Is Hezbollah and other Islamic Terror Groups in Latin America?

We need some common sense on the immigration bill. There is no urgency that it be done this week. There is no reason that it should apply to all countries of origin equally. Serious security issues need to be considered. Along with security concerns, there needs to be some serious discussions about the economic impact to US social services at all levels of governments. There needs to be honest debate. This is but one more reason for caution:

Hezbollah builds a Western base
From inside South America’s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S.

'We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah.'
Mustafa Khalil Meri, a Hezbollah militiaman in Paraguay, says the militant Islamist group would take violent revenge inside the United States if it were to attack Iran.
Telemundo & msnbc.com

By Pablo Gato and Robert Windrem
NBC News
Updated: 9:29 a.m. ET May 9, 2007

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.

From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1985 Lebanese civil war.

An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in Lebanon in 1982 that the United States has labeled an international terrorist organization. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials.

U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. From the largely lawless region, it is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists.

They are men like Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim whom Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the center of the Tri-border region. There is nothing particularly distinctive about him, but beneath the everyday T-shirt he wears beats the heart of a devoted Hezbollah militiaman.

“If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead,” Meri said. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.”

More here and you can download a pdf report on Hezbollah America Latina: Strange Group or Real