Hezbollah Activity In Venezuela Limited To Fundraising, Says State Department Official

Washington (CNSNews.com) – A senior Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee disagreed with a State Department official over the extent to which the terrorist group Hezbollah is benefiting from its presence in Venezuela.
At a joint hearing of the Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform committees on Friday, State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin indicated that the Obama administration does not think Hezbollah is benefiting significantly from its money-raising activities in Venezuela.
In prepared testimony, Benjamin said he wanted to “emphasize that the information available to us indicates that Hezbollah activity in Venezuela is confined to fundraising. We remain alert to indications of other activities, particularly operational activity, but there is no information to support any such contention at this point.”
In reaction, Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Western Hemisphere subcommittee, argued that Hezbollah uses its fundraising activities in order to operate.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist organization established in 1982 with the help of Tehran, designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization for well over a decade.

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Air Force General Douglas Fraser said the alliance remains largely for diplomatic and commercial purposes but said there still were too many unknowns.
“There are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua. So we don’t have a lot of visibility in who’s visiting and who isn’t, and that’s really where I see the concerns,” said Gen. Fraser. http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/hezbollah-in-latin-america-%E2%80%93-implications-for-homeland-security/

according to data provided by the U.S. Library of Congress, Hezbollah is prominent in the small village Maicao. Maicao is located on the border with Venezuela in the Guajira peninsula. There, Islamists control 70 percent of commerce; the orthodox Islamic community numbers 4,670 out of 58,000 total residents; but 8,000 people are of Arab decent; of the Sunni and Shi’ite members of the community the Shi’ite most regularly aligns itself with radical Islamic thought. Studies by U.S. officials show that Maicao is also a popular tourist spot for other orthodox Islamics. Many residents donate 10 percent, sometimes even 30 percent of their incomes to Hezbollah. Similar to the findings of the INSIGHT report, money is then sent through banks in Maracaibo, Venezuela and Panama,

two major anti-Jewish bombings in Argentina in the 1990s

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s alliance with Iran raises fears that his country could become a base for Hezbollah activity

Teodoro Darnott, aka “Sheidy Daniel,” in the remote Zulia section of Venezuela, near the Colombian border, had begun preaching a weird fusion of militant Islam, Marxist theory, and even a sprinkling of Catholic “Liberation Theology” to a group of disaffected Indians. He detested the United States and Israel and called for jihad — or in Spanish, “yihad,” against their interests in Latin America. Sheidy Daniel called his group “Hezbollah Latin America” — a dangerous choice given that the “real” Hezbollah operates quietly in Venezuela…he was allowed to go about unmolested while using Hezbollah’s name in his very successful organizing and bomb-making — and his less successful bomb-planting. Darnott took Hezbollah in Latin America to the Internet… jihadi message attracted followers in several Latin American countries, including (according to his website) Mexico, and his rhetoric became more violent as well. On August 18th he announced his intention to use explosives against American interests in Venezuela…the anniversary of the Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, and a student named Jose Miguel Reyes Espinosa allegedly decided to commemorate the event by setting off two pipe bombs in front of the U.S. Embassy. The nervous Reyes sent his taxi driver into a panic, however, and he was arrested. The recovered pipe bombs (or niples in local parlance) were found to include leaflets referring to Hezbollah… called for a much more serious and damaging attack in retaliation, and the site now included a picture of a propane-cylinder device that would probably be much more lethal than the pipe bombs used in the failed October 3rd attack…posted a picture of U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield with an annotation that he was “worthy of death.” …terrorists within Venezuela need to keep a low profile. No one wanted a buffoon like Darnott drawing attention to Hezbollah’s presence…there still several other Hezbollah in Latin America #