Hezbollah – The world’s most powerful state-sponsored terrorist organization

Hezbollah is today the world’s most organized, well-equipped, well-trained and sophisticated terrorist organization. The seizure of the Antiguan-flagged Francop cargo ship by the Israeli military two weeks ago shows the degree of operational support and capability that this organization holds.  Hezbollah works and operates as an operational arm of Iran and its revolutionary guard and as such it receives complete support in intelligence, training and technology directly from the Iranian government.

As a Shea based terrorist organization; Hezbollah operates using a well structured organizational hierarchy and a centrally controlled political objective. In this regards Hezbollah operates differently than Sunni based terrorist organizations like Al-Qaida that is organized as a network of sub-organizations and individuals operating with a very wide scope political and religious goal. While Al-Qaida operates as terrorist movement or network, Hezbollah works as a terrorist organization.

In this interview held at the University of California Berkley, Robert Baer, a veteran operative of the CIA discusses Hezbollah, the organization’s modus operandi and its connection to the Iranian government.

To see the entire interview click here

Hezbollah’s international network, operations and capabilities extends to all corners of the world.  Last week, during Israeli President Shimon Peres’ visit to South America, he presented Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim with intelligence according to which Iran and Hezbollah are operating in the between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.  According to the intelligence, Hezbollah terror cells in this area trade in weapons and drugs, launder money and smuggle diamonds in order to finance terror activity.

On March 17, 1992, Hezbollah blew up the Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires, Argentina killing 29 people and injuring hundreds. Hezbollah’s motive for the attack was Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Abbas al-Musawi in February 1992 (one month before this attack).  It is improbable that it took Hezbollah only one month to plan and execute an attack of this magnitude. Most terrorist attacks take one to five years to plan and execute. It is safe to assume that Hezbollah planned the attack for months and years before, only to execute it in a one month notice. This attack, as well as many others that came before and after it, illustrate the unique intelligence, organizational and operational capabilities that Hezbollah has as the most powerful state sponsored terrorist organization in the world today.

On February 12th 2008 Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah’s Chief of Staff and tactical mastermind was assassinated in his car in Damascus. Mugniyah was a major target for both American and Israeli intelligence services. To this day, no country or organization has claimed responsibility for this highly sophisticated assassination in the heart of Damascus’ most secure and heavily guarded neighborhood. Hezbollah has not yet retaliated over this assassination, however in the past year there were reports of Hezbollah operating in North America and in other parts of the world to identify and gather information on Israeli and Jewish targets.

Given Hezbollah’s history and the type of targets and terrorist operations it carried out in the past, it is reasonable to expect an attack on an Israeli, Jewish or American target in the very near future. Such an attack will most likely be presented and politically justified by Hezbollah as retaliation for the assassination of Imad Mugniyah.