German Intelligence Supports Claim of Hizballah Cell Activation

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

On Sunday, I discussed a Jerusalem Post report claiming that Hizballah sleeper cells outside Lebanon had been put on standby. While I noted the plausibility of this claim, I cautioned that it seemed the Jerusalem Post had no source to which it could be attributed.

The evidence begins to build today, as Adnkronos International reports: "'Sleeper' cells belonging to militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah are present in Western Europe, Latin America and in southeast Asia and been ordered to be ready to carry out terrorist attacks should Israel prolong its military offensive against Lebanon, according to unnamed German intelligence sources." While "unnamed German intelligence sources" isn't ideal confirmation, Germany is known to have decent intelligence assets in the Middle East.

There have been a number of CT Blog posts on Hizballah's massive international terrorist network. In particular, Zachary Abuza's post about Hizballah activity in Southeast Asia and Brian Hecht's reference guide to Hizballah activity in North America are worth reading.

Two major considerations may keep Hizballah from authorizing these cells to carry out attacks. The first is that Hizballah is depending on world opinion to draw Israel out of Lebanon, thus allowing the terrorist outfit to live to fight another day. As Bill Roggio notes, "Diplomatic pressure for Israel to halt operations and accept a cease fire will only increase as time goes by. The United States can deflect the pressure for only so long." But if Hizballah unleashes terror attacks against Israeli targets elsewhere in the world, the pressure against Israel may substantially diminish. A second consideration is Iran, Hizballah's major sponsor. Iran almost certainly wants to keep as many sleeper cells as possible in place to serve as a deterrent against a possible U.S. attack on its nuclear program. In Iran's view, unleashing the sleeper cells now may be premature.

If Hizballah does launch an attack in the present environment, the U.S. is one of the less likely places for it to do so. Europe is a more likely target for a number of reasons. Most prominent is Europe's coordination problem. If Hizballah attacks a synagogue in Oklahoma, every state in the Union will instantly clamp down on suspected Hizballah activity. But if Hizballah bombs a synagogue in Italy, that doesn't necessarily mean that the various countries comprising the EU will uniformly clamp down on Hizballah.

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