The day after September 11, 2001, President Bush declared that the war on terror would be directed against all terrorist groups of 'global reach.' Hizbollah, the self-styled "Party of God," meets his criterion of world-wide activity just as much as does Al Queda. But Hizbollah doesn't arouse the same degree of reaction or concern in the American media and governmental agencies - perhaps because it has not yet struck at American's heartland.

To the man on Main Street in Middletown. America, Hizbollah, if it's recognized at all, seems less of a threat than bin Laden and his crew. To the Jewish child in the bomb shelter in Metullah, Hizbollah is a most fearful condition of its existence. To the intelligence agencies of the major powers, the world wide range of Hizbollah's operation is well known. But, to date, the decision makers in the "quartet" are content to defer definitive action, and allow Israel to bear the burden of front-line defence against a world-wide menace.

In October 1983 a truck bomb destroyed U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut. Of the some 300 sleeping marines in their barracks, 241 were killed. 56 French paratroopers (part of the multinational peace keeping force) were killed in a separate blast. At the time, the suicide attack was attributed to some vague "Shi'ite" militant group.

In fact this blow at world order represents Hizbollah's first major triumph after its bombing of the U.S. embassy in the previous April. It was a victory by the newly-born terrorist group over the international community, the Israeli government of Menachem Begin and the Lebanese Christian-Maronite government of Jameel Gemayel. The blow was also a perhaps unintended victory for the PLO because it wrote 'finis' to the interrupted Israeli effort to end Arafat's rule. The bombing of the Marine barracks led to withdrawal of the peace keepers.

At the time that Hizballah carried out this attack, it was less that a year and a half old. It had been formally inaugurated in June 1982 when the Sunni Syrian government allowed the Shi'ite Iranian government to dispatch a 1000-man mission to the Beqaa valley in Lebanon. (The valley was occupied by Syrian forces, who, to this day, send the profits from harvesting the valley's marijuana crop to the Assads.) The base group was made up of military and religious teachers - mostly members of Ayatollah Khomeni's Revolutionary Guards - whose primary mission was to establish a connection with the Lebanese Shi'ia.

The first phase was a process of fading into the background, while at the same time, recruiting militant young Lebanese Shi'ias to the cause. The rapid growth of the military wing was due to abundant Iranian funding and Syria's permissive attitude, which it maintained as long as the multinational and Israel forces remained in Lebanon. In the meanwhile Hizbollah personnel increased several fold. The Iranians succeeded in overshadowing the Syrian Shi'ite group, the Amal militia. They expanded from the Beqaa and became dominant in the Shi'ite communities of southern Beirut, which remains a Hizbollah stronghold. This growth of power was also dependent upon the Iranian financial support of the religious and charitable work that served as the obverse of the coin of Hizbollah power in Lebanon. (cf http://www.meib.org/articles/0202_l1.htm)

The growth of the "miltary wing" was marked by car-bombings, kidnappings of Americans and West Europeans - practices that continued until the end of the civil war in Lebanon. Kidnapping and murders of Israelis have persisted into the present second "Oslo War." The local Hizbollah "specialty" - the shelling of northern Israeli towns such as Kyriat Shemona - is now almost certainly under Syrian control. The timing and intensity of these attacks have been taken as a barometer of Syrian anti-Israel policy.

As Hizbollah became more powerful in Lebanon, Syria had second thoughts. The years saw a see-saw relationship in which the Shi'ites became an open Lebanese political party contending with others for representation. In the nineties, the financial flow from Iran ebbed and the Syrians were more likely to determine the local and tactical dispositions of the anti-Israeli efforts. The effort against Israeli civilians remains a high priority. As of 2000, mostly under Syrian direction, at least 4,000 Katyusha rockets have been launched against Kiryat Shemona alone since 1985.

In the meantime, there was an initially-unnoticed growth in the reach of Hizbollah. Like a fruiting fungus, it spread its spores widely, giving rise to multiple "cells" in Europe and in South America.

Since World War II, countries in South America have been both a refuge for the persecuted and a haven for the war criminals of the defeated Nazi regime. In Argentina, for example, the present day population of 100,000 Jews is in part the result of the (limited) influx of refugees. At the same time, high-level Argentinian complaisance and corruption made the country a haven for nazis such as Adolf Eichmann.

The area in South America known as the "Triple Border Area" is a region where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. This unpoliced and largely jungle region with a long history of smuggling provided a safe haven for war criminals for decades after the Nuremberg trials. The key city of the area, Ciudad del Este, is a trading center with a large Arab and Lebanese population, one in which it would be easy for Hizbollah terrorists to insert themselves. The city itself is in Paraguay but is accessible from either Brazil or Argentina simply by walking over a bridge, so it's an ideal location from which to extend the reach of a Moslem terrorist organization. The banking facilities, and the city's position as a nodal point in the drug trade, were other attractions that could be used by Hizbollah in both local and world-wide operations.

A description of the effect of a Hizbollah bomb exploded in Buenes Aires on July 18, 1994 strikes a horrendous but tragically familiar note:

"[people] saw a dark cloud rising. Beneath, turned to rubble and twisted iron, lay the Argentine Jews' organizational home [AMIA], its library and theater, its offices and records. In and around the building were 85 people dead and hundreds more wounded...

"...The scene on the block resembled a war zone. Wounded people walked about in shock, gasping in a cloud of dust. Yells were heard in the suddenly silent area, and a woman howled in despair: The bomb had killed her little son, literally tearing him apart. They had been walking toward a nearby hospital when the detonation occurred. Inside the ruins of the AMIA, survivors groped in the dark looking for a way out." (Sergio Kiernan, A Tangled Road to Justice: The AMIA Trial Nine Years Later)

One might have been in Israel or Lebanon.

The AMIA (Argentina Israelite Mutual Aid Association) was a "soft target." It was in a region where paramedics, civil defence and police were unprepared and unorganized for unnatural disasters. The specialized Israeli army team that arrived two days later brought resources for rescue and investigation. But by then the clues were muddied, some of the wounded had dispersed, and some witnesses (apparently under influence ) had changed their stories.

It is now more than nine years since Argentina - and therefore World - Jewry was so devasted. The record of the almost interminable investigation is a checkered one at best. The trial of the 20-odd defendants is still in progress. The labyrinthine story of the case and the ramifications into the realms of the Argentine Intelligence service and the particular interests of more than one Argentine President is summerized by Sergio Kiernan in A Tangled Road to Justice: The AMIA Trial Nine Years Later.

Readers of police novels will agree that the informer is a major tool in crime detection and prevention. The spy in residence and the locally-based suicide bomber is always at risk of betrayal. This is not a danger for the foreigner who has no previous visit or record in the target country. He is a threat of a different category. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has documented a completed case.

" ...he was told to leave Lebanon on his Lebanese passport and go to the United Kingdom where he was to leave his Lebanese passport in a hidden drop in a public place (where it would be collected by a third party). He was directed to fictitiously rent an apartment and a voice mail box in London, and purchase a cellular phone. Additionally, he was directed to go to a travel agency that enables plane tickets to be purchased with cash. Before arriving in Israel, he was briefed by his operator to speak only English and deny his Arab identity..." (http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0jku0)

Britain is more valuable than simply a staging area. The U.K., while no longer controlling an Empire, is still the central node of an economic, political and communications web that covers at least one third of the world. Of course the usual preparation for local acts of terrorism go on. There have been some noted failures in Britain in which (probably neophyte) Hizbollah bombers blew themselves up before the explosives they were preparing or carrying could be brought to British or Israeli targets.

As in Lebanon, so in Britain - the fundraising and social welfare arms of Hizbollah are an important feature of establishing the base. At least three specific front organizations have been identified as sources for Hizbollah. It cannot be ignored that the base for Hizbollah recruits is dependent of what can only be termed the Muslim Invasion of Europe. In some west European countries the population is 10% or more Muhammedan. Hizbollah cells are known to exist in Germany and France and in perhaps as many as 20 nations strung across Europe and the East as far as Pakistan.

Of course the British base facilitates the ties with the I.R.A. This Irish connection is far from trivial. Hizbollah's Hadi Ghaffari initiated contacts with Sinn Fein. Meetings in Teheran of international terrorist organizations in the 90s were attended by I.R.A. leaders. Hizbollah funds were passed to the Irish terrorists, consultations were provided and plans for future anti-British attacks were developed.

Our man on Main Street, America, would not be so unconcerned if he knew that Hizbollah cells were proliferating here in the United States. He has probably forgotten the hijacking of TWA flight 847, the murder of a U.S. Navy diver, and the Teheran American Hostage Crisis in the last year of the Carter administration.

The Shi'ite Iranian underground in America has a long history, antedating the formal formation of Hezbollah in 1982. Disciples of Ayatollah Khomeini were among the exchange students sent here for training by the Shah's government. They learned their economics, law and political science well, some of them returning to Iran to serve Khomeini in senior positions. Their recruiting of American Moslems, together with those students who stayed in America, staff the many Hizbollah cells accross the country. Prominent among these is the large Lebanese Shi'ite group in Dearborne, Michigan. Of course they have an internet presence, and they have at least one convenient media outlet in Detroit's Channel 23.

Their agendas go well beyond the religious proseletyzing, social welfare and fundraising that characterize the public face of the "Party of God." Their criminal activities include drugs. Hizbollah operatives provide a major source for methamphetamine - the "poor man's cocaine." In North Carolina, the Hizbollah cell made several million dollars for the cause from cigarette smuggling. Other cells have been involved in counterfeiting. Members of many of the cells have been cycled back to Hizbollah terrorist training camps in the Middle East. They have returned, ready for what must be feared as a future conversion to violent terrorism when ordered by Iran.

We have noted some of the geographic range of Hizbollah attacks against Western Civilization. Why should the global range of such a relatively small terrorist organization be of such concern? Let Hizbollah speak for itself.

Hizbollah's 'Secretary General' (curious: that was Stalin's title), Hassan Nasrallah, at a Beirut rally in support of the Palestinian intifada in September, 2002, said: "Martyrdom operations - suicide bombings - should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings world-wide. Don't be shy about it."

He also said in a recent TV Broadcast: "No one in this world has the right to provide any support to the Americans, even though it was against Saddam Hussein, which is another issue. Any support given to the Americans represents nothing but an aid against this entire nation, against Palestine and its intifada, against Lebanon, Syria and the entire Arab and Islamic world."

"We are sons of the Nation of Hizballah, whose vanguard God made victorious in Iran, and who reestablished the nucleus of a central Islamic state in the world. We abide by the orders of the sole and wise and just command represented by the Supreme Jurisconsult who meets the necessary qualifications, and who is presently incarnate in the Imam and Guide, the great Ayatollah Ruhallah Al-Musawi Al-Khomeini, may his authority be perpetuated, enabler of the revolution of the Muslims and harbinger of their glorious Renaissance. (Martin Kramer, Hizballah's Vision of the West, p. 11.)

The Iranian-Hizbollah program for World conquest was set forth by Khomeini while he was still in exile.

There are two kinds of war in Islam: one is called jihad [holy war], which means the conquest of [other] countries in accordance with certain conditions. The other [type] is war to preserve the independence of the [Muslim] country and the repulsion of foreigners. Jihad, or holy war, which is for the conquest of [other] countries and kingdoms, becomes incumbent after the formation of the Islamic state in the presence of the Imam or in accordance with his command. Then Islam makes it incumbent upon all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world."

Above all we should not dismiss these statements as merely Arab rhetoric. They mean what they say.

Additional Readings:

The May 2003 American Jewish Committee Briefing by Yehudit Barsky on Hizbollah is an invaluable resource. (http://www.ajc.org/Terrorism/Briefings.asp)

An annual report entitled "The Profiles of Global Terrorism" is published by the US State Department (terrorist profiles - master file). Colin Powell would do well to read it.

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