Venezuela likely to cut ties with Israel
What is a nominally Catholic Communist doing supporting Hezbollah?
There is far more going on below the surface then just a simple religious war.
I don't deny your "any port in a storm" connections. I still reject out of hand that the terrorists in the Middle-East are communist. They may get technology from Russia. They may get moral support and training, mainly from the cold war erra on the training, but I still say they are first and foremost Muslims. I do not support the theory that they are avowed Communists.
As for South America, I am not as unwilling to entertain a communist idiology there. Manuel Noriego, the terrorist insurgents in El Salvador and now Venezuela are acceptable examples.
It may be that some of the same operatives do raise their heads in the Middle-East from time to time. I think Yasser Arafat was joined at the hip with Syrian, Lybian and other sympathizers. Did that make him first and foremost a Communist? Absoutely not.
Thanks for the comments.