In recent days, reports issued by gov­ern­ment bod­ies in Argentina and the United States detail the inten­sive and far-reaching ter­ror­ist activ­ity by Iran and its Lebanese-based ter­ror­ist proxy, Hezbol­lah. 

On May 29, Alberto Nis­man, the Gen­eral Pros­e­cu­tor of the case involv­ing the 1994 bomb­ing of the AMIA Jew­ish cen­ter in Argentina, issued a lengthy indict­ment accus­ing the Iran­ian regime of infil­trat­ing sev­eral South Amer­i­can coun­tries through build­ing local intel­li­gence gath­er­ing facil­i­ties tasked with fos­ter­ing and exe­cut­ing ter­ror­ist attacks. The report claims that the plan­ning for these attacks is car­ried out either directly by the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment or its proxy, Hezbollah.

The Nis­man report comes a few months after Argentina and Iran agreed to estab­lish a joint “truth com­mis­sion” to inves­ti­gate the AMIA attack. In his report, Nis­man argues that the AMIA bomb­ings, which he had pre­vi­ously accused senior Iran­ian offi­cials  of plan­ning and financ­ing (and for which there is an Inter­pol red alert war­rant, includ­ing for two who are can­di­dates in the upcom­ing Iran­ian pres­i­dent elec­tion), were not iso­lated inci­dents, and should be exam­ined “as a seg­ment in a larger sequence.” He high­lights par­al­lels between the AMIA bomb­ing and other Iranian-backed ter­ror­ist plots, includ­ing the case of two Guyanese men with ties to the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment con­victed in 2010 of con­spir­ing to bomb JFK Air­port. Nis­man argues that Iran could be oper­at­ing ter­ror­ist cells in other South Amer­i­can coun­tries, includ­ing Brazil, Chile, Colum­bia, Guyana, Paraguay, Suri­name, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay. 

In its annual ter­ror­ism report issued on May 30th, the State Depart­ment states that Iran­ian and Hezbol­lah ter­ror­ist oper­a­tions have “reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s, with attacks plot­ted in South­east Asia, Europe, and Africa,” high­lighted by the sus­pected Iran­ian and Hezbol­lah involve­ment in recent attacks and plots in Bul­garia, Cyprus, Thai­land, Geor­gia, Kenya and India.   In addi­tion to Iran’s global ter­ror activ­i­ties, the report also notes Iran’s regional involve­ment in train­ing, fund­ing and pro­vid­ing weapons to the Assad regime, Hamas and other Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist groups, Hezbollah’s oper­a­tions in Lebanon and Shia mil­i­tant groups in Iraq.  

There is also grow­ing evi­dence that Iran and Hezbol­lah are oper­at­ing ter­ror­ist cells in other regions of the world.  On May 30, the Niger­ian mil­i­tary announced the arrest of three admit­ted Hezbol­lah oper­a­tives, all Lebanese nation­als, who were in pos­ses­sion of exten­sive weaponry, includ­ing land­mines, anti-tank weapons, dyna­mite, grenades and machines guns. The mil­i­tary spokesman stated that the oper­a­tives were plan­ning on attack­ing Israeli and West­ern targets.

Mean­while, reports indi­cate that the Euro­pean Union is mov­ing closer to des­ig­nat­ing Hezbol­lah as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion.  ADL has urged the EU to avoid label­ing only Hezbollah’s “mil­i­tary wing” as ter­ror­ist, argu­ing that a par­tial des­ig­na­tion is unlikely to have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on Hezbollah’s fundrais­ing activ­i­ties in Europe, and will cre­ate addi­tional chal­lenges for law enforce­ment efforts against ter­ror­ist financing.

Tags: Alberto Nisman, AMIA Bombing, argentina, bulgaria, Guyana, hezbollah, Iran, nigeria, South America, state department, terrorism