The Iranian-backed terrorist group Hizballah enjoys an extensive network throughout Latin America, mainly consisting of contacts and operatives in various Lebanese diaspora communities. These it uses both to raise funds and to carry out attacks, such as the 1993 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the murderous bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in the same city the next year. Emanuele Ottolenghi describes the organization’s activities in the region, and outlines how the U.S. can combat them:

Over time, [Hizballah has] bought political influence among local elites, built alliances with organized crime, and offered financial services to both. As a result, today Latin America is a key center for Hizballah’s increasingly sophisticated global financial network.

The Trump administration should disrupt Hizballah’s Latin American sources of revenue by targeting its operatives and their businesses with a sustained sanctions campaign; it should strengthen the Drug Enforcement Administration’ efforts to try Hizballah operatives involved in drug trafficking; and it should punish local elites who facilitate Hizballah’s continuing presence in the region. . . .

Next, the continuing business activities of individuals and entities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury occur because local governments are either reluctant to implement these sanctions or actively cooperate with the terrorists. The administration should demand that they either comply or face consequences. These should include . . . designating banking sectors of countries that facilitate Hizballah’s terror-finance as zones of primary money-laundering concern, working within international forums like the Financial Action Task Force to have such countries blacklisted, denying implicated politicians visas to the U.S., and making them personae non gratae in Washington.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.