Ely Karmon, director of Israel's Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, says that since the 1980s Hezbollah has been recruiting and raising money from Lebanese and Syrian immigrants living in three specific areas of Latin America and the Caribbean: the tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, Venezuela's Margarita Island and the Caribbean coastline of Colombia, including Maicao and San Andres.
"In all three areas you have Lebanese Shi'ite communities,” Karmon told JTA. "Latin America is a soft-belly target because nobody is prepared -- not the law enforcement authorities, not the public, not anyone."
Others say the threat is overblown.
Chris Zambelis, a Middle East analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, says offshore islands like San Andres and Margarita do have large numbers of Muslims, but that "there's no evidence at all" to suggest that local Arab merchants are financing Hezbollah activities overseas.
"Colombian and regional governments have played on U.S. concerns by moving to curry favor with the United States to further their own domestic agendas and international standing," Zambelis wrote in a policy paper last year. "In doing so, they often highlight the alleged threat of al-Qaida or other brands of radical Islamist terrorism within their own borders."
Source: jta.org via Leonard Brody
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