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Caribbean-Latin America
al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas active in Triple Border
2004-02-10
Haaretz runs with the item we ran yesterday from the Toronto Star...
Muslim terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have recently stepped up their efforts to consolidate their power in distant areas of Latin America, particularly in the triangle of borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, say Israeli and American security sources. The sources in Israel confirmed information provided last week by the deputy chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Peter Pace, who told the Armed Forces Committee in the House of Representatives that the area is a center for trade in drugs, weapons, money laundering, forgery, and activity that supports Islamic terror in Latin America. According to Israeli sources, Hamas and Hezbollah, alongside Al-Qaida and World Jihad groups, are busy training recruits, collecting arms, and gathering intelligence about targets, including Jewish and Israeli targets. They prefer hard-to-reach areas, far from local security and law enforcement agencies, and the decision to conduct activities in Latin America, say Israeli sources, is meant to take the terror front beyond the Lebanon-Israel borders.
Qaeda is much more comfortable when they can keep a training and planning headquarters running, far from prying eyes. Losing Afghanistan hurt them. They keep looking for a place to set up their equivalent of the Pentagon. The casual association with Hezbollah and Hamas will also be significant — assuming there's an actual Qaeda element there. I wonder if this is an outgrowth of the Jerusalem Project?
Major General Moshe Kaplinski, general of the Central Command, said last week during the annual intelligence assessment conducted by the army, that Israel needs to reassess its perception of Hezbollah as limited only to the north, in relation to Lebanon, Syria and Iran. He said that many of the terror attacks in the territories are now carried out under explicit instructions from Hezbollah, including orders as specific as "which explosives should be given to which bomber and where they should go."

In testimony given to Congress in December last year, George Glass, director of The Office of Terrorism Finance and Sanctions Policy, said that the establishment of joint working groups including the State Department, Treasury and Justice Department representatives, has raised the stakes for groups like Hamas, which until last year could still enjoy relatively easy transfer of charity funding. Glass said that Hamas assets were frozen by presidential order last August, and noted that the president specified six Hamas leaders as terrorists - Ahmed Yassin, Khaled Meshal, Moussa Abu Razek, Imad al-Almi, Osama Hamdan, and Abdel Aziz Rantissi. "Hamas bombings demonstrate the group’s commitment to undermining any real efforts to move toward a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Shutting off the flow of funds to Hamas is crucial to reducing Hamas’ ability to carry out activities," said Glass. Despite the open hostility between Hamas and the Bush administration, Israeli security sources say that it was the Popular Resistance Committee, and not Hamas, which was responsible for the bombing last year of an American convoy in Gaza, in which three American security guards were killed.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#8  Been thinking about this topic while driving home today.

I'm not sure Lula "hates" the US, unlike (say) Chavez. OTOH I do think he is less benign than many of my liberal friends assume. He is deliberately building close alliances with China, Russia and to a lesser degree India; he openly wants to use the UN to transfer power and wealth to 3rd world countries and would not mind a mildly coercive regime to make that happen.

He walks an interesting - and shifting - line between leftist and centrist policies, but with a potential resurgence of far left movements in south America, he may find himself needing to shift leftward hard or lose power. In such a climate, with some preliminary signs that far left and Islamacist groups see themselves as sharing certain goals, I doubt we can expect him to do anything about al Qaeda, Hamas and Hizbollah setting up shop on his borders.
Posted by: rkb   2004-2-10 7:16:26 PM  

#7  The evidence is mixed.

On the one hand, Lula de Silva has become (in the short run at least) something of a fiscal moderate, with the result that Brazil has been able to attract lower interest loans and other financial securities interest.

On the other hand, there are quotes like this one from a BBC interview last July: "If it is true that the 20th century was the century in which Europe and the US lived through economic recovery and sustainable growth, the 21st century could be century in which some of the wealth, accumulated over the years, could be distributed."

The question is: distributed how? Among other things, he is pushing for an "international tax on financial transactions". I'm not thrilled by the idea of a UN-managed compulsory global tax, no matter how worthy the cause (eliminating poverty).

A year ago he told the World Economic Forum: "
We would like to appeal to you to make scientific discoveries universally available, so that their benefits can be enjoyed by all countries of the world." In the context of the full speech, it is clear that he wants those discoveries to be given for free - no patents on seeds, drugs etc.

I understand the challenges of a country like Brazil, but I don't think this is the way they will ultimately be met.

His recent cabinet shuffle moves his administration to the center on many policies and looks to be a good thing.

In the meanwhile, he has been a strong supporter of Chavez. And while he cites the need to respect election results for that support, he turns a conveniently blind eye to actions Chavez is taking to ensure that the next election will go his way
Posted by: rkb   2004-2-10 4:13:26 PM  

#6  im more inclined to bet on self-interest, rather than hatred, unless there is evidence otherwise.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2004-2-10 11:16:39 AM  

#5  remember folks - not everybody who has an independent agenda in world politics, and who even enters into rivalry with us, hates us.

But that's the way to bet.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-2-10 9:43:35 AM  

#4  Lulu, iiuc, has run a relatively moderate domestic policy - not repealing capitalism or anything. Sure he's pushing Mercosur instead of FTAA - Brazil is a would be great power throwing its weight around - more analgous to India, or France (except France is declining) than to Chavez.

remember folks - not everybody who has an independent agenda in world politics, and who even enters into rivalry with us, hates us.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2004-2-10 9:19:11 AM  

#3  Another factor here is that Chavez is reportedly giving Venezuelan passports to Islamacist foreigners. He is Not Our Friend - but then, we're not his either.
Posted by: rkb   2004-2-10 6:46:02 AM  

#2  There are some leftist movements in thar area too - the Andes is in danger of becoming a serious hotbed of violence soon. Columbians have begun moving to Peru and the Shining Path is active again.

Chavez has sent supporters to train in Cuba in order to put down the opposition at the next Venezuelan elections. Lulu in Brazil hates the US and has sabotaged attempts at trade and other relationships between south American countries and the US.

It's going to be a long next few decades, folks.
Posted by: rkb   2004-2-10 6:33:51 AM  

#1  Those Moslems might feel like big fish in that little pond, but if they swim out to the edges of that triangle they might realize they are immersed in an ocean of Roman Catholics.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-2-10 3:33:38 AM  

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