State Department still silent on Venezuelan ties to Hezbollah

 

State Department still silent on Venezuelan ties to Hezbollah

Roger Noriega | March 21, 2013, 3:58 pm          

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/03/state-department-still-silent-on-venezuelan-ties-to-hezbollah/

 

 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to testify before the US House Committee on

Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation, and Trade. I

was impressed by the intense interest of Subcommittee Chairman Ted Poe

(R-TX) and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) in the presence of Hezbollah in the

Americas, which includes a network of Hezbollah operatives and sympathizers

at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government.

 

My written testimony includes a description of the network directed by

Hezbollah operative Ghazi Atef Nassereddine, who has a very close

relationship with Venezuela’s acting president Nicolas Maduro. When Maduro

was the foreign minister, he promoted Nassereddine – who was born in Lebanon

and only became a Venezuelan citizen about a dozen years ago – to be the

second-in-command at the Venezuelan embassy in Syria.

 

In my testimony, I reported:

 

    Nassereddine is Venezuela’s second-ranking diplomat in Syria.

Nassereddine is a key Hezbollah asset because of his close personal

relationship to Chávez’s former Justice and Interior Minister Tarik El

Aissami and because of his diplomatic assignment in Damascus. Along with at

least two of his brothers, Nassereddine manages a network to expand

Hezbollah’s influence in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.

 

Abdallah Nassereddine, who is Ghazi’s older brother, is a former congressman

who uses his position as former vice president of the Federation of Arab and

American Entities in Latin America (and the president of its local chapter

in Venezuela) to maintain ties with Islamic communities throughout the

region. He currently resides on Margarita Island, where he runs various

money-laundering operations and manages commercial enterprises associated

with Hezbollah in Latin America. A younger brother, Oday, is responsible for

establishing paramilitary training centers on Margarita Island. He is

actively recruiting Venezuelans through local circulos bolivarianos

(neighborhood watch committees made up of the most radical Chávez followers)

and sending them to Iran for follow-on training.

 

These sinister characters pose a risk to the security of the entire region,

but they hold senior posts in — and receive support from — the Cuban-run

Maduro regime. Venezuelan officials provide safe haven and material support

to Hezbollah terrorists who are waging a sort of asymmetrical warfare

against the United States. So, why isn’t the US Department of State

spreading the word about the chavista regime’s support for terrorism or for

the nuclear rogue, Iran? Why did career diplomats think the United States

could have “normal relations” with a regime in which terrorists and

narco-traffickers hold senior official positions? Are they just asking

themselves — as their former boss Hillary Clinton infamously put it in the

wake of the Benghazi debacle — “What difference does it make?”

 

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.