close relations with them, so that they can move anything they have an interest into virtually anywhere in the world.” That comment comes from former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun. He goes on to tell me that the Middle East terror group is “rubbing shoulders” with drug cartels around the globe.

My military and Department of Homeland Security contacts are insistent…it’s not if Hezbollah operatives have been smuggled into the U.S….but how many? They note that drug tunnels are becoming much more sophisticated and striking similar as tunnels being used by terror organizations to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip. My contacts also say they have real concern that bombing techniques used in the Middle East to promote terror are now also being used inside Mexico, as the cartels war with each other and anyone in their way."

From Rep. Sue Myrick in the Washington Times:

"An indictment was handed down Aug. 30 by the Southern District Court of New York that shows a connection between Hezbollah - the proxy army of Iran and a designated terrorist organization - and the drug cartels that violently plague the U.S.-Mexico border.

In short, a well-known international arms dealer was trying to orchestrate an arms-for-drugs deal in which cocaine from FARC - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which works with Mexican drug cartels to take cocaine into America - would be traded for thousands of weapons housed by a Hezbollah operative in Mexico.

This most recent case brings up several questions: Why would a member of Hezbollah be in Mexico? Why would Hezbollah need thousands of weapons in Mexico? Why are members of Hezbollah willing to work with FARC? Perhaps to exchange weapons for drugs? If Hezbollah has guns in Mexico and wants drugs, isn’t it logical to assume that it is trading with more accessible Mexican drug cartels?"

From the Washington Times:

"Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.

Hezbollah relies on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels,” said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“They work together,” said Mr. Braun. “They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.

“They’ll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling].”

His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.

While Hezbollah appears to view the U.S. primarily as a source of cash - and there have been no confirmed Hezbollah attacks within the U.S. - the group’s growing ties with Mexican drug cartels are particularly worrisome at a time when a war against and among Mexican narco-traffickers has killed 7,000 people in the past year and is destabilizing Mexico along the U.S. border."

From MSNBC (hardly a bastion of conservative sentiment):

"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."

From The Foreign Military Studies Office:

"Hugo Chavez’ strategy of embracing Iran in its quest to build an “anti-imperialist” and
anti-American coalition of nations has undoubtedly gained strength in recent years. Beyond the close ties between Venezuela and Iran due to the two countries’ shared anti-American priorities, there are also many similarities between the basic ideologies of Chavez’ Bolivarian revolution and Iranian revolutionary thought. The Lebanese group Hezbollah shares many of Iran’s priorities and principles, and it receives a sizeable amount of financial support from the Islamic Republic.

Although its armed activities are focused primarily within its traditional area of operations in the Middle East, Hezbollah has been implicated in terrorist activities around the globe. These activities range from financing and training to outright attacks and cooperation with criminal
elements. The recent establishment of direct airline flights between Caracas and Tehran, as well as the eagerness of both regimes to embrace the other, does not bode well for anti-terror prospects in Latin America, given the close collaboration of Iranian and Hezbollah operatives in the past. Hezbollah members and sympathizers have gained the ability to move with relative ease outside the Middle East to Latin America and such movements already appear to be taking place. This points to a particularly worrisome possibility: that Hezbollah will move beyond financing and support in Latin America to pursue operational objectives within the Western Hemisphere.

...Iran’s close ties to Hezbollah and its deepening embrace of Chavez’ regime should put the
United States on alert to the security of both friendly Latin American governments and its own
southern border. Groups like Hezbollah now possess the ability to use Venezuela as an entry
point to the Americas, to obtain official Venezuelan documentation, and to utilize well-known
smuggling networks in cooperation with established violent drug cartels.


Hugo Chavez identifies with what he considers to be Hezbollah’s successful model of resistance to imperialism, and it appears he seeks to emulate elements of that success within his
sphere of influence. His demonstrated support for anti-American groups like FARC and his
consistent harsh rhetoric against neighboring Columbia must be viewed as an indication of his
willingness to embrace other radical elements sharing a common anti-American agenda. By
allowing Iranian and Hezbollah operatives ease of access to the Americas through Venezuela,
Chavez runs a substantial risk to the stability of his regime. If and when Hezbollah or Iran seek to exploit their ability to function in Venezuela by pursing specific operational goals, the probability of future confrontation with the United States will most certainly increase, thus inviting the only scenario in which Chavez is nearly guaranteed to lose."