The Journal of International Security Affairs | Venezuela: Anatomy of a Dictator

VENEZUELA’s NEWEST IMPORT: ISLAMIST TERROR CELLS

While America soldiers are busy fighting terrorist insurgencies in the Middle East and Central Asia, a new threat has arisen closer to home.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has provided safe haven, false documents in aid to Islamist terror cells bent on attacking America. General James Hills, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, pointed to the popular tourist destination Venezuelan Margarita Island as its primary strong hold. Reports suggest there is a presence of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Gama’a Islamiya, using the Island as a staging ground to gain a foot hold in the Western Hemisphere.

Security experts suggest that this is part of Chavez’s anti-American campaign. Islamists share his ideological distaste for America. By engaging them and aiding them, they join his foreign legion. To help leverage his strong hold and project his reach, Chavez his joined by the ranks of Cuban Intelligence officials, ELN and FARC—Marxist guerilla’s the US his currently fighting in Colombia in their anti-drug campaign Plan Colombia.

“Chávez has also emerged as a staunch ally of America’s greatest Middle Eastern adversary, Iran, and as a supporter of terrorists seeking to harm regional stability and the United States.,” writes Dr. Luis Fleischman, an advisor to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

“As these moves indicate, Venezuela today is fast emerging as the most dangerous player in the Western Hemisphere. If it is successful in its efforts, the regime in Caracas could become one of the greatest strategic challenges facing the United States in the years ahead.”

A vast terrorist network exists in Latin American and the Caribbean, from Margarita Island in the North of Venezuela to Panama.

It's important that US Counterterror officials are cognizant of this network,before its too late.