Hezbollah

Flag of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah (حزب الله, "Party of Allah"; sometimes spelled Hizbullah, Hezbullah, or Hezballah) is a Shi'a Islamic terrorist organization based in Lebanon. Founded in 1982, its primary goal is the elimination of the state of Israel. Its current Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly stated: "if Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." In 2004, the organization's privately controlled TV broadcast station Al-Manar was banned in France for inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial.

Overview

Funded and armed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the group's first major terrorist attacks were the April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in which 63 people were killed and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American military personnel were killed. While Iran is still the major source of their funding, they also receive financial backing from South America and U.S. law enforcement officials estimate that smugglers of illegal cigarettes in the United States provide millions of dollars to the group.

Armed with rockets with ranges varying from 13 to 100 kilometers, the group subjects Israel to constant cross-border bombardment; this led to the 2006 Lebanon War. Hezbollah claims that its attacks are aimed at military bases inside Israel, but most of the attacks are actually directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools and private homes.

In addition to their military operations, Hezbollah is a Lebanese political party. They hold 14 of the 128 seats in Lebanon's Parliament and 11 of 30 seats in the nation's cabinet.

Funding

Dirty Money, Blood Money

Criminal funding

The Lebanese Shiite Terrorist Organization has been highlighted as a profile in "Crime and Terrorism" - Hezbollah's Criminal activity is widely in Lebanon and worldwide , or what researches call: "various criminal enterprises to raise funds for Hezbollah." Among the illegal, criminal methods of the Islamic group is wide fraud, drug trafficking, credit card fraud & cigarette smuggling, it has been known that "Cigarette Smuggling Funds Terrorism." In a 2009 report on "Hezbollah: narco-Islamism Middle East Strategy at Harvard" researchers have found that: 'more than any other Islamist group, Hezbollah has a long record of engaging in criminal activity to support its activities.'

South America

The 'Hezbollah's global finance network' includes "The Triple Frontier" (in South America) - "Argentina, Brasil & Paraguay." ,

There's an extensive report on "Hezbollah and the Drug Trade in South America" - Hezbollah is active in the drug trade in Colombia, a web of criminality that extends from Lebanon to Africa to South America.

U.S.

The Washington Times had an editorial (2005) on 'Hezbollah in America,' a 41-year-old businessman, was arrested at his Dearborn home on charges of smuggling funds to Hezbollah. In 2009, a grand jury in Philadelphia indicted four men in connection with a plot to support Hezbollah through schemes like buying machine guns.

Europe

There's a serious "Hezbollah's Terrorist Threat to the European Union" writes The Heritage (2007) . From a report on "Hezbollah Around the World" - Arabs, Muslims in Germany have been key fund raising center for Hezbollah. through crimes of: drug trafficking, weapons and people smuggling, document and currency fraud. From a May 2010 report: 'Hezbollah funded by drug trade in Europe,' German police arrested Lebanese men who transferred millions of Euros to family connected to Hezbollah.

U.S. Mexican border

Hezbollah is also accused of using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins use, that Hezbollah members have entered the U.S. border through drug cartel. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote an article on ‎Apr 10, 2009, "The Hezbollah threat: It's here, now."

Blood diamonds

The Associated Press reported on "Blood diamonds fund Hezbollah" (2004): that Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla movement is systematically siphoning profits from West Africa's multimillion-dollar diamond trade, in part by threatening the Lebanese merchants who long have handled much of the region's diamond business, US diplomats in West Africa charge.

The pervasive claim is wider --on organised and co-ercive Hezbollah profiteering from West Africa's diamond trade-- than most US officials have previously acknowledged.

"One thing that's incontrovertible is the financing of Hezbollah. It's not even an open secret; there is no secret," Larry Andre, deputy chief of mission for the US Embassy in diamond-rich Sierra Leone, told The Associated Press.

T. Schure wrote in "Blood Diamonds: Still Bloody" (May 14, 2010) that West Africa is a well known transit center for smuggled diamonds, especially for Lebanese traders, with many sales funding criminal and terrorist groups including Hezbollah.

Douglas Farah in the Washington Post: "Digging Up Congo's Dirty Gems; Officials Say Diamond Trade Funds Radical Islamic Groups", that diamond dealers and intelligence sources said Hezbollah and other groups buy diamonds in. Congo -- sometimes through middlemen, sometimes directly.

European and American intelligence sources have long known that Hezbollah has raised significant amounts of money in West Africa through the largely Shiite Muslim Lebanese communities in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo. There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese in West Africa, mostly involved in import-export businesses.

"Hezbollah is active in all these countries and are deeply involved in many businesses across the region," said one European official tracking the movement. "It is only a small part of the Lebanese community that is sympathetic, but many people contribute to them just to keep Hezbollah off their backs."

For at least since the early 1980s, Hezbollah had also raised some cash through the sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, intelligence sources said. Bah, they said, was long suspected of brokering diamond deals through buyers connected to Hezbollah, assisted by sympathetic Lebanese businessmen across the region.

Character, racism, fascism

A writer in the Christian Science Monitor explains that "Hizbullah's real goal is racist: To free the Middle East holy lands of Jews... Hizbullah's goal is not the "liberation" of Palestine. Its members are not Palestinian. They are (Arab) Islamic extremists who want to "liberate" all Islamic land."

Its Al-Manar television is infamous for being racist, several European countries, including France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Australia, have also taken measures to block Al-Manar. In March 2005, the broadcasting regulators in the European Union agreed to ban satellite broadcasting of Al-Manar on the basis that the channel carried racist material and incitement. As a result, several satellite service providers, most of them European, dropped Al-Manar, making it unavailable in North and South America, Asia and Australia. Al-Manar, is, however, still available in Europe through Arab satellite companies and its Web site offers English, French and Spanish translations of its material.

On its TV, Jews are termed pigs and monkeys (stemming from radical Islamic teaching of "apes & pigs" - branding Christians as pigs, Jews as apes [16][17][18][19][20][21]) and the Holocaust is denied. Participants in a network-sponsored symposium urge that Israel "be completely wiped out" and "just like Hitler fought the Jews" the "great Islamic nation of Jihad" should "fight the Jews and burn them."

It has been written in an article titled "Hezbollah's Nazi roots" that "Hezbollah's Nazi salute evokes memories of Hitler's support for Arab agitators such as the Grand Mufti (al-Husayni) of Jerusalem and the leaders of a pro-Nazi coup."

From the book, 'Planting hatred, sowing pain: the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict':

Palestinians are constantly exposed to cultural products that expouse classical anti-Semitic ideas. Fir example, a television series produced by Hezbollah, the south Lebanon Shiite militia group, titled Al-Shatat. This series is focused oin the old middle-ages myth of the blood libel (in which Jews --supposedly-- need the blood of Christian children for the Passover matzoth).

Related, from an ADL speech:

In recent years, Jews were killed because they were Jews, something we have not witnessed since World War II, at the hands of jihadists. There was the Buenos Aires bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish center; there was the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan; there was the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi in Paris; and there was the attack on the Seattle Jewish Federation. Hamas and Hezbollah do not want to kill for land, but to eliminate Jews and a Jewish presence.

Nasrallah & the Jews

Within a month of Nasrallah's taking over as leader, Hezbollah (with the help of Iranian intelligence) bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring over 200. The next attack perpetrated by Hezbollah—again with Iranian help—was the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 86 and injuring over 200.

The widening arena of Hezbollah's attacks stemmed from Nasrallah's perception that Jews anywhere are legitimate targets. In fact, Nasarallah has said:

If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

Shiite scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb analyzed the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology in her book Hezbollah: Politics & Religion. In it, she quotes Hassan Nasrallah describing his antipathy toward Jews:

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. (New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2002)

Nasrallah also incoroporates anti-Semitic rhetoric in speeches. For example, he has characterized Jews as the "grandsons of apes and pigs" and "Allah's most cowardly and greedy creatures." (MEMRI: Al- Manar, Feb. 3, 2006)

In 1998, Ashura commemorations of Hessein's martyrdom coincided with Israel's fiftieth anniversary. Nasrallah used the occasion to lambaste Israelis as "the descendants of apes and pigs. "A few million vagabonds from all over the world, brought together..."

Iran's arm: "Big Satan, Little Satan" & martyrdom philosophy

Israel and the United States as Portrayed in the Doctrine of Hezbollah:

1) Hatred of Israel (“that vile microbe”) and the Jewish people, --As an arm of Iran it regards, and it seeks to-- Eradicating the 'Little Satan.' 2) Hatred of the United States (“the big Satan”)

Death cult & suicide missions

The doctrine of Hezbollah: Suicide attacks (“the shortest road to Allah”) are of supreme value.

In May 2006, Nasrallah appeared on the network to explain that "our nation's willingness to sacrifice their blood, souls, children, fathers, and families" is an advantage over the Jews "who guard their lives."

To attack the multinational forces, Hezbolah invented a terrible new weapon--the suicide truck bomb. The group loaded several hundred pounds of explosives into a truck. A member of the group--someone prepared to sacrifice his or her life--would drive the truck in front of an embassy or into a military base. The driver then set off the explosives with a control switch in the truck's cab. The detonation would instantly destroy the driver, the truck, and any buildings or people standing within several hundred feet. Sheikh Fadlallah and Hezbollah never took credit for these attacks. As a Shi'ite cleric, Fadlallah knew that Islam would get tarnished by terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians. Fadlallah also claimed to be running the Hezbollah as a political, not a military organization. However, as Many Islamic nation have declared jihads against enemies. For this reason, an organization calling itself the "Islamic Jihad" publicly claimed responsibility for terrorists acts in Lebanon. For several years, the United States and other governments tried to find out who was running the Islamic Jihad. In fact, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad were one and the same.

Regional plans

Amongst its stated objectives is the establishment of a Shiite theocracy in Lebanon. Hezbollah's goal is the establishment of an Islamic state encompassing Lebanon and Israel. Many in the Lebanese Christian diaspora, beyond the reach of Hezbollah intimidation, speak out forcefully against turning Lebanon into a Shia theocracy emulating Iran.

Global Plans

The Associated Press reported in May, 2010, that a Muslim cleric calls for 'Greater Iran' - Shi'ite Islamic union would stretch from Afghanistan to Israel. Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi said the creation of what he termed an "Islamic United States" is a central aim of the political party he leads - called Hizbullah, or Party of God. He added that he hoped to make his vision a reality if the party won the next presidential election. "The Islamic United States will be an introduction to the formation of the global village of the oppressed and that will be a prelude to the single global rule of the Mahdi," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Violence, Bloodshed

Their known spreading of violence & bloodshed includes:

Regional: Lebanon, Israel

Kidnappings, torture

Hezbollah's founding quickly resulted in a spate of kidnappings, torture. Among the notorious victims were: William Francis Buckley, Terry Anderson, William Richard Higgins.

In March, 1984, Hezbollah operatives kidnapped William Francis Buckley, the CIA's station chief in Lebanon. He was whisked to Damascus and on to Tehran, where, after 15 months of torture, he succumbed to a heart attack.

Feb. 17, 1988: The group kidnaps Col. William Higgins, a U.S. Marine serving with a United Nations truce monitoring group in Lebanon, and later murders him.

The United States asserts that top Hezbollah military commander who was one of America's most wanted men, accused of involvement in a string of bombings, hijackings and kidnappings during the 1980s and 1990s, Imad Mughniyeh, was also behind the torture and murder of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984; the kidnapping, torture and murder of Lieutenant Colonel William Richard Higgins of the Marines, who was on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon in 1988; and, through the Islamic Jihad Organization, the seizure of Western hostages in Beirut during the 1980s.

From a legal claim against Iran:

In the instant case the evidence once again discloses that Iran provided Hezbollah with funding, direction and training for its terrorist activities in Lebanon, including the kidnapping and torture of Terry Anderson hezbollah kidnapping torture and his imprisonment as a hostage for 2,454 days.

Dec. 31, 1986: Under the alias Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, Hezbollah announces it had kidnapped and murdered three Lebanese Jews. The organization previously had taken responsibility for killing four other Jews since 1984.

The 1985 Hezbollah torture-murder of Isaac Tarab, 63, and Chaim Halala Cohen, 39, the 1986 Hezbollah's torturing to death of Ibrahim Benesti, aged 54, of Beirut, and his elderly relatives, Yehudah and Yosef, Benesti's family – like many Lebanese Jews – had been in Lebanon since 2,000 B.C. (before the birth of Mohammed), [described as a charitable and kindly candy store owner who gave free candy to children of all religions]. All these crimes were motivated for no other reason than for the victims simply being Jewish. See: Character, racism, fascism.

The Time had a detailed piece by William Dowell in May 23, 1988 titled: "Three Years in the Belly of Beirut":

"They weren't human or inhuman. They were nonhuman." That was how French Journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann, quoting fellow hostage Michel Seurat, , described the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad terrorists who held him hostage for three years. The wrenching account of his kidnaping, captivity and release appeared last week in L'Evenement du Jeudi, the French newsmagazine Kauffmann worked for when he and French Researcher Seurat were abducted in May 1985.

The two men became hostages by chance after missing a Beirut airport bus and deciding to take a taxi. When a Mercedes pulled alongside and ordered them to stop, they expected a robbery. Instead they were forced into the back of the gunmen's car. What followed was three years of intimidation and psychological torture.
For more than a year, the hostages never saw daylight. Their only diversion was reading the handful of books provided by their jailers; Kauffmann read War and Peace more than 20 times. At one point, he and Seurat listened while their Shi'ite captors spent eight days torturing an Arab suspected of being a spy. When it was over, Kauffmann's jailer joked, "I damaged him a little. He had two broken ribs. We broke both his legs. Finally he talked, and we set him free." Freedom, Kauffmann learned, was a euphemism for death.
In one of the most bizarre episodes, Seurat was allowed a brief visit in August 1985 with his wife and daughters in Beirut, and then returned to the cell loaded down with sociology books. It was the last time he saw his family. A month later, he was deathly ill with hepatitis. A Lebanese Jewish doctor, Elie Hallat, who was also a hostage, pleaded in vain for Seurat's release. As his condition worsened, a Shi'ite commander volunteered a transfusion. "You are becoming a Shi'ite," joked a captor after Seurat was given blood. In fact, the researcher was dying. By then French Hostages Marcel Carton and Marcel Fontaine had been added to the group. "So I am going to die," Seurat told his friends.
In March 1986, the Islamic Jihad announced that it had "executed" Seurat. It seems likely, however, that he succumbed, at 39, to his disease. But the jailers told the hostages he was alive and recovering in a hospital. Kauffmann later learned from a radio newscast that Hallat, doomed by his captors' rabid anti-Semitism, had been executed. Kauffmann, Carton and Fontaine were continually moved from apartment to apartment. At one point Kauffmann was wrapped in bandages like a mummy, sealed in a metal box and bolted under the chassis of a truck. When he banged on the side, he was told he would be shot. "Kill me," he snapped back. "It doesn't make any difference."
At another point Kauffmann and Fontaine were tied together and placed in a coffin. When they were let out for a moment, Fontaine peered under his blindfold and saw that they were near a cement factory. "They're going to kill us here, put our bodies in cement and dump us in the sea," said Fontaine. Later Kauffmann and Fontaine were put in a new cell and chained like animals to a spike in the floor.

At a 2008 proisoner swap-deal, Israel was forced to make with Hezbollah, Bradley Burston wrote "The pleasure that Hezbollah takes in torture."

Few innocent people have been tortured like the loved ones of the people murdered by Samir Kuntar, the Palestine Liberation Front monster convicted of a crime so brutal that even the designation terrorist is too good for him.

This week, the loved ones will know that Kuntar will be feted to a hero's welcome staged by Hezbollah, whose claims to being a religious organization, stain the word religious with a level of sadism that is astonishing, reaching new levels with every gloat by the torture master who calls himself a spiritual leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

But that will be only one aspect of the glee with which Hezbollah will likely take explicit pride and claim exultant victory.

Not satisfied with keeping the families of kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in the dark for two years as to their fate, a Lebanese report which appears to have been leaked by Hezbollah two days before the prisoner swap, stated that one of the soldiers had survived the kidnapping attack, but that the other was surely dead.

Then, to torture the families further, the report refrained from revealing which of the two had been killed, or whether the other was still alive.

But for sheer gratuitous sadism, the case of Samir Kuntar has few rivals. Consider the survivors of Kuntar's acts of murder.

Consider Smadar Haran, a survivor of the 1979 attack led by Kuntar. Kuntar burst into Haran's apartment building in the dead of night, seizing Smadar Haran's husband Danny and their daughter Einat, 4 years old.

Desperate to save their two-year-old girl Yael, Smadar Haran huddled with her in a crawl space in the attic. "I will never forget the joy and the hatred in the voices [of Kuntar and his men] as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades," she later recalled in the Washington Post.

"I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed," she wrote in 2003. "So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. 'This is just like what happened to my mother,' I thought."

Smadar Haran's personal torture had only begun. She would later learn that Kuntar had dragged her husband Danny and older daughter to the beach nearby, where he shot Danny execution style, making sure that her father's death would be the last sight her little girl would ever see.

Kuntar then took the butt of his assault rifle and brought in down on Einat's head, crushing it against a rock.

Smadar Haran would later recall, "By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her."

Two weeks ago, in an act of heroism that is beyond imagination, Smadar Haran spoke publicly of coming to terms with the impending release of the monster who turned her life into a waking nightmare. "Samir Kuntar isn't, nor has he ever been, my private prisoner," she told a news conference. "His fate must be decided now according to Israel's needs and ethical interests." ...Kuntar... his elevation to the status of hero and martyr to the Palestinian struggle or the Lebanese resistance.

For Israelis, even after all these years, the release of Kuntar is a form of self-inflicted torture. So heinous, so unpardonable were his crimes, that American Jewish author and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, himself a veteran of the IDF, wrote on The Atlantic Monthly's Website... "As unbelievable as this sounds, Israel is actually thinking of swapping Samir Kuntar in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. Kuntar is perhaps the most terrible person held in an Israeli prison, a man who crushed the skull of a Jewish child against a rock."

Terror attack on US embassy

The attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on April 18, 1983 . The bombing was carried out via a stolen van, carrying 2000 pounds of explosives, slamming into the embassy, killing 63 people.

Terror attack on peacekeeping US marine

The attack on U.S. Marine Barracks in Oct. 1983. Hezbollah conducted simultaneous suicide truck bombings against the two buildings housing U.S. Marines and French paratroopers in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 58 French soldiers who were in Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping mission. A US federal judge found (in 2003) Iran liable for the 1983 bombing of a US marine barracks.

The Beirut mission started out as an effort to stabilize a fragile peace in a war-torn country. Lebanon had been in turmoil since the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been expelled from Jordan, took refuge there in the 1970s. In 1975, a panoply of Christian and Muslim militias, turned what had been a Middle East oasis into a no-man's land of urban warfare. The situation fell apart quickly. Islamic Militia leaders began to view the United States and its allies as favoring the Christian-led forces of the Lebanese government.

Targeting Israeli civilians

Hezbollah has been targeting Israeli civilians, for years. since the 1980s, (Which prompted Israel in 1996 to conduct a defensive operation "Grapes of Wrath." ) its main weapon - firing rockets, missiles into residential areas . Though there were also other methods like in Apr 2001 – A 42 year-old Israeli woman was stabbed to death in Haifa. Her murder was the initiation rite of a terrorist cell, whose members were apprehended in July. Six members of a Hezbollah-linked Palestinian terrorist cell responsible for the murder, originally thought to be criminally motivated, were arrested in July. The murder was the initiation rite of one of the terrorists into the organization.

Use of its civilian population in war

Use of Lebanese as human shields , (copying the Arab-Palestinian tactics routine [22] [23] [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]), especially was publicized - Hezbollah's use of "Christian villages as shields in missile attacks." witnesses: "If Israel does nothing Hezbollah will continue to fire rockets from inside Lebanon shockingly using Christians as human shields actually." "Hezbollah is hiding among civilian populations and launching attacks behind human shields." , this crime has been categorized as a "Hezbollah specialty" , even using the U.N., in their initiated war with Israel, A.) to cause casualties among their own Arab population, especially among children, in order to generate sympathy and an outcry in the Arab world. B.) Hated Israelis' image get tarnished, an "important" goal in it of itself to make the Zionists look as "killers." C.) To cripple Israel's humane army to respond, thus enables them to come out as "heroes." & saviours against the Zionist enemy."

Subjugation, persecution

Hezbollah has a long history of persecuting Christians, decries a Lebanese author.

The writer W. Phares explains on the suffering of civilians, especially since Hezbollah's take over in 2000:

Such takeover by the Jihadist militia was expected to provoke an exodus by thousands of civilians who would have been subjected to Hezbollah’s persecution. However suddenly on May 23, the Israeli Government then under Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered a quick pull out from the security zone without waiting for the local force, at the time known as ‘South Lebanon Army’ (SLA) to be transferred under the United Nations or to operate as a local force to stop Hezbollah until the UN would decide what to do.

The population of the “security zone” was about 150,000 counting the district of Jezzine; and its local forces were about 3,000 strong. the make up of the population was Christian, Shia and Druse with some Sunni villages to the East. To their north Hezbollah had massed its forces backed by Iranian Pasdaran advisors. Between 1984 and 2000 Hezbollah launched several offensives against the SLA positions but was unable to overrun them permanently.

Civil war

Some of civil war/clashes waged on the Lebanese by the Hezbollah:

In Jan. 2007, clash pits Hezbollah against rule in Lebanon. The police said at least three people died and 100 more were wounded throughout the country in the violence.

"Rival factions return to arms as Lebanon stares into the abyss" in Nov 2007.

In May 8, 2008 Clashes erupted as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah claims 'War' , clashes between Hezbollah and Druze continued in Lebanon for the 5th day, it erupted in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli, as fighting between the Hezbollah militia and its rivals grew. The Lebanese army said it will intervene, it will use force from to stop fighting, which brough the overall toll to 81 dead and about 250 wounded.

In July 2008, fighting among Lebanese government and the Islamic Hezbollah terrrorists categorized as "Sectarian battles," the battles killed six, wounded 50.

In 28 Aug 2008, Hezbollah has "brazenly attacked the Lebanese Army" – in its shooting-attack on an army helicopter, killing 1st Lt. Samer Hanna and wounding several others – so say the leaders of Lebanon’s pro-democracy movement. This is not the first time Hezbollah has attacked the Lebanese government. But it is one of the boldest attacks to date against the army. Hezbollah kills Lebanese Army Officer.

Global violence

Hezbollah is another example (like Al Qaeda) of an Islamist insurgency that is both local and transnational.

Attack on US, French embassies in Kuwait

Hezbollah's responsible for U.S. and French embassies attacks in Kuwait in 1983 . The American embassy in Kuwait was bombed in a series of attacks whose targets also included the French embassy, the control tower at the airport, the country's main oil refinery, and a residential area for employees of the American corporation Raytheon. Six people were killed, including a suicide truck bomber, and more than 80 others were injured. In Kuwait, 17 people were arrested and convicted for participating in the attacks. One of those convicted was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a cousin and brother-in-law of one of Hezbollah's senior officers, Imad Mughniyah. After a six-week trial in Kuwait, Badreddin was sentenced to death for his role in the bombings.

Hijacking Kuwaiti planes

A year after the 1983 attacks (on US, French targets), Kuwait Airways flight 221 was hijacked wherein the hijackers demanded the release of Islamic militant: 'Al-Dawa 17.' Two US passengers were killed and Iranian police freed the hijackers in Iran where the plane had been diverted. Imad Mugniyah and Hezbollah were accused by US authorities in the hijacking and killings.

In 1988, militants hijacked a second plane, Kuwait Airways Flight 422, with 110 passengers for 16 days. At one point during the hijacking, the plane was diverted to Iran where multiple survivors reportedly believed the original hijackers deplaned and were replaced by a fresh crew of hijackers who were armed with increased gun power.

During the ordeal, the hijackers met with reporters who quoted one as saying upon requesting the refueling of the plane in order to enable the plane to leave Algeria, "We will liquidate our account with Kuwait elsewhere. We don't want to have the massacre in a friendly country." A hijacker was quoted as saying, "Kuwait has to know that we do not fear death." The hijackers demands included the release of Al-Dawa 17.

The plane was diverted to Cyprus where two young Kuwaitis aged 20 and 25 were tortured and then shot. Their dead bodies were dumped on the tarmac of the Cyprus airport.

Iraq

Already in November 24, 2003, The New York Times elaborated in an article: "A region inflamed, the hand of Tehran," Hezbollah, in Iraq, that Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group, has established a significant presence in Iraq.

In 2006. U.S. Officials said: "Hezbollah Training Iraqi Shiite Militia Group.“

The Wall Street Journal wrote (2007) on Iran's Proxy War, The involvement of Hezbollah in Iraq.

The BBC reported on additional proof, US officials had in 2007 of the link. In an article on Iran in Iraq, the Washington Post wrote on Iran's Hezbollah soldiers and methods in the war in Iraq. the CNN reported on a Hezbollah agent played deaf before confessing, the top special operations officer with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia pretended to be deaf and mute when he was captured in Iraq.

In 2008, there were reports on Hezbollah training Iraqis in Iran Iraqi president Jalal Talabani charged (May, 2008) Hezbollah interference, in a Baghdad interview, he accused the leader of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah of meddling in Iraq's affairs.

In May, 2010, the US said that Syria must curb arm shipments to Hezbollah, top US diplomat has urged Syria to do more to prevent arms shipments to the militant Lebanese Hezbollah and stem the flow of militants into Iraq.

Somalia

The New York Times reported on Hezbollah in Somalia. From NPR (November 15, 2006), the "U.N. Report ties Somali Islamists to Hezbollah," in an alarming report about the situation in Somalia.

Afghanistan

Hezbollah Link in the war in Afghanistan have been found.

Sudan

The Hezbollah, reportedly, is very supportive of Al-Bashir's genocide in the Sudan.

Egypt

In 2009, the BBC reported that Egypt was 'hunting Hezbollah suspects', prosecutor accused Hezbollah of plotting attacks in Egypt, of sending operatives to Egypt to carry out attacks in the country and to smuggle weapons. On Apr 2010 An Egyptian court convicted 26 men of belonging to a Hezbollah cell. The Hezbollah Plot exposed Egypt's shared interests with Israel. Analysts said that the Egypt-Hezbollah standoff dents Egypt-Iran relations.

Azerbaijan

Hezbollah plotted embassy attack' in Azerbaijan - was revealed in 2009. A trial under way in Azerbaijan of two Hezbollah members and four Azeris, where prosecutors drew a link between Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror missions.

Europe

Hijacking TWA flight

Among the highlighted terror crimes of the Hezbollah is the: TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985: A Trans-World Airlines flight '847' was hijacked en route to Rome from Athens by two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists, and forced to fly to Beirut. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for seventeen days, during which one American hostage, a U.S. Navy sailor, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft was returned to Beirut after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

The plane was on a scheduled flight from Cairo to Athens. Hijackers --the two terrorists were brandishing grenades and pistols-- forced it to Beirut and twice went to Algiers before returning to Beirut releasing most of the (non-American) 152 passengers along the way, and murdering U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, one of the passengers—beating him, torturing, shooting him in the temple and dumping his body on the tarmac of Beirut International Airport (June 15).

On June 30, Hezbollah released 39 American passengers they held captive for 17 days.

German authorities arrested Mohammed Ali Hammadi and convicted him of Stethem’s murder in 1987. Hammadi was paroled in 2005 and returned to Beirut, where he is believed to be living today (2009).

From a letter, Robert's brother Kenneth has sent to president George W. Bush in 2006 as Robert's murderer was released by the German government (and fled to Lebanon) in an apparent exchange for a German hostage in Iraq:

While Robert was being dragged to the door, he knew that all he had to do in order to live was to cry into that transmitter, but he wouldn't do it. He would not give in to the demands of the terrorists. He would not allow the honor and dignity of America to be intimidated by the fear and pain that Hammadi and terrorists everywhere represent. Robert sacrificed his life in order to protect our liberty and defend our way of life.

Dowining of a French airline

The Los Angeles Times wrote in November 1, 1989 that a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah is linked to a plane crash.

Specialists have linked a terrorist bomb that destroyed a French airliner last month (Oct, 1989) in Africa to a Palestinian group allied with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, the newspaper Figaro said... Working with fragments of a suitcase found in the wreckage of the airliner, specialists in Paris' central police laboratory found similarities to a terrorist bomb that exploded at a Paris department store almost five years ago. The February 1985 attack at the department store resulted in the arrest of Habib Maammar, a Tunisian member of a group directed by the Palestinian bomb maker Abu Ibrahim.

Terror attack on French department stores

Paris' Boulevard Haussmann was targeted in 1985 and 1986 during attacks on Paris department stores, many of them claimed by the Lebanese Hezbollah militants, which left 13 dead and 303 injured. Terrorists from Hezbollah, set off bombs in both Printemps and Galeries Lafayette in December 1985, injuring 43 people.

Workers at Printemps in December 1985 when Hezbollah bombs exploded on the ground floor there and in the Galeries Lafayette department store, recalled the attack which led to a bomb scare in Dec. 2008, when explosives were found there.

Attempts of 'massive-attacks' in 2009

In 2009, there was a report of a "Massive Hezbollah Terror Attack Against Israeli Target In Europe," that has been thwarted.

South America

Venezuela

US designated two Hezbollah operatives in Venezuela as terrorists- Hezbollah has used the tri-border region between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay to recruit, train, raise and launder money, and plot attacks.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (Called a dictator & his regime a dictatorship , and has close ties with the Mullahcracy theocracy dictatorship of the Islamic Republic of Iran ) has publicly supported a Hezbollah candidate for the Lebanese government, he was a supporter of Hezbollah during the 2006 war in Lebanon; afterward, the group placed signs in Lebanon proclaiming "Gracias, Chavez!" He openly invited Hezbollah members to live in Venezuela. Venezuela's embassies in the Middle East have been used to launder Hezbollah's dirty money, per investigation by the U.S. Treasury Dept In January 2010, Israeli intelligence released information that Chavez shipped heavy arms to Hezbollah the year before; the ship originated in Venezuela, stopped in Iran and docked in Lebanon.

Chavez has a close relationship with Iran's President Ahmedinejad. The two leaders regularly visit each other. In 2007, they instituted weekly flights between Tehran and Caracas. Interestingly, the aircraft stops one place - Damascus, Syria. Journalists and others have tried to book a seat on the aircraft and have been denied. The passenger and cargo manifests are kept secret.

In an article (2009) in Forbes Magazine it was discussed how an attack by Israel against Gaza could be fought asymmetrically by Hezbollah - with help from Venezuela and Chavez.

(Worth mentioning [asides from Chavez's "personal" war with "imperialist" US] that Venezuela, has a large Lebanese-Arab community , many of them supported, financed Chavez's presidency. There's also a significant concentration of this community in the area bordering with Colombia (Macau). Jews have been attacked in that country.)

Attack on Israeli embassy in Argentina

Hezbollah & Iran attacked the Israel's embassy in Argentina in 1992, in which 29 people were killed.

Attack on a Jewish center (Amia) in Argentina

Hezbollah and Iran both are also charged, via clear evidence, by Argentinian court, terror bombing on the (civilian building) Amia 'Jewish-Argentine Mutual Association Community Cente' which killed 85 and wounded 300. , furthermore, Argentina accuses Iran of meddling in probe of the 1994 Jewish center bombing, the investigation finds Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian involvement.

Haaretz wrote in detail on "How Iran planned the Buenos Aires blast - 1994"

External links

• Hezbollah builds a Western base, From inside South America’s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S. By Pablo Gato and Robert Windrem, NBC News, May 9, 2007. Retrieved from MSNBC.com June 4 2007.