Islamic terrorist cells spread out from the Middle East across Europe, Africa, Central Asia, and North America. However, South America has been identified as a region ripe for the cultivation of Islamist terrorist cells. South America has a significant Islamic population. While many are descendants of enslaved converts, the Islamic presence on the continent is primarily the product of immigration. The influx of Muslim immigrants over the last century has mainly been the product of political upheaval. Many fled during the early years of Indian partition, others fled from Lebanon and Palestine.
It is estimated that Argentina, for example, is home to over half a million Muslims. It also houses the largest Jewish population South America, approximately two-hundred-thousand. In 1994, a Jewish community centre was bombed, killing more than 85 people. In 1999 an arrest warrant was issued against Hezbollah member Imad Mugniyah in connection with the attack. It was alleged that Hezbollah organised the operation from across the border in Paraguay.
Of particular concern is the so-called tri-border region. A concentrated Islamic population is flourishing in the area of South America where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. It is noted that both Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are believed to have spent time in the tri-border region during the 1990s. FrontPage reports that literature on the tri-border region had been found in caves used by Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. However, the activities carried out in the region by those linked with Islamic terrorism are believed to revolve around “laundering money and conducting arms-for-drugs deals with Latin American terrorist organizations,” according to author Rachel Ehrenfeld’s 2003 book, “Funding Evil”.
A 2006 report by Christopher A. Cruz, a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, suggested that Islamic terrorist cells had the potential to thrive due to the growing wave of anti-Americanism on the continent, coupled with its loose borders, rampant organized criminal gangs, general lawlessness, and corrupt political institutions and officials. Since that report, the bond of Anti-Americanism has created an alliance between Venezuela and Iran. This presents a concern for US policy makers as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has expressed support for Columbian terrorists FARC and Iran has a long history of supporting extremist organisations. Hezbollah, for instance, has firm Iranian roots and the Iranian government has been accused of being among its chief financers and endorsers.
The US has strained relationships with many of the countries involved and is overstretched militarily and diplomatically to push this issue. Hense, overt measures to combat the rise in Islamic terrorist activity in South America are hard to sense. One avenue of combating any potential upsurge in Islamic militancy in South America has been a by-product of Spain’s anti-terrorism laws, which have forbidden Spanish satellite company Hispasat from relaying the television station Al-Manar, the Hizbollah propaganda station that is broadcast out of Lebanon. Hipasat’s South American subsidiary, Hisamar, subsequently stopped retransmission of the channel.
The only questions that remains are: a) How the issue of Islamic terrorist activity in the region will be confronted head-on by the relevant authorities, and b) What pressure the US can exert to have concerns dealt with? With the South American authorities already overstretched and under-funded, and their governments’ wariness of US involvement in their region, the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.
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