By The Times (London)
The terrorist threat from Hezbollah is at its highest level for 20 years, US security officials have warned, as the militant group and its Iranian backers step up their shadow war against the West. Western intelligence agencies believe that the Lebanese group is now more active overseas than at any time since the early 1990s, with attacks planned targeting Israeli and American tourists. The warning follows Tuesday's report from Bulgaria that blamed members of Hezbollah's military wing for the bomb attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in the Black Sea resort of Burgas last July. Five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed, along with one of the bombers.
Funded and armed by Iran, with ties to international drug cartels and crime syndicates in Mexico and West Africa, Hezbollah has expanded its overseas operations. Hezbollah and Iranian agents have been implicated in recent plots in Cyprus, India, Thailand, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Egypt and South Africa. All were foiled or unsuccessful but the range of targets underscores the group's renewed ambition.
"We are seeing a new scale to Hezbollah's operations overseas that we have not seen," a US State Department official said. "The group has had an international presence for a long time, but now it has near-global reach."
The resurgence in Hezbollah and Iranian plots is motivated by revenge for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists over the past two years. Tehran has blamed Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, for the killings. Hezbollah is expected to play a key role in Tehran's response to any attack on its disputed nuclear facilities.
"Hezbollah and Iran are sending a message of what the consequences of a greater confrontation with Iran would be," said Daniel Benjamin, who recently stepped down as the US State Department's top counter-terrorism official. In Cyprus, the trial continues of Hussam Taleb Yaacoub, a dual Swedish-Lebanese national who was arrested on the island last July accused of planning an attack on an Israeli bus tour identical to the one in Bulgaria.
The investigation into Yaacoub is alleged to have uncovered extensive information about Hezbollah's operations and recruitment strategy in the Middle East and Europe.
The European Union has resisted classifying Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but faces renewed pressure after Tuesday's report, which said that a Canadian and Australian living in Lebanon had joined Hezbollah's military wing. US and Israeli officials claim that Hezbollah can recruit operatives, raise funds and stockpile weapons with impunity on mainland Europe.
Hezbollah itself dismissed the Burgas report as an Israeli smear. Naim Qassem, the group's deputy leader, said that Israel had resorted to "allegations and incitements and accusations against Hezbollah" because it had failed to defeat it militarily.US prosecutors are still seeking more than US$ 480 million from the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two Lebanese exchange houses in connection with a massive alleged money-laundering scheme. The companies are accused of funneling the proceeds of drug trafficking and used-car sales back to Lebanon via front companies in West Africa.
The last time the group was this active abroad, Hezbollah and Iranian agents carried out two devastating bombings on Israeli targets in Argentina, leaving 114 people dead and hundreds injured.
