A man whom the U.S. Treasury Department has been designated as an operative of the terrorist organization Hizbullah apparently has moved from Syria to Venezuela in recent days in support of the violent repression of the Venezuelan government against student protesters . Ghazi Atef Nassereddine was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2008 to provide financial and logistical support to Hezbollah.
Sources and documents Nassereddine corroborate the role of Hezbollah as a representative to the Venezuelan regime and as a close associate of President Nicolas Maduro. In recent years , it has been passed as a diplomat assigned to Venezuela embassy in Damascus , where he has used his position to facilitate travel and visas for many people from the Middle East to Venezuela . From that position , he had extraordinary access to senior Syrian security officials who have made war on the opponents of the Assad regime .
Two witnesses have also told me that Nassereddine was key to obtaining the approval of Maduro in establishing money laundering schemes through Hezbollah Venezuelan entities . A plan involved the transfer of Syrian oil through a refinery operated by Venezuela in the Caribbean to evade international sanctions. These agreements have provided huge profits for corrupt representatives Maduro regime and Hezbollah.
As part of the anti -US radical agenda of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan regime has encouraged and even financed the presence and activities of Hezbollah and Iran in the Western Hemisphere . The regime is now turning to these allies and facing a crisis fueled by a virtual bankruptcy, an alarming inflation, high levels of crime, widespread shortages of food and medicine , and recently , student demonstrations against the regime of Maduro in major cities.
A very dangerous operation that has responded to this call is Ghazi Nassereddine , who was born in 1971 in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil , the Israelis considered , " The capital of Hezbollah. " Parents Ghazi emigrated to Venezuela , where he acquired citizenship shortly after Chavez took office . As I said in my testimony before the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism in July 2011 , " [ Ghazi Nassereddine ] , together with at least two of his brothers , manages a network that raises , lava money, recruits and trains operators to expand Hezbollah's influence in Venezuela and throughout Latin America. " His brother Oday , is an activist in the so-called " Bolivarian Circles , "one of the groups that received paramilitary training to defend Chavez .
Ghazi Nassereddine seems to have returned to Venezuela to help the regime in its struggle to maintain power and silence the protesters who oppose the criminal regime Nicolas Maduro. On February 19 Ghazi sent a tweet from Caracas asserting, " supports the measures taken by the government [against the opposition ] " and where government action classifies as "patients and humanists. "
Nassereddine 's return to Venezuela shows that regime knows it is in a fight for survival and prepared to use violence. Paramilitaries have been recorded beating and shooting indiscriminately into the crowd of student protesters . It is notable that a Hezbollah operative Nassereddine prominence is part of that crackdown .
In recent years , various politicians and experts in the region have documented the presence of Hezbollah in the hemisphere - although the State Department continues to minimize the threat.
Hezbollah can you be among those who commit acts of terror and violence against protesters Venezuelans would be a dramatic demonstration of the operational capacity of the group in the Americas.
The State Department is reportedly " considering" action to take in response to the violence and the expulsion this week of three American diplomats in Caracas. Beyond the diplomatic decision taken , the national security agencies of the United States should direct additional resources to check and counteract the participation of Hezbollah terrorists who commit acts of violence on the streets of Venezuela .
