MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US denounces Hezbollah's presence in Chile to seek funding

In June this year, Argentina's Security Minister Patricia Bullrich had to apologize to the Chilean government for mentioning Hezbollah's presence with no corroborating evidence

The US State Department said this week that the Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah had been operating in Chile and other Latin American countries to obtain funding for its activities in a report that also mentioned Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, dissidents of the defunct FARC and Peru's Shining Path as the biggest threats in the region.

“Terrorism remained a security concern for some countries in various parts of Latin America in 2023,” the State Department detailed in its annual terrorism report. The ELN, FARC dissidents - Ivan Marquez's Second Marquetalia and Ivan Mordisco's Central General Staff - as well as Shining Path, remained “the most significant terrorist threats in the region” last year, the document also pointed out. FARC and ELN dissidents continued to “commit acts of terrorism in Colombia and Venezuela,” including bombings, kidnappings, and attacks against civilian infrastructure and military and police facilities, it went on.

The State Department reckoned there had been “significant advances” in the fight against terrorism but claimed that corruption, weak government institutions, or lack of resources prevented further progress. The Iran-backed Islamist group has ramifications in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Panama, and Peru, the document also noted. “In 2023, Brazilian authorities disrupted Hezbollah's attempt to attack the Jewish community and exposed the organization's recruitment efforts in Brazil,” Washington claimed.

In June this year, Argentina's Security Minister Patricia Bullrich ended up apologizing before the Chilean administration of President Gabriel Boric Font for calling out Hezbollah's presence in the Chilean port of Iquique. Bullrich told Interior Minister Carolina Tohá over the telephone that her comments had been made when analyzing the regional scenario and with no animosity toward Chile. “It seems to me that it is tremendously important that the authorities be responsible in their statements and affirmations,” said Boric back then.

“Argentina has suffered two attacks and is in an area where there is an active presence of two” terrorist forces, one directly linked to Tehran and the other -Hezbollah- a close ally of the Iranian regime, Bullrich argued. The official also claimed some of this organization's operatives had been spotted on the triple border of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, while others had “been seen lately in Iquique, in the north of Chile.” The minister also said two of these terrorists had been arrested last year in Sao Paulo and a few weeks ago, Hezbollah agents were detected in Peru.

In response, Chile's Interior and Security Minister Carolina Tohá demanded Bullrich hand over the information she allegedly had to be properly dealt with. In Tohá's view, Bullrich should not randomly give away that information “without proving anything at all.”

Earlier this month, the Iranian citizen Alí Basheri was deported from the United States to Chile where he was sought for entering the country with a false passport.

On April 30, 2023, British Airways workers noticed that the British passports presented by two passengers on a flight between Santiago and London were reported stolen.

Chilean Police Basheri (who said he was a welder) and Abolfazl Delkhahfar, 23 (who said he was a hairdresser). The two Iranian nationals had embarked on a suspicious journey including flights between Tehran, Moscow, Caracas, and Panama City. They were detained when trying to fly back to Europe.

Basheri and Delkhahfar were placed under house arrest and declared that their residence was the Iranian Embassy in Santiago. On July 19, Basheri, however, reported a change of address to El Olimpo 857, in the commune of Maipú. This building had in the past been linked to Hezbollah, according to Chilean media.

In September 2023, neither defendant showed up for the subsequent hearings. In June this year, law enforcement officers were told by the neighbors that the suspect had not “lived in the property for a year.”