A Region Prone to Political Extremism

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Following the U.S. killing of Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, in January, might Iran retaliate by striking at targets in South America? Despite COVID-19, which has forced a reduction in funding terror, Tehran continues to make mischief around the world.

Local Arab communities living in the remote border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay known as the Triple Frontier have helped Hamas and Hezbollah carry out terrorist operations, particularly in Argentina, in the past.

The Suleimani strike is reminiscent of Israel’s targeted assassination of Hezbollah co-founder, and then-secretary-general, Abbas Musawi, in February 1992.

Iran responded by targeting Israeli and local Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires, with its Hezbollah proxy involved in the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in March 1992 and the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in July 1994.

These strikes were massive and devastating, killing over 100 civilians and wounding several hundred more.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Triple Frontier region, already associated with money-laundering and drug trafficking, has been seen as a sanctuary for Islamist terrorists, who are said to thrive in the anarchic atmosphere created by porous borders and the constant interchange of people, goods, and capital.

Substantial Arab communities in Foz de Iguaçu on the Brazilian side and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay have been the targets of police investigations, harassment, and deportation.

The FBI, CIA, Treasury Department, and Pentagon, and possibly Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, have been involved with local intelligence gathering and aided anti-terror task forces.

Hezbollah has taken advantage of the frustrations of many Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1975 Lebanese civil war.

Argentine security forces identified Sheik Mounir Fadel, spiritual leader of Ciudad del Este's main mosque, as a senior Hezbollah member.

In April 2002, Washington named the Triple Frontier region, with its thriving Arab community of 25,000, as an area where there is “terrorist activity,” and declared that at least two groups, Hezbollah and Hamas, operated there.

A counter-terrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group described the border area in 2007 as “the most important base for Hezbollah outside Lebanon itself.”

Since mid-2019, a number of Latin American countries have branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization. In July 2019, Argentina was the first to do so, followed by Paraguay the following month. Brazil may soon follow.

“At present, Hezbollah continues to represent a current threat to security and the integrity of the economic and financial order of the Argentine Republic,” stated Buenos Aires.

The Paraguayan government, which also branded Palestinian militant group Hamas a terror organization, explained that the designations highlighted their commitment to “preventing and combating violent extremism.”

One of the odder geographic quirks to be found in South America is Argentina’s province of Misiones, the country’s northerly protrusion between Brazil and Paraguay in the Triple Frontier.

In the Misiones town of Puerto Iguazu, you can see three different countries at the same time. The place where the Iguazu River joins the Parana River serves to separate Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Originally home to the Guarani people, the area was dramatically altered by the initial arrival of Jesuit missionaries and later migrants from Europe as well as by contested territorial claims.

Although Argentinean sovereignty was eventually secured, a unique Misiones identity developed, shaped by the region’s remoteness, its tropical landscapes, and the constant circulation of people across the adjacent borders.

Given its history, geography, and exposure to two other nations, Misiones’s vulnerability, which derives from the province’s geographic situation and unusual shape, has given its inhabitants their own particular identity. 

Jesuit priests ruled the territory from 1609 to 1767, but after the Jesuits were expelled, the area returned to wilderness.

In the late nineteenth century, Argentina would restore social order, and European colonial settlers would repopulate the area. Argentina consolidated its sovereignty over Misiones with the conclusion of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870), in which Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina defeated Paraguay.

Misiones assumed the role of a frontier region, which it remains to this day. It is a perfect place for terrorism, sleeper cells, organized crime, and illicit activities to flourish.