WASHINGTON - Iran is increasing its presence in Latin America, and Hezbollah, a terrorist organization it sponsors, is making inroads in drug trafficking in Colombia, the commander of U.S. Southern Command told Congress today. Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis told the House Armed Services Committee he shares concerns expressed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates about Iranian activity in Central and South America. Iran has opened six embassies in the region during the past five years and is...

The commander of U.S. forces in Latin America says the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is involved in drug trafficking in Colombia. The admiral is worried about increased Iranian and Hezbollah activities throughout the region. At Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday Admiral James Stavridis accused Hezbollah of involvement in the drug trade. "We have seen in Colombia a direct connection between Hezbollah activity and the narco-trafficking activity," he...

The United States is stepping up scrutiny of Iranian security and military personnel in the Lebanese communities of Latin America, even as its proxy, Hezbollah, gains new momentum and strength there, U.S. officials said. Part of Hezbollah's alarming expansion is being fueled by narco-dollars coming from Latin American drug cartels, and American concern stems from the possibility that al-Qaida and Hezbollah, both of which have contacts with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Senators Tuesday that although much attention was given to Russia's recent courting of some Latin American countries, he is more concerned about new activities of Iran in the region. Secretary Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee he is worried about efforts by the Iranian government to gain influence in Latin America. "I'm concerned about the level of, frankly, subversive activity the Iranians are carrying on in a number of...

Israeli concern about Teheran's inroads into Latin America emerged at a meeting Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held with her visiting El Salvadoran counterpart on Tuesday, during which she warned that South America was fast becoming a platform for spreading Iranian ideology. Iran is searching for openings, and countries it can penetrate, to compensate for the vulnerability created by the [economic] sanctions [against it]," Livni told Marisol Argueta de Barillas. "We are witness to...

U.S. officials have warned of a real danger Islamist extremists could form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist attacks against the United States. According to recent remarks made by Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Charles Allen, at a two-day conference hosted by SOUTHCOM and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA); “The threat of ties between criminal...

In a Friday sermon that aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV on April 11, 2008, Yunis Al-Astal, Hamas MP and cleric, told worshipers that Rome, "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam, just as Constantinople was. It then, he said, would become "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe." The following are...

Given by Yahya Juan Suquillo, the Imam of the Islamic Center in Ecuador at the Fourth Annual Conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Curacao. Sponsored by I.S.E.S.C.O. (Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) & O.L.P.A.D.I. (Organización Latinoamericana para la Difusión del Islam). FOREWORD Before the end of the second millennium CE, most scientists and thinkers in the western world have began to question their assumptions about the theory of...