Self-Identified Hezbollah Terrorist Who Wanted to ‘Make a Bomb’ Caught by Border Patrol in Texas

A Lebanese migrant who claims to be a member of the Iranian terrorist proxy Hezbollah entered the U.S. illegally this month.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, had plans to travel to New York, where he would “try to make a bomb,” according to Border Patrol documents obtained by the New York Post.

Ebbadi said in a sworn interview that he was affiliated with Hezbollah for seven years and was an active member of the terror group for four. The migrant is being held at the El Paso Sector Hardened Facility after illegally crossing into Texas on March 9. According to the Post, he is marked for deportation.

Border patrol referred Ebbadi to the Tactical Terrorism Response Team after he made “terroristic threats to personnel.” During an interrogation earlier this month, Ebbadi said that his training with Hezbollah focused on “jihad” and killing people.

Hezbollah has fired rockets into northern Israel since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, and it has positioned itself as a firm ally of Iran-backed Hamas. Almost 100,000 Israeli civilians have been evacuated from their homes in the north as Hezbollah shells Israeli towns and homes near the Lebanese border. Israeli forces anticipate an all-out war on the country’s northern border as Hezbollah intensifies its attack.

Hezbollah “has to pay a very big price” for joining Hamas’s war against Israel, chief of the general staff of Israel, Herzi Halevi, said in February.

U.S. officials have expressed concerns that the Iranian proxy could attack Americans abroad and at home, according to a Politico report in January.

“The arrests of individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Hezbollah’s main overseas terrorist arm, and their intelligence-collection and procurement efforts, demonstrate Hezbollah’s interest in long-term contingency planning activities here in the homeland,” FBI director Chris Wray said in November.

Border Patrol noticed a “growing number of individuals” who are on the FBI’s terrorist watch list try to enter the U.S. via the southern border last year, the Department of Homeland Security said in September.