Hizballah Goes on Trial in Peru

In October 2014, Peruvian police in Lima arrested a Lebanese Hizballah operative named Mohammed Hamdar; their subsequent investigation led them to believe he was there to plan a major terrorist attack. Hamdar’s trial is still under way, but Ilan Berman argues that it could be a turning point in the battle against Islamist terrorist organizations in Latin America:

Latin America has long been notorious as a permissive operating environment for an array of local radical groups. But the region’s empty political spaces have, likewise, afforded foreign terrorists fertile soil in which to take root. In some cases, this intrusion has been made possible by widespread corruption and a lack of effective governance. In others, however, [certain] regimes—including Venezuela and several other “Bolivarian” nations—have ignored or even abetted the activities of extremist elements from the Middle East [for ideological reasons].

Arguably, the most prominent of these is the terrorist powerhouse Hizballah, which has maintained an active presence in South America. It has done so since the 1980s, when, with Iran’s assistance, it established a beachhead in the Tri-Border Region where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay intersect. Since then, Hizballah has succeeded in building an extensive network of operations in the Americas—encompassing a wide range of illicit activities and criminal enterprises, from drug trafficking to recruitment to fundraising to militant training. Over time, Hizballah has been joined by other terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda and even Islamic State (IS). . . .

Such freedom of action is possible largely because of the region’s lack of robust counterterrorism laws. Simply put, the countries of Latin America currently lack a standard legal framework that criminalizes and blacklists foreign terrorist organizations in the same way that the United States does. . . .

Hamdar could change all that. If the prosecution succeeds in securing a guilty verdict, it would be tantamount to a criminalization of Hamdar’s membership in Hizballah—a milestone in a region that currently lacks any such legal precedent. The local effects would be immediate, empowering Peruvian authorities to track down and unravel the network of operatives and supporters that Hizballah has erected throughout the country. But a conviction would likewise send a powerful signal to Hizballah and other groups now active in the region that their activities in Latin America can no longer be considered cost-free.

Read more at Ilan Berman

More about: Hizballah, Iran, Latin America, Politics & Current Affairs, Terrorism

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF