Déjà Vu: Terrorism's strange bed-fellows

According to World Net Daily, when Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Damascus in January, he took a special guest with him on the flight from Tehran – one of the world's most wanted terrorists. Imad Mugniyah

Intelligence experts have told the London Times Ahmadinejad has recruited Imad Mugniyah, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah's overseas operations, to oversee retaliation against Western targets if the U.S. orders a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. World Net Daily reported that Mugniyah and the Iranian President Ahmadinejad met with other leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus in what has been called a "terror summit." Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas all have carried out attacks on Israel and Israelis over the years. Link to World Net Daily article, Ahmadinejad recruits Hezbollah terror chief

And, Ahmadinejad has regularly "threatened to "wipe Israel off the map."

Lets take a trip down memory lane in terrorism in the Middle East in regards to Mugniyah: Do you rememeber Mohammed Hamadi? Hamadi was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome. The hijacked plane landed in Beirut, Lebanon, where hijackers beat, shot and killed 23 year old United States Navy Petty Officer Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac. Stethem was the only casualty during the hijacking ordeal, in which 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. Hamadi was paroled to Lebannon in November 2005, much to the dismay of the United States.

Now lets recall Mohammed's brother Abbas. Abbas, was arrested in Germany in 1987 and charged with helping to kidnap two German businessmen in a bid to use them as bargaining chips for Mohammed Hamadi's freedom. Abbas Hamadi was released in 1993 after serving half of his sentence. At the time, German news media reported, that he was let go as part of a deal between the German government and Hezbollah to release two other Germans held hostage in Lebanon. Guess who was the Hezbollah Security Chief at the time, Imad Fayex Mugniyah.

Both of the Hamadi boys are linked to Mugniyah. And it looks like the Hezbollah Security Chief has a new buddy, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here is some background that was posted in previous artiles in The Bosun Locker about Mugniyah; a terrorist who has been active on the terrorism circuit for the past 20 years:

According to Laura Mansfield's Notebook, America's Truth Forum, there appears to be striking similarities between Mugniyah's terrorism for the past 20 years with the practices of the present-day terrorists in Iraq. It is quite possible that the Hezbollah terror syndicate in the middle east is closely related.

Mugniyah allegedly has been tied to kidnappings and bombings throughout the world over the past two decades, including the following:

▪ April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, which killed 63
people including 17 Americans
▪ October 23, 1983 simultaneous truck bombings against the French paratroopers and US Marine killing 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines.
▪ September 20, 1984, he attacked the US embassy annex building and is believed to have killed William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut
▪ Linked to the numerous kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut through the 1980s – some were killed, some by beheading, and a few were eventually released.
▪ Orchestrated the 2000 abductions of three Israeli soldiers in the southern part of Lebanon
▪ Abduction of Israeli Colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum.

And he has been active in the western hemisphere, too.

▪ March 17, 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires Argentina, which killed 29
▪ July 1994 bombing of the AMIA cultural building in in Buenos Aires Argentina, killing 86 people Source: Laura Mansfield

It would be fair to say that these terrorists are brothers for the cause and may be part of a larger crime and terror synidcate. There is still so much intrigue in the Middle East, who knows who is doing what to whom over there. The real kicker to the Hezbollah and radicalized islam story is that they are also established in South America.

In 2002, Jeffrey Goldberg, reporter-at-large for The New Yorker magazine did an interesting 2- part article, "IN THE PARTY OF GOD" about Hezbollah operations in South America and the United States:

• Part 1 - Are terrorists in Lebanon preparing for a larger war?
• Part 2 - Hezbollah sets up operations in South America and the United States

You gotta read these articles which provide open source information by Jeffery Goldberg who went into the bush in both the Middle East and South America where the bad guys live. Here is a brief quote from his article in The New Yorker:

"Roughly two hundred thousand people live in the Ciudad del Este region, including a substantial minority of Arab Muslims; in the Triple Frontier zone, there may be as many as thirty thousand. According to intelligence officials in the region and in Washington, this Muslim community has in its midst a hard core of terrorists, many of them associated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group backed by the Iranian government; some with Hamas, the Palestinian fundamentalist group; and some with Al Qaeda. It is, over all, a community under the influence of extreme Islamic beliefs; intelligence officials told me that some of the Triple Frontier Arabs held celebrations on September 11th of last year and also on the anniversary this year. These officials said that Hezbollah runs weekend training camps on farms cut out of the rain forest of the Triple Frontier. In at least one of these camps, in the remote jungle terrain near Foz do Iguaçu, young adults get weapons training and children are indoctrinated in Hezbollah ideology—a mixture of anti-American and anti-Jewish views inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah raises money from legitimate businesses but, more frequently, from illicit activities, ranging from drug smuggling to the pirating of compact disks. Unlike the other radical Islamic groups in the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah, it is said, has the capability to commit acts of terror."

Keep in mind that Part 2 of the series takes place in South America, not the Middle East.

Now we potentially have Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveling to Damascus in January, with a special guest, Mugniyah – one of the world's most wanted terrorists.

Be ever vigilant.

Technorati tags: Hezbollah, Germans, hostage, Laura Mansfield's Notebook, Iraq, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jeffrey Goldberg, Ahmadinejad, Damascus, Mugniyah, terror summit, journalists, Opinion