Iran/Hizballah's Global Shi'ite Terror Network
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4004/iran-hizballah-global-shiite-terror-network
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
April 30, 2013
A deadly bus explosion in Bulgaria targeting Israeli tourists, a bomb plot
to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and a ship carrying large
quantities of arms to terrorists - what do these have in common?
They are all examples of hostile action by a global Shi'ite terrorist
network, which is larger and more organized than any Sunni al-Qaida-inspired
group currently in existence.
The following examples include known recent attempted attacks:
February 2012: Two Iranians turn an apartment in Bangkok,
Thailand into an explosives factory and plan to assassinate Israeli
diplomats. Their plan is botched after Thai police receive intelligence
about the plot. One of the terrorists tries to flee police with explosives
and loses his legs after a failed attempt to hurl a grenade at officers. His
accomplice is later arrested in neighboring Malaysia while trying to board a
flight. The men are currently on trial in Thailand.
February 2012: The wife of an Israeli diplomat is seriously
injured after a terrorist attaches a magnet bomb to her vehicle in New
Delhi, India. Indian authorities have arrested an Indian-Muslim journalist
with ties to the official Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency in connection
with the attack.
On the same day, an Israeli embassy staffer in Tbilisi, Georgia
discovered a bomb underneath his car as he was driving to the embassy Monday
morning.
May 2008: Azerbaijan arrests two Lebanese Hizballah members for
plotting attacks on the Israeli embassy in Baku. The men are later sentenced
to 15 years behind bars.
October 2012: Azerbaijan sentences 22 of its citizens to lengthy
jail sentences after convicting them of assisting the Iranian Republican
Guards Corps to plan attacks on the Israeli and American embassies.
July 2012: Five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver are
murdered by a Hizballah bomber who attacked their tour bus at the resort
city of Burgas. The attack occurs just outside of an airport, after the
tourists landed on a plane from Israel. Bulgaria later blames Hizballah for
the atrocity, and announces a manhunt for two suspected members of the cell
who assisted the bomber. The bomber is killed in the blast.
February 2013: A Cypriot court sentences a Lebanese national to
four years in prison after he was caught making reconnaissance trips to the
Mediterranean island's airport, to track and record the movement of Israeli
passengers. The plot's intended victims and methodology closely resemble the
'soft target' approach taken by Hizballah in Bulgaria.
April 2013: An Iranian travelling on a fake Israeli passport is
arrested outside of the Israeli embassy in Nepal, after carrying out hostile
reconnaissance on the premises.
Israel is by no means the only target.
In Africa and central Asia, the network has been caught red handed by
authorities plotting attacks against Americans. The Shi'ite network can be
directed against Western targets around the globe, should it be ordered to
do so by Iran.
It has sent weapons - sometimes via ships that deport from the Iranian port
of Bandar Abbas - to Shi'ite and other Iranian-allied militias across the
Middle East (including in Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan).
And it is taking an active part in the Syrian civil war, fighting on behalf
of the regime of Basher Al-Assad.
There are two main components to the Iran-centered Shi'ite terror network:
The first is the Quds Force - the elite overseas arm of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps, tasked with carrying out attacks, subterfuge,
and arms smuggling around the world - and the second is Tehran's proxy in
Lebanon, Hizballah.
Both components are pursuing active terrorism missions overseas, as part of
a covert war against Israel. If successful, these missions could end up
triggering wider confrontations, destabilizing the Middle East further, and
affecting global security as a whole.
According to Israeli intelligence estimates, the two organizations have
divided up their missions in the following manner: The Quds Force is
attempting to strike official Israeli state symbols, such as embassies and
ambassadors, while Hizballah's agents are moving against soft targets, such
as Israeli tourists hubs.
The Quds Force and Hizballah are in the midst of a secret but very real
effort to carry out atrocities around the world. Israeli intelligence
services are working around the clock to thwart them. Dozens of attacks have
been intercepted by Israel in 2012 alone.
One attack, a Hizballah bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria,
succeeded in 2012, killing six people and wounding dozens.
Over the course of 2011 and 2012, the Shi'ite terror network has gone into
high gear, fueled by a desire to exact revenge for the deaths of Iranian
nuclear scientists (Tehran blames these on Israel), and the assassination of
Hizballah's field commander, Imad Mughniyeh in 2008, (which Hizballah blames
on Israel).
But while alleged Israeli covert action, as reported in the international
media, was reportedly taken against those directly involved in threatening
Israeli national security, the Shi'ite terror network goes after
noncombatants, attempting to blow up synagogues, Jewish community centers,
tourists, and diplomats.
"Shi'ite terrorism is a threat to Israeli citizens and Diaspora Jews. The
threat is being sponsored by Iran and Hizballah. Over the past two years,
there has been an increased effort to carry out attacks," one Israeli
counter-terrorism official recently said. "We are identifying a systematic
campaign operating with the greatest vigor... They are fully coordinated. It
is one axis," the source added.
Israel has been in contact with countries that host significant numbers of
Israeli tourists, such as India, and requested stepped-up security
arrangements.
In countries such as Azerbaijan and Nigeria, local law enforcement
investigations revealed that Quds Force operatives recruited members of
local Muslim communities to carry out surveillance and plan attacks.
Hizballah, for its part, heavily relies on the Lebanese Diaspora to help
facilitate its overseas operations.
In February 2012, Nigeria's domestic intelligence service announced the
arrest of an Iran-backed terrorist cell, naming three local Nigerians as
suspects. The authorities said one of the suspects made several suspicious
trips to Iran and interacted with Iranians in a "high-profile terrorist
network" there.
"His Iranian sponsors requested that he identify and gather intelligence on
public places and prominent hotels frequented by Americans and Israelis to
facilitate attacks," Nigeria's domestic security service said.
In May 2012, the U.S. learned of an Iranian terror plot to use a car bomb
and a sniper attack to murder American diplomats in Azerbaijan.
Headed by General Qassem Suleimani since 1998, the Quds Force is under the
direct command of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is
believed to include some 15,000 operatives, and branches out like a spider's
web into staff branches and regional headquarters, thanks to generous
resources made available to it by the Iranian government.
The Quds Force has been linked to the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community
Center in Argentina, in which 85 people were murdered. More recently, it has
been behind a series of botched terror attacks on Israelis in India,
Thailand and Georgia. These operational failures will not deter the Quds
Force from trying again soon.
The Quds Force's Special Operations Unit 400 is a particularly noteworthy
entity, due to its assigned activities of organizing terror attacks beyond
Iran's borders and its role in organizing, training, equipping, financing
and directing Shi'ite, and sometimes Sunni terror networks.
Iran's willingness to employ violence abroad came to international attention
with the arrest of an Iranian-American citizen, who was caught attempting to
recruit Mexican drug cartels to blow up a Washington D.C. restaurant, and
assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni powerhouse, remains
one of Iran's most bitter regional foes, and the two countries are squaring
off via proxies in the Shi'ite-Sunni battleground of Syria.
Iran's attempt to partner with drug gangs in Mexico follows a larger
association between Hizballah and Mexican narcotic cartels, allowing
Hizballah to use drug profits to fund its weapons purchases and attack
plans.
The December 2011 indictment (in absentia) of Lebanese drug smuggler and
Hizballah contact man Ayman Joumaa, for smuggling 85 tons of cocaine into
the US and laundering $850 million for the notorious Los Zetas cartel, is a
case in point.
The activities of this network are truly global. Unlike the Sunni global
jihadi terrorism movement, the Quds Force and Hizballah are state-sponsored,
hierarchical, organized structures. The threat their ongoing efforts pose
cannot be underestimated.
Yaakov Lappin is the Jerusalem Post's military and national security affairs
correspondent, and author of The Virtual Caliphate (Potomac Books), which
proposes that jihadis on the internet have established a virtual Islamist
state.
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