Terrorist networks supported by Iran in Latin America could conduct third-country attacks against the U.S. and Israel as part of the wider war resulting from the assassination of a Hamas political leader in Teheran according to intelligence sources.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps special operations unit, Qods, has a “base of operations,” in Venezuela according to Pentagon reports, and is setting up facilities in other western hemisphere locations to activate Hezbollah cells, security officials told The American Spectator. Argentina has declared a “terror alert” after Israel’s top generals warned its military attaché and other high-level Western diplomats at a meeting in Tel Aviv this week, that international terrorist attacks are being planned against Jewish communities across the world.
Hezbollah Has Been Active in South America for Decades
Argentine president, Javier Milei is in Iran’s crosshairs due to his support for Israel and his cooperation with the U.S. on counter-terrorism efforts. Other South American governments are also tightening security as U.S. intelligence agencies warn of an impending attack on U.S. soil.
Argentina suffered devastating bombings 30 years ago directed by Quds General Ahmed Vahidi who operated under diplomatic cover at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires. The truck bomb, which destroyed the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish community center killing 114 people, was staged out of neighboring Paraguay by Hezbollah cell leader Imad Mughniyeh, who had been involved in the truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut ten years prior. (READ MORE: Nicaragua Becomes the Second Country to Open Diplomatic Relations With the Taliban)
An FBI sweep of the tri-border region during the crackdown on Islamic terror networks following the attacks on 9/11, resulted in multiple arrests and prosecutions of Hezbollah suspects in the area, including Muslim businessmen who acted as money launderers for the group. According to sources connected with the Argentine security service (SIDE), Hezbollah has been secretly re-building its infrastructure through an air bridge operated out of Venezuela by Qods officers flying Iranian Boeing 707 cargo jets traced to the IRGC all over Latin America registered under Venezuelan air charter companies. “They are moving personnel, money, and equipment to supply and strengthen Hezbollah cells throughout the continent like a terrorist federal express,” an Argentine intelligence analyst said.
Venezuela’s Cuban-trained intelligence services are actively involved in the operations. A member of the Venezuelan embassy in Buenos Aires was caught spying on FBI agents as they inspected an Iranian Boeing recently impounded at an Argentine airport. The Venezuelan operative was filming the FBI team and trying to get a close shot of one of the U.S. federal officers when he was arrested by Argentine authorities and expelled to Venezuela, according to accounts provided by sources linked to the Argentine security agency SIDE.
Iranian and Venezuelan Militaries Cooperate
Qods officers advise and train Venezuela’s National Guard and other units conducting President Nicolas Maduro’s intensifying crackdown on political opponents, according to U.S. intelligence reports which say that the IRGC is “entwined” with Venezuela’s security apparatus. Motorcycle-mounted, pistol-packing “colectivos” unleashed on opposition rallies are modeled on Iran’s Basij brigades, which break up protest marches against the ruling Ayatollas. Colectivo organizer, Ghazi Nasr Al Din — who raised recruits through a gym in Caracas where he gave martial arts training under a curved Islamic sword hung over a Venezuelan flag — is a Lebanese-born Hezbollah militant, who held Venezuelan diplomatic postings in Lebanon and Syria.
Maduro’s chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, now persecuting and imprisoning thousands of Venezuelans protesting the regime’s sham July 28 election victory, provided legal protection to Hezbollah terrorists who fled to Venezuela from Argentina following the AMIA bombing. Saab headed the international relations committee of the ruling Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela when it came to power in 2000 under Hugo Chavez and pushed for thousands of Venezuelan passports and ID documents to be issued to suspected members of Middle Eastern terror groups, according to an ex-director of Venezuela’s immigration office. (RELATED from Martin Arostegui: Venezuelan Elections Held Hostage)
Hezbollah money launderer Tareck El Aissami, who has important Syrian family connections and is designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a fundraiser for the group, served as Maduro’s security minister, vice president, oil minister, and in other economic posts before disputes with rival regime families got him thrown in prison. He was recently released.
Maduro’s precarious position caused by international and domestic protests against his fraudulent election win may give Iran and Hezbollah added leverage over his regime. Ministers who might object to involvement in bloody attacks that could upset sensitive negotiations with the Biden administration could be overridden by Maduro who might have an interest in an operation to take out Milei, who has called for his ouster.
Qods also has bases in Bolivia whose leftist government has developed close military ties with Iran through agreements recently signed between their defense ministers that include the local production of Iranian Shahed 136 kamikaze drones, increasingly launched by Hezbollah against northern Israel. The Bolivian model would be based on the Zamora V-1 FPV produced at an Iranian-built facility in Venezuela.
Iran has one of the largest foreign embassies in Bolivia, where it’s also eyeing the country’s rich uranium deposits. Qods runs a clandestine communications station inside an Iranian-funded hospital in the city of El Alto, which is the main stronghold of the ruling MAS party. Its country’s founder and ex-president Evo Morales, invited the alleged mastermind of Hezbollah’s Buenos Aires attacks, Gen. Ahmed Vahidi, to the inauguration of a special military academy to train Latin American officers to “fight imperialism.” (READ MORE: U.S. Policy Lets Russia Dock in the Americas)
A sudden surge in migrants from Islamic countries has recently been noted in Bolivia which has issued some 200 passports to suspected “Iranian agents” according to SIDE, which is trying to track their movements into Argentina and other neighboring countries. Peru recently arrested an Iranian linked to Qods entering from Bolivia to join groups instigating anti-government riots.
Hezbollah Building Up Support Among Muslim Communities in Latin America
Dr. Evan Ellis, a Latin American specialist at the U.S. Army War College, says that Hezbollah has been building up support among Arab and Muslim, communities in Latin America to gain political leverage in the region and develop sources of funding. Muslim migrants are given shelter and employment by local Arab businessmen.
Sleeper networks could be weaponized for terrorist operations “in response to major military attacks by Israel or the U.S. against Iran, especially any strike against its nuclear facilities” Ellis said. SIDE has observed recent arrivals from the Middle East conducting what appears as reconnaissance on key government buildings and infrastructure facilities, including taking pictures.
Flight logs aboard the IRGC Boeing impounded in Argentina, record multiple landings in Mexico where Iranian agents tried to hire members of a drug cartel to deliver a truck bomb to Washington ten years ago. A suspected Iranian agent was just arrested in New York while contracting a hit team to assassinate “major political figures” and generate violent protests, according to the FBI.
Terrorists with identities laundered in Latin America are also being channeled to the U.S. through the uncontrolled migrant flow across the broken border with Mexico. A massive migrant wave expected to result from impending chaos in Venezuela could overwhelm U.S. border control agencies which have already arrested hundreds on terrorism watch lists.