Hezbollah Is Here

[thedrifter]

Hezbollah Is Here
By Michelle Malkin
July 19, 2006

Sheeple thought of the day: "Hezbollah is not my problem."

You think Hezbollah is only Israel's headache? Wake up. Iranian Hezbollah's spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli's threat on Tuesday to dispatch 2,000 operatives "to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests" is more than just idle Islamic heavy breathing.

The Jew-hating terrorists of Hezbollah who call themselves the "party of God" are already here. In America. Plotting attacks. Raising money. Slipping through the cracks.

In May, the New York Post reported on Hezbollah's plans to activate sleeper cells in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Detroit as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up. One focal point: "the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, where there have already been three episodes in the last four years in which diplomats and security guards have been expelled for casing and photographing New York City subways and other potential targets." Heightened alert comes in the wake of reports that Iranian crackpot president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Hezbollah leaders in Syria earlier this year.

Four years ago, I reported on how information-sharing walls between federal immigration and law enforcement agencies created a path to citizenship for at least one known Hezbollah member. He walked through our figurative front door. The then-assistant district director for INS investigations in New York City and two FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) officials were placed on administrative leave when the bungle was discovered.

Sources informed me the unidentified Middle Eastern male -- now a fellow American -- appeared on terrorist watch lists and is a member of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. Despite numerous calls from adjudicators in Newark, N.J., handling the alleged terrorist's naturalization case, the FBI and INS reportedly did not respond to requests to turn over the individual's "alien file." The A-file includes biographical and status information and investigative data. It is unclear why INS and the JTTF did not turn over the file, or why the New York office neglected to order the adjudications branch in Newark to put the naturalization process on hold.

Why did INS adjudicators in Newark proceed without viewing the alleged terrorist's file? Adjudicators to this day remain under intense pressure to meet naturalization "quotas." Job-performance ratings and cash bonuses are based on the number of naturalization approvals processed. It's standard operating procedure.

Hezbollah has also enlisted the aid of gullible American women to ease their way into the country.

Jessica Yolanda Fortune hooked up with Lebanon-born Chawki Youssef Hammoud in 1994. The marriage enabled him to obtain a green card -- and the cover to operate a Charlotte, N.C.-based cell that smuggled cigarettes to raise cash for Hezbollah. The terror cell reportedly answered to a senior Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon and was part of a broader North American network responsible for also obtaining dual-use technologies for Hezbollah -- including goggles, global positioning systems, stun guns, naval equipment, nitrogen cutters and laser range finders.

Fortune was convicted of marriage fraud in October 2001. Hammoud was convicted of smuggling, credit-card fraud, money laundering and racketeering in June 2002. Fortune's brother-in-law, Mohammed Hammoud, married three different American women. After arriving in the United States on a counterfeit visa, being ordered deported and filing an appeal, he wed Sabina Edwards to gain a green card. INS officials refused to award him legal status after this first marriage was deemed bogus in 1994.

He then married Jessica Wedel in May 1997, and while still wed to her, paid Angela Tsioumas to marry him in Detroit. Tsioumas entered a plea agreement in March 2002 on charges of conspiracy. Her "husband" was convicted on 16 counts that included providing material support to Hezbollah. A total of 25 people connected to the ring were nabbed.

Does the name "Hammoud" sound familiar? Earlier this month, the FBI announced the capture of Assem Hammoud -- also a Lebanese-born Muslim like the members of the cigarette-smuggling Hammoud gang. He is suspected of working for al Qaeda on a plot to blow up PATH train tunnels between New Jersey and lower Manhattan with a team of suicide bombers. The 1998 terrorism indictment of Osama bin Laden notes al Qaeda's forged alliances "with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah." Together, they've killed American servicemen and civilians around the world.

Not in your backyard? Think again.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Our Common Enemy
By Linda Chavez
July 20, 2006

Hezbollah is not just an enemy of Israel, it is an enemy of the United States. Before al Qaeda entered America's consciousness, Hezbollah was our chief enemy among terrorist organizations. For more than 20 years, Hezbollah has been shedding the blood of Americans. In 1983, Hezbollah killed 241 Marines as they slept in their barracks in Beirut. Hezbollah is also believed to be responsible for the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 members of the U.S. Air Force. Hezbollah has also kidnapped American diplomats and hijacked TWA flight 847 in 1985.

But Hezbollah does not act alone. It is now, and has always been, the murderous proxy of Iran. All of which makes the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel of enormous significance in the War on Terror. Iran is to Hezbollah what Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was to al Qaeda. It is difficult to imagine eliminating the threat of terrorism from such murderous organizations without regime change in the countries that sponsor their acts. We understood this when we decided to invade Afghanistan after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. Yet neither Israel nor the United States is ready to take on Iran directly, even as Iran moves closer to developing nuclear weapons.

In some ways, the violence occurring in Lebanon and Israel is a distraction from the larger problem of what to do about Iran. Hezbollah's assault on Israel came at the very time that the United Nations Security Council, with the acquiescence of the United States, was trying to sweet-talk Iran out of pursuing its nuclear program. But despite significant incentives -- including the possibility of lifting of U.S. sanctions against the sale of commercial aircraft, agricultural equipment and communications technology in place since Iran took Americans hostage in 1979 -- Iran has balked at giving up its nuclear ambitions. This should tell us something: Carrots won't work.

There are no easy answers to what to do about Iran. It has been a thorn in our side for almost 30 years, but with nuclear weapons it will be almost unimaginably worse. Does anyone doubt that Iran would use such weapons, directly or indirectly through its proxies such as Hezbollah? At the very least, these weapons could be used to blackmail Iran's enemies, especially Israel. Iran has already supplied Hezbollah with hundreds of conventionally armed rockets that have showered down on Israeli cities over the last week. These weapons are far more sophisticated and deadly than those fired into Israel in the past.

One thing is clear: We should have no illusions that terrorist organizations can be defeated so long as their state sponsors go unpunished. Israel may be successful in dealing Hezbollah a major blow in Lebanon -- though even that victory is by no means assured if the international community begins to exert pressure on Israel to stop its bombing before it has achieved its military objectives. But Iran, Syria and any other nations that fund, harbor and arm terrorists must be held accountable if we are to win the War on Terror.

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and now a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has said it best: "Iran is our enemy. This is our war. Israel is doing our heavy-lifting."

The United States should not only stand with Israel in this fight against our common enemy but should walk away from any deals with Iran that would allow them to pursue their nuclear program under any circumstances. We should have learned long ago that there is no negotiating with terrorists. The conflict in Lebanon may give us some breathing room to rethink our Iran strategy. As tragic as the deaths of innocent civilians may be in this war, they will not have died in vain if Iran can be stopped from building nuclear weapons.

Ellie