In a recent report, Hezbollah Terror Plot in Brazil, Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert on Iran and Hezbollah at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, D.C., highlights how Tehran uses the idea of the Iranian Revolution in Latin America to spread terrorism through its proxy, Hezbollah.
“For the Iranian regime, Latin America has always been fertile ground for exporting its revolutionary ideals, and for the radical left in the region, the Iranian Revolution represents above all an anti-imperialist movement, dedicated to objectives similar to its own,” Ottolenghi told Diálogo.
This ideological pairing has given rise over the years to Iran’s alliances with Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, but also with indigenous movements, separatists, parties, and nongovernmental organizations that share the same revolutionary and anti-U.S. sentiment. “What is important is that these alliances make it possible to spread ideas, mobilize, and radicalize followers, and even take advantage of some of them to support not only ideological battles but also, if necessary, criminal activities,” Ottolenghi said.
A man walks past a mural depicting slain commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force Qasem Soleimani in Caracas, Venezuela, April 26, 2024. (Photo: Juan Barreto/AFP)
The report mainly addresses the failed attack against several targets of the Jewish community in Brazil, as the Brazilian Federal Police’s Operation Trapiche revealed in November 2023. In his analysis, Ottolenghi sheds light on the dense network of Iranian clerics and local institutions behind the two terrorists, a Lebanese and a Syrian of Lebanese origin with Interpol red notices.
Violent attacks against the Jewish community had already happened in Latin America with the bombings in Argentina of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in 1994, in which 114 people died and hundreds were injured. To export its revolution “with grenades and explosives,” in the words of former Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Commander Javad Mansouri, Tehran, in 1983, sent to Argentina cleric Mohsen Rabbani, who has an Interpol red notice, and is accused of masterminding the bombings. Rabbani’s task was to create a network of Iranian institutions and cultural centers described by the Argentine Prosecutor of the AMIA case Alberto Nisman, who died in 2015, as “a clandestine intelligence network aimed at sponsoring, facilitating, and executing terrorist attacks.”
Al-Mustafa University
Thirty years later his network is still there. As the representative for Latin America, who reports directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Rabbani operates, from the city of Qom, the Islam Oriente Cultural Institute, whose mission is the dissemination of religious books in Portuguese and Spanish and the strengthening of ties between Iran and the region.
The institute is associated with Al-Mustafa International University, which has become the center of Iranian influence in Latin America. This university, with branches in Bogotá (Colombia) and Caracas (Venezuela), offers courses throughout Latin America, including Cuba. It was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2020 and later by Canada for hosting and training Pakistani and Afghan Shiite militias in Syria in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime. According to the U.S. Treasury, Al-Mustafa University “serves as an international recruiting network for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Forces,” which runs Iran’s terrorist operations abroad.
According to Ottolenghi, “of the approximately 40,000 Al-Mustafa graduates in recent years, 10 percent are Latin Americans educated exclusively by Rabbani himself.” Once trained, these graduates’ mission is to return to their countries to teach the doctrines of the Islamic Revolution.
One of the men in Rabbani’s network is the Argentine of Lebanese descent Edgardo Rubén Assad, alias Sheikh Suhail Assad, supervisor of recruitment at Al-Mustafa University. In April 2024, Brazilian police banned him from entering Brazil for his “ties to Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” and for being listed in the database of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center.
Hezbollah propaganda
Through the social networks of Al-Mustafa University and many Iranian centers in Latin America, Hezbollah also spreads its propaganda. “The recurring themes are those of the ‘resistance of the oppressed’ and the struggle against the ‘arrogance’ and ‘hegemony’ of the West, the United States, and Israel,” Ottolenghi told Diálogo.
The cult of martyrs, understood as heroes who fight against oppression, is also widespread. One example stands out: the late commander of the Quds Force, wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani. “Every year since his death in January 2020, Hezbollah and Iranian supporters in Latin America organize events, commemorations, debates, seminars, religious ceremonies to remember him as an Islamic Che Guevara,” Ottolenghi said. The Iranian propaganda machine spreads his deed through publications in Spanish, while media platforms linked to Iran and Hezbollah, such as HispanTV and Al Mayadeen in Spanish, devote television specials to him.
“The news broadcast by these networks is filtered and interpreted according to the Iranian revolutionary vision, which clearly promotes an anti-U.S., anti-Israeli, and anti-Western narrative. The TV and online materials are siding with Putin against Ukraine, with Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and with the Houthis in Yemen,” Ottolenghi said.
Boy Scouts in the mosques
In Iranian-funded Shiite mosques in Latin America, Hezbollah also uses Boy Scout groups as a form of indoctrination and recruitment. According to Ottolenghi, “they mirror Hezbollah’s ‘Imam al-Mahdi Scouts’ and are led by Lebanese instructors who make no secret of their sympathy for Hezbollah.”
According to the Israel-based General Meir Amit Center for Intelligence and Terrorism Information, the movement, founded in 1985, trains tens of thousands of children and teenagers in military tactics and “indoctrinates them with the principles of radical Iranian Islam.” Once they reach the age of 17, Boy Scouts can join Hezbollah’s combat ranks. In Latin America, many of these young men became students at Al-Mustafa University and then returned to lead the Boy Scout groups in which they had been trained.
For years, Bilal Wehbe oversaw the Boy Scout movement in the mosques of Brazil. The U.S. Treasury designated Wehbe in 2010 as “Hezbollah’s principal representative in South America, responsible for overseeing the group’s counterespionage activities in the cross-border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.”
The Triple Border
According to Ottolenghi, the Triple Border shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, remains one of the most critical points for the expansion of terrorism. “It’s important because of the presence of a significant Lebanese Shiite community. So, a lot of the traffic that generates revenue for Hezbollah goes through there,” he said. This region is particularly important for money laundering, one of the main sources of revenue for Hezbollah’s illicit financing networks.
In 2018, it was in Foz do Iguaçu that one of the group’s most important financial operators, Assad Ahmad Barakat, was arrested on charges of laundering the proceeds of drug and arms trafficking.
Against Hezbollah
Countering the expansion of these networks is necessary to prevent acts of terrorism not only in Latin America but also throughout the Western Hemisphere. In addition to a greater exchange of information among the different countries of the region as well as with the United States, Latin American governments must take decisive actions.
According to Ottolenghi, among the necessary measures is to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Currently, only Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, and Honduras recognize Hezbollah as such. “This recognition would give greater investigative and preventive powers to the police and intelligence services, allow the freezing of assets and financial means, and justify other measures,” Ottolenghi said.
Among them, for example, is the possibility of banning the entry of suspected persons into a country in the region, as happened with Edgardo Ruben Assad, as well as revoking citizenship.
“Finally, measures should be taken to ban Hezbollah propaganda in Spanish and Portuguese, which has not been done so far,” Ottolenghi added.
As Operation Trapiche in Brazil recently revealed, Iran and Hezbollah remain a significant threat to the hemisphere. This requires joint efforts by all countries in the region to counter the financing of illicit drug and arms trafficking, terrorist recruitment, and prevent possible attacks.
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Publish date : 2024-08-15 23:57:00
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