>...Larry C. Johnson at No Quarter spells out the shock that may be in store:
"During the next two weeks we are likely to see combat in southern Lebanon intensify. Most of the action will be on the ground rather than in the air. Both sides will suffer significant casualties. If the United States is perceived (emphasis on perceived) as encouraging or directing the Israeli response [we're already beyond that point, given the NY Times front page story this morning about the US rushing precision-guided bombs to Israel], the odds increase that Hezbollah will ratchet things up another notch by playing the terrorist card.
"We should not confuse Hezbollah with Al Qaeda. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international network. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international political and financial network. They have personnel and supporters scattered in countries around the world who have the training and resources to mount attacks. Hezbollah has no qualms about using terrorist attacks as part of a broader strategy to achieve its objectives. The last major Hezbollah attack against the United States was the June 1996 attack on the U.S. military apartment complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah also organized the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994.
But they also have exercised restraint when they felt they could achieve their objectives through political means. The ten year hiatus in major mass casualty attacks could come to a shattering end in the coming months, and American citizens are likely to pay some of that price with their own blood."
http://www.mail-archive.com/osint@yahoogroups.com/msg26348.html http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/4143586.html Aug. 26, 2006, 10:36PM South American scams funding Hezbollah?
>...There is a vast literature assessing the criminal activity in the triborder area. Because of space constraints, I can mention only a few examples. The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, for example, issued a report in July 2003, "Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Triborder Area of South America." The report includes more than 300 citations, many of them to accounts originating from Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The report characterizes the triborder area as "a haven for fund raising, recruiting, plotting terrorist attacks, and other such activities," noting the nexus between terrorist groups and organized criminal groups.
In an interview published in The New York Times on October 10, 2003, the U.S. Treasury general counsel to Brazil referred to a "rich marriage of drugs and terror" in the triborder region. In a testimony before Congress in December 2001, moreover, Larry Johnson, a former CIA official, referred to "networks of people affiliated with radical groups such as Hezbollah, some Hamas ties, and people with sympathies toward al Qaeda." Brazilian officials are also frequently cited as referring to the presence of many terrorist groups in the region, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda.