Article

2021-06-17 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

[ARABNEWS] Law enforcement agencies around the world have uncovered the extensive drug trafficking operations of Hezbollah and its affiliated groups and individuals. The main objective of its involvement in the narcotics trade is financial, to fund its expanding activities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
and Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers, a practice dating back to the heady human sacrifice days of Baal Moloch...
itself. However,

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we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
more recently, there appears to be another motive: To undercut the social cohesion of its adversaries. That also means Iran’s adversaries, as the group is practically the operational regional arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force in particular.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been at the forefront of these efforts because of the long history of Hezbollah attacks against American interests. The DEA has the largest US law enforcement presence overseas. In 2008, it launched Project Cassandra in an effort to undercut the group’s funding from illicit drug sources. Other US government agencies and those of its allies and partners are also focused on Hezbollah, which has become an important albeit destructive force regionally and beyond, working largely as a proxy for Iran. According to the DEA, Hezbollah has become increasingly involved in drug trafficking and organized crime to fund its activities, with large sums of drug money being laundered from the Americas, Africa and Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
into Lebanon and then Hezbollah's coffers.

The DEA has also established the Counter-Narcoterrorism Operations Center, which focuses on the links between narcotics and terrorism. Because of that focus, it was instrumental in foiling the 2011 Iranian plot to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia

...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
’s then-ambassador to the US, in Washington. The plot was derailed when one of the suspects, Mansour Arbabsiar, attempted to hire a Mexican organized crime gang member, who was in fact a DEA informant.

Hezbollah has been an important target for law enforcement agencies because it acts as a semi-state actor, has enormous resources and is very effective as a multipurpose terrorist organization and sectarian militia. In Lebanon, it effectively controls large swaths of territory in the south, Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. It has significant political influence in the Lebanese government as well as in parliament, where it exercises an effective veto power through alliances with other political groups.

To fund the huge expansion of its operations outside Lebanon during the past decade, it has developed a large financial network. In addition to direct funding from the Iranian government, which Hezbollah openly acknowledges, it gets funding from levies it imposes on legitimate businesses or appropriates from the government operations it controls, such as ports and telecommunications. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
much of its funding comes from drug trafficking.

For these reasons and the fact that it has become a lethal fighting force for Iran’s regional adventurism, countering Hezbollah’s activities has become a high national security priority for many countries.

What has been uncovered about the group’s activities may just be the tip of the iceberg. In the US, Operation Titan intercepted the sale of multi-ton cocaine shipments by Hezbollah associates in cooperation with a Colombian narco mob. And cases in the US since then have identified additional Lebanese and Colombian individuals, as well as the Lebanese Canadian Bank. In 2016, Operation Cedar targeted an international money-laundering scheme, leading to the arrests of Hezbollah operatives and collaborators in Belgium, La Belle France, Germany and Italia.

Other investigations have led to the identification, arrest or extradition of numerous individuals and outfits involved in Hezbollah’s funding schemes across six continents, but mainly in Europe, West Africa and Latin America.

To protect its illicit global funding network and cover its tracks, Hezbollah has resorted to kidnapping and assassinating witnesses and intimidating government officials involved in the investigations into its activities. For example, in 2014, it kidnapped five Czech military officers based in Lebanon. They were only released after a Hezbollah operative was freed from Czech custody. In 2017, another Hezbollah operative was extradited from Belgium to the US after plans to assassinate the prosecutors involved in his case and kidnap a Belgian defense attache in Beirut were foiled.

Hezbollah uses its illicit funds to finance its own operations and those of its partners and allies. It is believed that Hezbollah has, for example, used such proceeds to buy arms for fighters recruited by Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
to fight in Syria and for the Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s in Yemen.

While funding is the main purpose of Hezbollah’s drug trafficking, it also has another, more nefarious purpose: To weaken its enemies by trying to encourage drug addiction among their fighting-age populations. Reports from Syria by al-Arabiya, al-Hurra, Asharq al-Awsat and others have documented how Hezbollah and its affiliated groups have worked to demoralize communities in Syria and Lebanon by turning local economies into drug manufacturing areas and facilitating youth drug use.

The law enforcement and customs agencies of Lebanon’s neighbors have frequently intercepted large quantities of drugs made in Lebanon or Syria. It is probably not an accident that those drug smuggling operations target Hezbollah and Iran’s adversaries. Saudi Arabia has been one of the main targets. In April, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari tweeted that more than 50 million Captagon pills had been intercepted since the beginning of 2020 at Jeddah’s main seaport, hidden in fruit and vegetable shipments. al-Bukhari further told al-Arabiya TV in April that about 600 million pills had been intercepted during the previous six years: "Enough to drown the whole Arab world in drugs." As a result, Saudi Arabia has suspended the import of fruits and vegetables from Lebanon.

While fragile communities in war-torn areas have been decimated by Hezbollah’s drugs, Gulf countries are more difficult targets. Precautionary measures such as the ban on imports from Lebanon should move the Lebanese authorities to crack down on this growing trade in drugs,

How can they, when Hezbollah is such a significant part of the government itself?

and they should join law enforcement agencies around the world to fight it. Otherwise, economic ruin would be the wages of negligence, not to mention a serious addiction problem.

Economic ruin for Lebanon, yes, but not for Hezbollah, which is all Hezbollah cares about.

Posted by Fred 2021-06-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [18 views ] Top
File under: Hezbollah

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