SALON

Tuesday, Jan 8, 2013 11:27 PM UTC

Is Venezuela harboring Hezbollah?

American conservatives warn of militant Islam's spread in Latin America. But their claims are hard to prove

By

Topics: GlobalPost, Hezbollah, Hugo Chavez, Tehran, Iran, Terrorism, South America,

Is Venezuela harboring Hezbollah?Hugo Chavez (Credit: Reuters)
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.

Global Post Editor’s note: This is part of a series on the alleged spread of Islamic terror cells in America’s “backyard.” See part one here.

LIMA, Peru — Is Venezuela providing operational support to Islamic terrorists?

That deadly serious question is increasingly troubling foreign policy and security experts as the South American country and Iran — which funds Hezbollah — move ever closer.

Despite deep cultural differences, a shared antagonism toward the US has drawn Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, into an unlikely political friendship in recent years.

“Iran is an example of struggle, resistance, dignity, revolution, strong faith,” Chavez said during one early visit to Tehran.

“We are two powerful countries. Iran is a power and Venezuela is becoming one. We want to create a bipolar world. We don’t want a single power [i.e., the US].”

Beyond the rhetoric lies a strategic alliance that has seen Caracas, along with Damascus and Havana, vote against United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, and increasing Iranian investment in the Venezuelan economy, now worth more than $5 billion.

All of that is very public.

But, according to critics such as veteran US Republican Latin Americanist Roger Noriega, Venezuela is also providing operational support to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based organization classified as terrorist by the US, UK and other allies.

It even came up in November’s US elections, with the Republicans claiming in their official online party platform: “Venezuela has become a narco-terrorist state, turning it into an Iranian outpost in the Western hemisphere.”

“The current regime issues Venezuelan passports or visas to thousands of Middle Eastern terrorists offering safe haven to Hezbollah trainers, operatives, recruiters and fundraisers.”

The GOP did not respond to GlobalPost’s requests for comment. But its claim was questioned — and even ridiculed — by several security experts in Israel and South America contacted by GlobalPost.

“That is exaggerated. Generally, this kind of activity [terrorism] is conducted by small units. It is political rhetoric,” said Ely Karmon, one of Israel’s top independent counter-terrorism experts.

Nicholas Watson, a senior analyst at British firm Control Risks, who specializes in South America, agreed, describing it as “unhelpful.”

He added: “That kind of rhetoric, the blatant accusations, doesn’t help the US’ position in the region. It actually plays into Chavez’s hands and strengthens him within Venezuela.”

That Hezbollah has been active in Latin America is hardly news. Argentine investigators have linked the group to two deadly bombings in Buenos Aires in the 1990s.

Together, the attacks on the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center killed 114 people. One of five Iranians wanted by Interpol over the second bombing, Ahmad Vahidi, is now Iran’s defense minister.

Last year, he had to make a rapid departure during a state visit to Bolivia when Argentine prosecutors requested Bolivian police arrest him.

Meanwhile, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington, DC, nonprofit research group, there’s growing evidence that Hezbollah is infiltrating other parts of Latin America, taking advantage of widespread corruption and drug trafficking to raise funds for its activities in the Middle East.

The Buenos Aires attacks took place years before Chavez, now cancer-stricken but recently re-elected, came to power in Venezuela. He was even in jail, awaiting trial for his role in a failed coup, at the time of the first bombing, on the Israeli embassy.

Nevertheless, a jigsaw of data, put together by everyone from Karmon to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, paints a disturbing picture of apparent bilateral cooperation in areas such as Iran’s outlawed nuclear ambitions and the Venezuelan military’s adoption of Tehran’s defense doctrine of “asymmetrical” warfare; in other words, guerrilla resistance to a potential US invasion.

Now canceled, there was also a secretive weekly flight from Caracas to Tehran, with a stopover in Damascus, operated jointly by Iran Air and Conviasa, the state airlines in Iran and Venezuela respectively. Karmon and others say the passengers did not pass through customs.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Lebanese-born Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami — who was previously in charge of the country’s passport office, fueling the Republican claim of papers being given to Islamic terrorists — makes no secret of his sympathies.

“I’m also the son of Arabs, I’m Palestinian, I’m Iraqi, and today we are the resistance force,” he said at a 2009 event in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

“There are Hezbollah supporters in the Venezuelan government. They have been neither investigated nor fired. They have been kept in their jobs,” said Roman D. Ortiz, director of Bogota-based security consultancy Decisive Point.

But does that translate into the Chavez government arming or providing training facilities or other logistical support to Hezbollah?

“The existence of a Lebanese community [in Venezuela] plus a left-wing populist government plus the anti-American rhetoric does not equal terrorism,” says Control Risks’ Watson. “That is speculation.”

Decisive Point’s Ortiz suggests the US needs to focus its intelligence work south of the Rio Grande more closely on the activity of Iran and Hezbollah and prioritize the issue in relations with Latin America.

Watson agrees, while backing the White House’s policy of “restraint” on this issue. He also notes how the George W. Bush administration’s backing for the failed 2002 coup against Chavez means that the Venezuelan leader’s warnings of a possible US attack rings anything but hollow in his homeland.

More Simeon Tegel.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 7 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from GlobalPost, an awarding-winning international news site that focuses on original reporting from journalists stationed around the world. GlobalPost combines traditional journalistic values with the power of new media to offer a fresh perspective on global developments.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations