It has been widely known for some time that Hezbollah has been funded by Iran, but that they also have members and supporters in the U.S.  Some of these supporters have worked hard at raising monies for Hezbollah.  But the presence of Hezbollah cells in the U.S. goes far beyond financial resourcing of the main Hezbollah forces in souther Lebanon.  A Washington Times Editorial from May 20, 2005 notes that:

Although the organization has yet to launch an attack on U.S. soil, its U.S. activities are far from benign. Its work in this country has two major purposes: One is to raise money and smuggle arms to Hezbollah fighters, often by criminal activities ranging from credit-card fraud to cigarette smuggling; and the other is to conduct surveillance behind enemy lines, with a possible eye toward launching attacks on U.S. targets in the event of an armed conflict between the United States and Tehran. Like his backers in Iran, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah routinely denounces the United States and Israel as his organization’s main enemies. Given the events of September 11, and given Hezbollah’s own record of kidnapping, torturing and killing Americans when it has had the opportunity, we ignore the group’s operations in this country at our peril. 

This admonition is especially salient as we face off the Iranians over potential nuclear weapons.  Lest we think that since Hezbollah’s primary enemy is Israel they are not also focused on the U.S., Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has some words for us:

“The people of the region will receive [America] with rifles, blood, arms, martyrdom and martyrdom operations,” Nasrallah said in a speech delivered a week before the war began. His remarks were broadcast on Al Manar, the group’s Beirut-based satellite television station.“In the past, when the Marines were in Beirut, we screamed, ‘Death to America!’ ” Nasrallah said. “Today, when the region is being filled with hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, ‘Death to America!’ was, is and will stay our slogan.”

As to their capability, funding, training and motivation, no one should doubt that they are capable of much more than Al Qaida has been able to perpetrate thus far.

Many terrorism analysts and experts rate Hezbollah as the best organized and most competant Islamist terrorist organization in the world.  With an annual budget of likely well over $100 million coming from Iran, Syria and its criminal organzations in the West, it boasts more than 25,000 men under arms.  Having pushed Israel out of its security zone in southern Lebanon and the American and French peacekeepers our of Beirut, they are arguably the most successful terrorist organization of the modern era.

The events of 9/11 actually were somewhat of a thorn in the side of Hezbollah, causing focus on terrorism — including Hezbollah — when Nasrallah would rather have had the opportunity to prepare for his jihad without the pot being stirred up by Al Qaida.  His positon is:

Let the entire world hear me.  Our hostility to the great Satan [American] is absolute … regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, “Death to America” will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan.  Death to America!

At least seven Hezbollah operations have been uncovered by the FBI and State Department (see here).  There are even Hezbollah operations in Latin America, and a Mexican smuggling ring that specializes in getting new terrorists across the border.

Now we learn yesterday — July 15 — the following information from the London Times:

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

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Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists� list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit� because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks� of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably� been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

Make no mistake about it.  Ahmadinejad is preening and strutting, and he is confident.  He and Hezbollah have put their plans into place for years.  While we opened our borders and allowed anyone to come in, anyone has indeed come in.  There are at least ten Hezbollah cells operating in the U.S., now with orders to retaliate should the U.S. take a military stand on Iranian nuclear weapons.  The Hezbollah cells are likely far more potent than their Al Qaida counterparts were prior to 9/11.

The kidnappings of the Israeli soldiers and the subsequent escalations in the middle east were timed exactly to coincide with the G8 summit and consideration of sanctions on Iran.  Iran is laying the gauntlet down.  The choice, according to them, is between: (a) give us our nuclear weapons and missiles, or (b) we will launch terror strikes into the very heart of America.

Are we ready?