May
2, 2003, 1200 p.m.
Operation Syria
Hezbollah should
be on Powell’s agenda.
By Rachel Ehrenfeld
hen
Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Syria on Saturday, he will
no doubt raise the issue of Hezbollah with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrians claim that they have no control over Hezbollah. Besides, Damascus
will argue, Hezbollah's terrorist activities are aimed only against Israel,
and therefore are justifiable. But Secretary Powell should recall the
recent statement of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, made
in the run-up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq: "In the past, when the
Marines were in Beirut, we screamed 'Death to America!' Today, when the
region is being filled with hundreds of thousands of American soldiers,
'Death to America!' was, is, and will stay our slogan."
Syria's support
for the Lebanon-based Hezbollah has made it a virtual terrorist powerhouse.
Syria not only shelters Hezbollah and transfers Iranian weapons, including
thousands of short-range artillery rockets and ballistic missiles, to the
group. It also provides them with arms from its own stockpiles and millions
of dollars worth of assistance in the form of training facilities and logistical
and technological support. This help has, to a large degree, made the Shiite
militia's war on Israel possible. In return, Hezbollah officials understandably
lavish Damascus with praise. In an interview on Syrian TV in June 2002,
Hassan Nasrallah praised Syria for remaining a "safe haven for jihad
. . . the geographical and political refuge adopting the resistance movements
in the region."
And Syria's support
is just the tip of the iceberg. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
was right to label Hezbollah as the "A-team" of today's terrorists.
By conservative estimates, Hezbollah's international network includes
at least 15,000 operatives in cells in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Paraguay,
Brazil, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Indonesia,
Malaysia, and throughout Africa.
Hezbollah's presence
in the lawless tri-border region of South America, where Argentina, Brazil,
and Paraguay intersect, is of particular concern. In the mid-1980s, Hezbollah
clerics and members of other Islamist organizations began proselytizing,
planting operatives from the Middle East, and recruiting new members from
among the tri-border region's residents. The jungles in the region were
soon filled with terrorist training camps, which continue to turn out
well-trained operatives to this day. In addition, Brazilian, Colombian,
and Argentinean intelligence sources report that special weekend camps,
run by Hezbollah, train children and teenagers in the use of weapons and
combat techniques, as well as indoctrinate them with Ayatollah Khomeini's
anti-American and anti-Jewish ideologies.
Hezbollah is heavily
involved in the illegal drug trade in the tri-border region, as well as
in money laundering, drugs-for-arms deals, and straightforward drug trafficking.
Hezbollah operatives have developed strong relationships with major narco-terrorist
and drug-trafficking organizations from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela,
including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National
Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)
in Peru.
Brazilian authorities
have estimated in recent years that criminals in the tri-border region
have been laundering approximately $6 billion annually. According to Paraguayan
interior minister Julio César Fanego, from 1999 to 2001 Hezbollah
received anywhere from $50 to $500 million from this region alone. And
Brazilian security agencies estimate that at least $261 million was sent
from Islamist organizations operating in the tri-border region to the
Middle East. Most of it went to Hezbollah just in the year 2000.
Secretary Powell's
visit to Damascus provides the White House with the unique opportunity
to press Syria to stop its involvement with and sponsorship of all terror
organizations, particularly Hezbollah — possibly the single-largest
threat to the U.S. after al Qaeda. If Powell is successful, we will be
one step closer to victory in the war on terrorism.
—
Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the Manhattan-based American
Center for Democracy. Her new book Funding Evil: How Terrorism
Is Financed and How to Stop It, is due out this summer.
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hen
Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Syria on Saturday, he will
no doubt raise the issue of Hezbollah with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrians claim that they have no control over Hezbollah. Besides, Damascus
will argue, Hezbollah's terrorist activities are aimed only against Israel,
and therefore are justifiable. But Secretary Powell should recall the
recent statement of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, made
in the run-up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq: "In the past, when the
Marines were in Beirut, we screamed 'Death to America!' Today, when the
region is being filled with hundreds of thousands of American soldiers,
'Death to America!' was, is, and will stay our slogan."
