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by
Judith Bergman • May 8, 2018 at 5:00 am
- Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif went on a tour of six Latin
American nations in 2016. This diplomatic effort resulted in,
among other things, access to the use of Venezuelan territory to
advance Iran's solid rocket-fuel production.
- Culturally,
Iran has helped Hezbollah establish itself as the dominant force
among Shia Muslim communities throughout Latin America, and has
taken control of their mosques, schools and cultural institutions.
- In
2012, there were 32 Iranian cultural centers across Latin America,
to facilitate the spread of the Iranian Islamic revolution; today,
less than a decade later, the number of centers has grown to more
than 100.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
(left) meets with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on August 27,
2016 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Image source: Euronews video screenshot)
Iran and Hezbollah have been operating in Latin America
since the 1980s, effectively undisturbed. During this time, Iran and
its proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah, have been Islamizing
Latin America, seemingly to create a forward base of operations for the
Islamic Republic in the backyard of the United States.
No Latin American country has designated Hezbollah a
terrorist organization: Hezbollah can operate with relative impunity
there. In April 2017, a Hezbollah operative, Mohamad Hamdar, arrested
in Peru, was acquitted of all terrorism-related charges. The Peruvian
court found that Hamdar's role within Hezbollah was in itself
insufficient to consider him a terrorist[1]. This legal vacuum
regarding Hezbollah might also be why Islamic terrorism,
drug-trafficking and organized crime in the region is frequently
underestimated.
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