IPT: Hezbollah Presence in Mexico is More Significant than Previously Thought

According to a report from the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Hezbollah is working with Mexican drug cartels much more closely than previously thought.

Via IPT:

A series of recent law enforcement actions indicates the depth of Iranian-tied criminal activity in Mexico may be greater than previously known.

In October, a Texas-car salesman was arrested in connection with an Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington. Prosecutors say officials in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps believed they were dealing with a "large and sophisticated" Mexican drug cartel to carry out the hit. A $100,000 down payment on the hit shows the Iranians were comfortable dealing with the cartel representative, who in fact was a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant.

Earlier this month, prosecutors in Virginia unsealed an indictment charging a Lebanese man, Ayman Joumaa, with smuggling more than 100 tons of Colombian cocaine with the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel. Hizballah, an Iranian proxy in Lebanon, "derived financial support from the criminal activities of Joumaa's network," the U.S. Treasury Department claimed earlier this year.

These cases are symptoms of a much larger problem the Obama administration seems more interested facilitating than it does in addressing:

The growing nexus between Hizballah and Mexican drug cartels allows the Iran-backed extremist group to make use of drug cartel transit routes to gain entry into the United States through its porous border with Mexico. Hizballah, in turn, offers Mexican syndicates expertise on smuggling and explosives as well as access to its drug trafficking networks in the Middle East and South Asia. 

Iran-backed Hizballah and Mexican drug syndicates share "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts," former DEA operations chief Michael Braun told the Washington Times. "They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another they're all connected." 

Braun also alleged that members of Iran's Quds Force are "commanding and controlling" Hizballah's criminal operations in Latin America.

This adds an entirely new angle to both the immigration debate and the Fast and Furious scandal. Whomever is responsible for signing off on the gun-walking operation that sent thousands of guns to Mexico's drug cartels should have to deal with an entirely new set of charges - aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States.

Earlier this month, a Federal Judge in New York City signed an order stating that Iran and Hezbollah were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, along with al-Qaeda.

From the Declaration of Independence:

He (King George) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

I'd say Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartels qualify as 'savages.'

h/t Doug Ross