The task of assessing the danger of Hezbollah in Latin America took on new urgency this week as Iran vowed retaliation for the killing of Suleimani. Correspondent katelinthicum reports:
Though the Shiite Muslim organization was clearly a threat in the 1990s, the picture in recent years has been blurrier, with the group often seeming to function as a bogeyman of sorts, as it did after the Bolsonaro stabbing.
Some experts argue that such warnings are overblown. They say Hezbollah has no organized structure in South America and likely doesn’t have the capacity to launch major attacks. It may engage in small-time drug-smuggling or money laundering in the region, but many people who have been accused of such activities appear to be run-of-the-mill criminals suspected of ties to terrorism simply because of their Middle Eastern descent.
After largely ignoring Latin American diplomacy during Trump’s first year in office, the administration has recently been much more active in the region as it cultivates partners against what it sees as a growing threat. Some experts have expressed doubts about those charges and other cases, pointing out that Hezbollah is a major political party in very small country, and that many Lebanese migrants are likely to have loose ties to the group.Arabs from Lebanon, Syria and Egypt — most of them Christian — first began migrating to South America in the 1920s after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
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