Does Hezbollah have cells ready to launch terror-strikes in the U.S. if we attack Iran?

[BrainGlutton]

This thread on Obama supporting the Syrian rebels got kinda hijacked – see this post – by a theory that Hezbollah (which supports Assad) has cells in the U.S. poised to strike if we piss them off, or if the U.S. or Israel attacks nuclear facilities in Iran, or if Iran orders it. FinnAgain treats this as an established fact, citing this story from the Jerusalem Post, which cites this report from the House Committee on Homeland Security. See here for committee proceedings and testimony.

Seems kind of authoritative. However: The report seems to shade the difference between Hezbollah “donors” and “operatives” – it even speaks of “fundraising cells,” a phrase I have never encountered before anywhere. That committee is chaired by Rep. Peter T. King, who is, putting it mildly, not a credible figure, especially on this kind of subject. Some of the testimony came from Matt Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which is an AIPAC sock, and AIPAC is definitely not credible on this kind of subject. And when I Google “hezbollah cells in the united states,” the only hits I get seem to come from nonsources like WND and Family Security Matters.

Is there any other verification? More to the point, are there any Hezbollah terror cells?

[fiddlesticks]

Did the IRA’s old fund raising cells in Boston and NY and elsewhere ever launch any operations in the US? Seems like “fund raising cells” would be a long way from “operational” cells in terms of the skills required of the people involved.

I would think that Hezbollah would be more worried about “losing Syria” than “discouraging” US support for Free Syria folks by pulling off terrorist ops in the US. If their fund raising cells here are critically important to their operation as an organization, one would think they would not want to draw undue attention.

[doorhinge]

There are always loners and losers who believe a single attack will turn the U.S. into a nation of cowards. Ain’t gonna happen. If Hezbollah, or any other terrorist group, prepares to attack us inside the U.S., then it should be made very clear to Hezbollah et al that they will be hunted down, captured and imprisoned, or exterminated. Meaningless threats are meaningless. Actual threats should be delt with harshly.

[Marley23]

If there were solid evidence of this, wouldn’t it already be dealt with through etiher FBI operations, CIA business in Iran, or both?

[FinnAgain]

Your lack of comprehensiveness on matters that are important, coupled with your focus on King and your desire to slime Levitt with your AIPAC Controls His Statements Conspiracy Theory is, unfortunately, not surprising. What also isn’t surprising is you didn’t actually read the thread or its citations.

@BrainGlutton

And when I Google hezbollah cells in the united states, the only hits I get seem to come from nonsources like WND and Family Security Matters.

Is there any other verification?

Can’t say enough about reading a thread you’re posting in before rushing off to start a new one and ranting about how we can’t trust anybody who’ in a thinktank AIPAC started. Ironically, you somehow missed this post with a sizeable block quote from MSNBC (funny, you could only find WND and such…). Since you evidently didn’t read the thread that spawned this OP, I’ll provide you with that quote yet again, I’ll even underline so you don’t have to read much.

Iranian-inspired surveillance missions in the United States have been scattered over a period of years. But, when combined with a handful of recent attacks or plots around the world, they have contributed to an assessment within the U.S. government that considerable violence directed against U.S. targets - at overseas installations or businesses, or at American soil - could follow any strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, along with private experts, say there is little doubt Hezbollah has an extensive network of supporters, fund-raisers and potential operatives in the United States.
[…]
One factor heightening U.S. officials’ concern about Hezbollah-related attacks is the accumulation of accounts of alleged attempts by Iranian operatives to case potential U.S. targets.

According to a New York law enforcement source, there have been several notable incidents of this nature involving individuals who turned out to be accredited to Iran’s U.N. mission.

In a 2003 incident, New York police patrolmen observed a group of men videotaping the tracks out of the front window of a subway train traveling between Queens and Manhattan at 2 a.m. The Iranians were arrested, but later released after they produced diplomatic credentials. The law enforcement source said they were asked to leave the country.

In a 2006 incident, the captain of a sightseeing boat became suspicious after a group of Iranians taking his cruise along the East River broke into two smaller groups and started snapping pictures of the undersides of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. The six men all turned out to be covered by diplomatic immunity, the law enforcement source said.

In September 2008, three more Iranians with diplomatic status were observed taking pictures of rail tracks going into Grand Central Station that are not routinely accessible to members of the public.

And in a 2010 incident, security personnel at a heliport near Wall Street observed a group of men who claimed to be affiliated with an Iranian broadcasting network taking pictures of the framework supporting the heliport deck which was cantilevered over the river.

A federal official said that similar surveillance incidents had been reported in other cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Targets under observation included nuclear power plants, tunnels and casinos.

Of course, the same post you didn’t see includes a direct like to Swecker’s testimony about a Hezbollah cell he broke up and Clapper’s findings. on whether or not Iran would authorize strikes within the US.

This case is significant because of the breathtaking sophistication, scope and organizational depth of this group, their military training and the ease of which they manipulated the US financialsystem.
[…]
• Members built up an arsenal of weapons and trained to keep up their skills.
• Some of the members were active Hezbollah militia with extensive military
training.
[…]
One insidious aspect of the cell was its potential lethal nature. During the course of the trial, Charlotte Hezbollah cell ring leader Mohammed Hammoud wrote a letter from jail to an associate soliciting assistance in assassinating the lead Prosecutor and using explosives to blow up the federal courthouse and destroy the evidence against the cell. In the letter, which was introduced at his sentencing hearing, Hammoud wrote His assignment is to put bullets in the head of the arrogant (expletive deleted) prosecutor or to annihilate with explosives the evidence against us.
Photos were located during the searches of cell members showing Hammoud and another cell member with assault weapons training at an apparently remote outdoor location near Charlotte, NC. Other photos of another cell member, Mohamed Darwiche, in full militia gear armed with a rocket launcher and mounted machine gun were located and introduced at trial. One photo showed a teenage Hammoud posing with an assault rifle in front of a photo of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini titled Mohammed at the Hezbollah Center. One chilling video showed a room full of over forty (40) men outfitted in suicide vests passing in review labeled Matyr’s squad (sic). Hezbollah propaganda video tapes were found where Hezbollah members could be heard chanting “death to America, death to Israel. Another photo of concern depicted Hammoud and Darwiche posing in front of the White House.
Finally there was a communication between cell member and the Lebanon based Hezbollah procurement official Hassan Laquis that mentioned a willingness to do anything you or the father want me to do, and I mean anything . Mr. Chairman, I think that statement sums up the threat. The Charlotte cell had the infrastructure, discipline, financing, motivation and inspiration to be more than a cell involved in criminal activities and terrorist financing. The case illustrates the formidable capabilities of such cells and it would not strain credibility to think that Charlotte, NC cell was typical. They were in direct contact with the highest leadership of Hezbollah including leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of the organization. Evidence was introduced at trial that Charlotte members followed the teachings of Sheik Mohammed Fadlallah the mastermind behind the US Embassy Hostage crisis in 1980 and whose last act before he died in 2010 was to issue a fatwa authorizing the use of suicide bomb attacks.

The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas. Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime.

And, naturally, your attempt to slime Levitt as some sort of Zionist pawn is disgusting but unfortunately not unexpected. This is the man whose reputation you’re trying to assassinate based on nothing more than your CT.

Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He is also a professorial lecturer in international relations and strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2005 to early 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior official within the department’s terrorism and financial intelligence branch and as deputy chief of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, one of sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies coordinated under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. During his tenure at Treasury, Dr. Levitt played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. In 2008-2009, he served as a State Department counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security (SEMERS), General James L. Jones.
From 2001 to 2005, Dr. Levitt served the Institute as founding director of its Terrorism Research Program (now renamed as above), which was established in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Previously, he served as a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. During his FBI service, Dr. Levitt participated as a team member in a number of crisis situations, including the terrorist threat surrounding the turn of the millennium and the September 11 attacks. He has earned numerous awards and commendations for his government service at both the FBI and the Treasury Department.
Dr. Levitt holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yeshiva University, as well as a master’s degree in law and diplomacy and a doctorate from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was a graduate research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation, and has taught at both Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Levitt has served as an expert witness in several criminal and civil cases, lectured on international terrorism on behalf of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, consulted for various U.S. government agencies and private industry, and testified before the Senate and House on matters relating to international terrorism. He had held fellowships with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Homeland Security Policy Institute at the George Washington University, is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as a member of the international advisory board for both the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel and the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research in Singapore.
Dr. Levitt has written extensively on terrorism, countering violent extremism, illicit finance and sanctions, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, with articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals, policy magazines, and the press, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and numerous other publications. He is also a frequent guest on the national and international media, and the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006); Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); and the forthcoming Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown University Press)

So you didn’t read the thread, didn’t read the cites, started a completely new thread where you’re mostly focusing on attacking the character of people rather than the facts at issue, and included some disgusting nonsense about how we can’t trust a man if his think tank was founded by AIPAC. Par for the course, Glutton.

[BrainGlutton]

@fiddlesticks

Did the IRA’s old fund raising cells in Boston and NY and elsewhere ever launch any operations in the US?

[shrug] Ask Rep. King, he should know.

[FinnAgain]

Yeah, you should keep focusing on the personality of Peter King.
Obviously that will make the facts go away.

Hey, wanna play Spot the Zionist Patsy? You already went first with Levitt, so it’s my turn. Wolf Blitzer: dude worked for AIPAC and so now we can’t trust anything he reports on, as he’s a member of the Zionist Plot. Okay, your turn, who else should we ignore?

[newcomer]

@BrainGlutton

(…) citing this story from the Jerusalem Post, which cites this report from the House Committee on Homeland Security. See here for committee proceedings and testimony.

Seems kind of authoritative.

Let’s count BS words used by the “authority” on the subject:

“A common view”,
“many in law enforcement and intelligence assumed”,
“Counterterrorism officials consider”,
“There is general consensus”,
“some officials estimate”.

What is this? CNN’s news report? And we are supposed to drink this up just because it was written (ordered?) by Peter King?

And the best one is at the end:

“Some were quietly convicted of fraud and deported as criminal aliens without their Hezbollah background being publicly disclosed by prosecutors,”

Really? REALLY!?

This is rather pathetic is all I have to say.

Now, onto the subject.

I’m sure US officials do have a plan and monitoring in place even if they are not really sure who the actual operatives are.

I’m just not sure that this would be a good strategy in case of any conflict as just one single case on US soil would be responded 100-fold onto Iran.

On the other hand, to have an operative on US soil with a plan would require a little bit more of organizing power and network that in the current height of monitoring hysteria would be quite a luxury. In other words, this time would be the worst time for it.

That it amplifies drums of war goes without saying, regardless true or false.

[FinnAgain]

@newcomer

And we are supposed to drink this up just because it was written (ordered?) by Peter King?

Reading threads you post in which don’t even have a dozen posts in them yet: evidently optional.

[straight_man]

Looking through the testimony, it seems pretty weak-sauce. They present evidence that Hezbollah does fundraising in North America, and that a couple of the people sent to the US to raise funds were legitimate terrorist operatives. The (explicitly stated) assumption is that fundraising networks can become active terrorist cells (quickly, no less) — but if anything, the fact that these guys were having to work with non-Islamic-terrorism-related organized crime should indicate the opposite. And the nearest thing to a Hezbollah terrorist plot in the US — trying to have a prosecutor murdered — seems to have been an appeal that was never met (in fact, quite the opposite).

IOW, it doesn’t seem like something the average Joe should be scared about.

[FinnAgain]

@straight_man

And the nearest thing to a Hezbollah terrorist plot in the US — trying to have a prosecutor murdered — seems to have been an appeal that was never met (in fact, quite the opposite).

The appeal was never met because the letter was intercepted. As for how quickly a Hezbollah cell could engage in acts of terrorism? Tell me, about how many hours would it take you to buy, say, a propane cylinder? Does that normally require months of preparation, or merely someone with a few dollars in their pocket and a willingness to walk into a public place while holding a lighter? Do you think, if trained Hezbollah operatives saw fit, they couldn’t create home made explosives with a timer, if no ‘martyrs’ were handy? Do you think that the Beltway Sniper was somehow in possession of special abilities that any schmo with a rifle couldn’t replicate fairly easily?

“Sure there are Hezbollah cells here, but trust us, they probably won’t do anything bad.” is not a stunningly persuasive claim, epecially as we go about removing one of their two allies in the Middle East and admitted to attacking Iran’s nuclear program to boot.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

They just may have the power to stick a needle in us and make us say ouch! Maybe?

[FinnAgain]

As a nation, they do not present an existential threat to us. Of course, if you happen to be in a group of people murdered by Hezbollah, whether or not they’ve done existential damage to the republic is, perhaps, not the question your family will be most concerned with.

Meanwhile, we have people advocating that the US intervene in Syria, risking US security in the process. As per standard rules for how the game is played on this message board, we should be accusing them of being Syria Firsters, looking at people with Syrian/Arab ancestry in the government for signs of Dual Loyalty and looking for ties to the Oil Lobby. Yes?

[straight_man]

@FinnAgain

Do you think, if trained Hezbollah operatives saw fit, they couldn’t create home made explosives with a timer, if no ‘martyrs’ were handy? Do you think that the Beltway Sniper was somehow in possession of special abilities that any schmo with a rifle couldn’t replicate fairly easily?

Two things. First, you need trained Hezbollah operatives, and the testimonies, despite being the one side, made it clear that those are pretty darned rare. Second, obviously we want the FBI to keep on top of domestic crazies, but terrible as the Beltway Snipers are, we’re suddenly talking about something on par with (in fact far less than) the regular, non-terrorist violence in the US. If anything, the criminal fundraising schemes are a bigger problem for their own sake than for who’s around here doing them. So no, it’s not something that a regular Joe should be very worried about. Nor should it influence America’s foreign outlook much, beyond that the US would presumably respond to breaches of its sovereignty.

ETA: good catch on the Charlotte attack thing.

[TriPolar]

The Hezbollah sleeper cells must be hiding in the same place the Al Qaeda sleeper cells have been holed up for over a decade. I assume it’s so secure that even they can’t find it.

[FinnAgain]

@straight_man

Two things. First, you need trained Hezbollah operatives, and the testimonies, despite being the one side, made it clear that those are pretty darned rare.

Not all that rare, no. And that’s only for exotic bomb making. Hell McVeigh managed to create a fertilizer bomb on the cheap, and it’s highly unlikely that Hezbollah couldn’t give operatives a PDF explaining ‘this is how you build a fertilizer bomb’, or some such. And yes, something like the Beltway Sniper has the potential to sow fear and uncertainty without doing serious damage. Someone like a McVeigh has the ability to take a significant amount of life and do a lot of damage without being an existential threat.

@straight_man

So no, it’s not something that a regular Joe should be very worried about. Nor should it influence America’s foreign outlook much, beyond that the US would presumably respond to breaches of its sovereignty.

The worry is not that Hezbollah will conquer the United States, but that by publicly taking credit for attacking Iran’s nuclear program with Stuxnet and now publicly taking credit for helping to overthrow Assad, Hezbollah’s second most important ally and munitions pipeline, the US is unnecessarily exposing its citizens to risk. Stuxnet was a brilliant idea. Leaking it was awful. Covertly helping oppose Assad is rather well supported by a calculus of political considerations. Overtly doing the same, less so.

Even on 9/11, Mr. Regular Joe had nothing to fear. Hezbollah has displayed a willingness to hit US military targets and Jewish civilian targets even when not threatened, at all. That we should dismiss the possibility that they could launch retaliatory strikes given our recent twin public admissions is, however, unsupported by precedent and our current state of knowledge. In point of fact, intelligence analysts have long said that an attack on Iran’s nuclear program might very well be all the justification Hezbollah needed. We just publicly declared that we were the ones who attacked Iran’s nuclear program.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@FinnAgain

Yeah, you should keep focusing on the personality of Peter King.
Obviously that will make the facts go away.

Hey, wanna play Spot the Zionist Patsy? You already went first with Levitt, so it’s my turn. Wolf Blitzer: dude worked for AIPAC and so now we can’t trust anything he reports on, as he’s a member of the Zionist Plot. Okay, your turn, who else should we ignore?

Most Jewish Americans label themselves Zionists and have visited Israel at least once so they should not be trusted when discussing Israel.

Obviously exceptions are made for those who explicitly define themselves as non-Zionists, such as Norman Finkelstein.

[FinnAgain]

Ah, well played. Here Glutton and I have been plinking but you got out some ordinance. Good show.

Back on a serious note, I think this bears repeating. This is the man who Glutton tells us we simply cannot trust since he works for a think tank which was founded by AIPAC.

Matthew Levitt is […] a professorial lecturer in international relations and strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies […] From 2005 to early 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior official within the department’s terrorism and financial intelligence branch and as deputy chief of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis […]In 2008-2009, he served as a State Department counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security (SEMERS), General James L. Jones. […] he served as a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation […] has earned numerous awards and commendations for his government service at both the FBI and the Treasury Department.
[…]
He was a graduate research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation, and has taught at both Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. […] lectured on international terrorism on behalf of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, consulted for various U.S. government agencies and private industry, and testified before the Senate and House on matters relating to international terrorism. He had held fellowships with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Homeland Security Policy Institute at the George Washington University, is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as a member of the international advisory board for both the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel and the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research in Singapore.

So we have Levitt (Intelligence analyst, adviser, Harvard research fellow, commended FBI/Treasury employee, etc…) vs BrainGlutton (anonymous SDMB poster), and we are to discard Levitt as a source because, Glutton tell us, AIPAC can’t be trusted and as the implication goes, Levitt must be a Zionist patsy since his think tank was founded by AIPAC. Or as Glutton tells it, it’s merely a “sock” for AIPAC.

Who to trust, who to trust?
Hrm… I know how to settle this. Glutton, have you ever lectured on international terrorism on behalf of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, or Homeland Security? Maybe you’ve served as an intelligence analyst? Surely you’ve been a research fellow at Harvard or taught at somewhere like Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies? Surely your entire attempt to discredit Levitt doesn’t boil down to an accusation that he’s a Zionist pawn and can’t be trusted?

… right?

[BrainGlutton]

@FinnAgain

Do you think that the Beltway Sniper was somehow in possession of special abilities that any schmo with a rifle couldn’t replicate fairly easily?

No, but I don’t think he ranked as much of a terrorist-threat. Serial killers never do; not spectacular enough.

[RedFury]

@Ibn_Warraq

Most Jewish Americans label themselves Zionists and have visited Israel at least once so they should not be trusted when discussing Israel.

Obviously exceptions are made for those who explicitly define themselves as non-Zionists, such as Norman Finkelstein.

Perfect example of misplaced sarcasm. Thank you.