Anonymous ID: 17eac9 March 4, 2020, 2:15 a.m. No.8314857   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Is Venezuela Harboring Hezbollah Extremists?

 

The U.S. and the Venezuelan opposition led by Juan Guaidó accuse Maduro of supporting not only Tehran but also its Lebanese-based proxy Hezbollah, which the U.S. regards as a terrorist organization.

 

“Hezbollah has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told an anti-terrorism conference in Colombia, days after Soleimani’s assassination. “This is unacceptable.”

 

A U.S. campaign to isolate the group is gaining traction in Latin America, where many countries are worried about the destabilizing influence of Venezuela and, by extension, its allies.

 

Colombia and Honduras recently declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization, following the example of Argentina and Paraguay last year. The new government in Guatemala has vowed to do the same.

 

“The U.S. has done our part to take down the threat of Iran’s proxies,” Pompeo said in Colombia. “[We’re] encouraged to see how other nations have also confronted Hezbollah.”

 

It’s an open secret that Hezbollah has had a presence in South America for years, particularly in the so-called tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. Lebanese migrants arrived there in the 1970s and ’80s escaping civil war in their homeland and many support the organization.

 

Further south, Argentine investigators blame Hezbollah for the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. A Palestinian organization with close links to Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack.

 

The alleged link with Venezuela is more recent, although Guaidó says Iran’s presence in Caracas dates back over a decade to when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez struck up a friendship with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 

“Iranian influence in Venezuela has been there for about 12 or 13 years through companies that have been sanctioned for links to terrorism,” Guaidó told us on a recent trip to London. He added that in 2017 the authorities in Caracas issued around 17 passports a day to Iranians at a time when Venezuelans were struggling to get passport applications approved.

 

They [Venezuelan and Hezbollah officials] are conducting these meetings for far more sinister purposes.

 

If that is true, it means Caracas dished out more than 6,000 passports to Iranians in 2017. SAIME, the agency that issues Venezuelan passports, did not respond to a request for comment.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/is-venezuela-harboring-hezbollah-extremists/ar-BB10IvZe