http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/08/13/venezuela-as-iranian-terror-route-worries-us.html
“Venezuela as Iranian Terror Route Worries US”
Aug 13, 2012
Houston Chronicle| by Stewart M. Powell
WASHINGTON
SNIPPET: “”There’s pretty much of a general consensus within the intelligence community that Iranian-backed cells providing financial support to Hezbollah could easily convert to operational cells and light up the place,” says U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, a Republican whose district stretches from Austin to Houston.”
SNIPPET: “McCaul said Hezbollah is fundraising with impunity in the tri-border area surrounded by Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where some 30,000 Lebanese expatriates and immigrants live among a population of 800,000.
He said enterprising businesses there are being required to tithe as much as 2 percent of gross revenues to the Lebanon-based terrorist organization.”
SNIPPET: “Congressional investigators working for the GOP majority estimate there are now “at least hundreds of Hezbollah operatives” in the U.S., said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.”
SNIPPET: “But the State Department’s annual report on terrorism concluded “there were no known operational cells of either al-Qaida or Hezbollah in the hemisphere.””