Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Iran/Hizballah's Global Shi'ite Terror Network

 

Iran/Hizballah's Global Shi'ite Terror Network

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4004/iran-hizballah-global-shiite-terror-network

 

 

by Yaakov Lappin

Special to IPT News

April 30, 2013

 

A deadly bus explosion in Bulgaria targeting Israeli tourists, a bomb plot

to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and a ship carrying large

quantities of arms to terrorists - what do these have in common?

 

They are all examples of hostile action by a global Shi'ite terrorist

network, which is larger and more organized than any Sunni al-Qaida-inspired

group currently in existence.

 

The following examples include known recent attempted attacks:

 

            February 2012: Two Iranians turn an apartment in Bangkok,

Thailand into an explosives factory and plan to assassinate Israeli

diplomats. Their plan is botched after Thai police receive intelligence

about the plot. One of the terrorists tries to flee police with explosives

and loses his legs after a failed attempt to hurl a grenade at officers. His

accomplice is later arrested in neighboring Malaysia while trying to board a

flight. The men are currently on trial in Thailand.

 

            February 2012: The wife of an Israeli diplomat is seriously

injured after a terrorist attaches a magnet bomb to her vehicle in New

Delhi, India. Indian authorities have arrested an Indian-Muslim journalist

with ties to the official Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency in connection

with the attack.

 

            On the same day, an Israeli embassy staffer in Tbilisi, Georgia

discovered a bomb underneath his car as he was driving to the embassy Monday

morning.

 

            May 2008: Azerbaijan arrests two Lebanese Hizballah members for

plotting attacks on the Israeli embassy in Baku. The men are later sentenced

to 15 years behind bars.

 

            October 2012: Azerbaijan sentences 22 of its citizens to lengthy

jail sentences after convicting them of assisting the Iranian Republican

Guards Corps to plan attacks on the Israeli and American embassies.

 

            July 2012: Five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver are

murdered by a Hizballah bomber who attacked their tour bus at the resort

city of Burgas. The attack occurs just outside of an airport, after the

tourists landed on a plane from Israel. Bulgaria later blames Hizballah for

the atrocity, and announces a manhunt for two suspected members of the cell

who assisted the bomber. The bomber is killed in the blast.

 

            February 2013: A Cypriot court sentences a Lebanese national to

four years in prison after he was caught making reconnaissance trips to the

Mediterranean island's airport, to track and record the movement of Israeli

passengers. The plot's intended victims and methodology closely resemble the

'soft target' approach taken by Hizballah in Bulgaria.

 

            April 2013: An Iranian travelling on a fake Israeli passport is

arrested outside of the Israeli embassy in Nepal, after carrying out hostile

reconnaissance on the premises.

 

Israel is by no means the only target.

 

In Africa and central Asia, the network has been caught red handed by

authorities plotting attacks against Americans. The Shi'ite network can be

directed against Western targets around the globe, should it be ordered to

do so by Iran.

 

It has sent weapons - sometimes via ships that deport from the Iranian port

of Bandar Abbas - to Shi'ite and other Iranian-allied militias across the

Middle East (including in Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan).

 

And it is taking an active part in the Syrian civil war, fighting on behalf

of the regime of Basher Al-Assad.

 

There are two main components to the Iran-centered Shi'ite terror network:

The first is the Quds Force - the elite overseas arm of the Iranian

Revolutionary Guards Corps, tasked with carrying out attacks, subterfuge,

and arms smuggling around the world - and the second is Tehran's proxy in

Lebanon, Hizballah.

 

Both components are pursuing active terrorism missions overseas, as part of

a covert war against Israel. If successful, these missions could end up

triggering wider confrontations, destabilizing the Middle East further, and

affecting global security as a whole.

 

According to Israeli intelligence estimates, the two organizations have

divided up their missions in the following manner: The Quds Force is

attempting to strike official Israeli state symbols, such as embassies and

ambassadors, while Hizballah's agents are moving against soft targets, such

as Israeli tourists hubs.

 

The Quds Force and Hizballah are in the midst of a secret but very real

effort to carry out atrocities around the world. Israeli intelligence

services are working around the clock to thwart them. Dozens of attacks have

been intercepted by Israel in 2012 alone.

 

One attack, a Hizballah bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria,

succeeded in 2012, killing six people and wounding dozens.

 

Over the course of 2011 and 2012, the Shi'ite terror network has gone into

high gear, fueled by a desire to exact revenge for the deaths of Iranian

nuclear scientists (Tehran blames these on Israel), and the assassination of

Hizballah's field commander, Imad Mughniyeh in 2008, (which Hizballah blames

on Israel).

 

But while alleged Israeli covert action, as reported in the international

media, was reportedly taken against those directly involved in threatening

Israeli national security, the Shi'ite terror network goes after

noncombatants, attempting to blow up synagogues, Jewish community centers,

tourists, and diplomats.

 

"Shi'ite terrorism is a threat to Israeli citizens and Diaspora Jews. The

threat is being sponsored by Iran and Hizballah. Over the past two years,

there has been an increased effort to carry out attacks," one Israeli

counter-terrorism official recently said. "We are identifying a systematic

campaign operating with the greatest vigor... They are fully coordinated. It

is one axis," the source added.

 

Israel has been in contact with countries that host significant numbers of

Israeli tourists, such as India, and requested stepped-up security

arrangements.

 

In countries such as Azerbaijan and Nigeria, local law enforcement

investigations revealed that Quds Force operatives recruited members of

local Muslim communities to carry out surveillance and plan attacks.

 

Hizballah, for its part, heavily relies on the Lebanese Diaspora to help

facilitate its overseas operations.

 

In February 2012, Nigeria's domestic intelligence service announced the

arrest of an Iran-backed terrorist cell, naming three local Nigerians as

suspects. The authorities said one of the suspects made several suspicious

trips to Iran and interacted with Iranians in a "high-profile terrorist

network" there.

 

"His Iranian sponsors requested that he identify and gather intelligence on

public places and prominent hotels frequented by Americans and Israelis to

facilitate attacks," Nigeria's domestic security service said.

 

In May 2012, the U.S. learned of an Iranian terror plot to use a car bomb

and a sniper attack to murder American diplomats in Azerbaijan.

 

Headed by General Qassem Suleimani since 1998, the Quds Force is under the

direct command of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is

believed to include some 15,000 operatives, and branches out like a spider's

web into staff branches and regional headquarters, thanks to generous

resources made available to it by the Iranian government.

 

The Quds Force has been linked to the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community

Center in Argentina, in which 85 people were murdered. More recently, it has

been behind a series of botched terror attacks on Israelis in India,

Thailand and Georgia. These operational failures will not deter the Quds

Force from trying again soon.

 

The Quds Force's Special Operations Unit 400 is a particularly noteworthy

entity, due to its assigned activities of organizing terror attacks beyond

Iran's borders and its role in organizing, training, equipping, financing

and directing Shi'ite, and sometimes Sunni terror networks.

 

Iran's willingness to employ violence abroad came to international attention

with the arrest of an Iranian-American citizen, who was caught attempting to

recruit Mexican drug cartels to blow up a Washington D.C. restaurant, and

assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni powerhouse, remains

one of Iran's most bitter regional foes, and the two countries are squaring

off via proxies in the Shi'ite-Sunni battleground of Syria.

 

Iran's attempt to partner with drug gangs in Mexico follows a larger

association between Hizballah and Mexican narcotic cartels, allowing

Hizballah to use drug profits to fund its weapons purchases and attack

plans.

 

The December 2011 indictment (in absentia) of Lebanese drug smuggler and

Hizballah contact man Ayman Joumaa, for smuggling 85 tons of cocaine into

the US and laundering $850 million for the notorious Los Zetas cartel, is a

case in point.

 

The activities of this network are truly global. Unlike the Sunni global

jihadi terrorism movement, the Quds Force and Hizballah are state-sponsored,

hierarchical, organized structures. The threat their ongoing efforts pose

cannot be underestimated.

 

Yaakov Lappin is the Jerusalem Post's military and national security affairs

correspondent, and author of The Virtual Caliphate (Potomac Books), which

proposes that jihadis on the internet have established a virtual Islamist

state.

 

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