The Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah is just as “just as dangerous and just as close” as the Islamic State terror group, a senior State Department official warned Tuesday.
“Despite its name, Hezbollah operates within many of our own borders and far from the Middle East,” Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan told delegates at the Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial in Washington, DC.
Sullivan pointed to Hezbollah terror attacks in the 1990s in Argentina as examples. He also noted that Brazil arrested a Hezbollah financier in September, and in 2016 Paraguay arrested a Hezbollah operative smuggling cocaine. “In June 2017, the FBI arrested two Hezbollah operatives in the United States,” Sullivan added.