As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it might do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics-from engaging in da'wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, to simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement-have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S. According to a 2010 report, "Close to home:...

Iran poses one of three major threats to democracy in Latin America, along with drug cartels and the danger of U.S. disengagement from the region, House Speaker John Boehner said. Boehner said today that when he went to Latin America in January, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also in the region visiting Venezuela and Cuba. The U.S. State Department has designated Iran and Cuba as state sponsors of terrorism, and has criticized Venezuela under leader Hugo Chavez for human rights...

809533 Ahmadinejad visits Venezuela in January 2012, seen here in the company of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. Details Background Information 1. Since Ahmadinejad was elected president in August 2005, Iran has extended and solidified its relations with several Latin American countries, especially Venezuela and Bolivia, and increased its efforts to obtain a political foothold in the others. According to findings brought before the American Senate Foreign Relations...

Challenges to U.S. international broadcasting and public diplomacy continue to mount. Iran, joining China and Russia, also nourishes ambitions as a global power and is moving forward with soft-power advances in Latin America. (Not that there is anything “soft” about Iranian soft power.) Part of the explanation is that Iran is desperate to boost its image and economy as it faces broader sanctions and a potential European oil embargo. Iran may also be focusing its propaganda efforts...

Iran and Middle East-based extremist groups are stepping up their activities in South America, aiming to make friends and score cash, a senior U.S. military official says.

Latin America rarely comes up as a major issue in U.S. presidential races, but this time it will: There are growing signs that Iran's rising presence in the region will become a contentious election topic. Republican hopeful Mitt Romney and leading Republicans in Congress are stepping up their attacks on President Barack Obama for allegedly not doing enough to stop what they see as Iran's intention to use Latin America as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against the United States. The...

Now that it is known that Iran is moving ever closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon, the United States is targeting sanctions against the Iranian Central Bank. Likewise, the European Union is moving in the direction of imposing an effective oil embargo on Iran. These sanctions are apparently having a more dire effect on Iran’s economy as evidenced by their threat to close the Straits of Hormuz. If anything the Iranian government’s animus towards the West and towards the U.S and...

Iran is quietly seeking to expand its ties with Latin America in what U.S. officials and regional experts say is an effort to circumvent economic sanctions and gain access to much-needed markets and raw materials. The new diplomatic offensive, which comes amid rising tensions with Washington and European powers, includes a four-nation swing through South and Central America this month by . His government has vowed to increase its economic, political and military influence in the United...

Press stories, as well as a television documentary, over the past two months have detailed the growing cooperation between South American drug traffickers and Middle Eastern terrorists, proving that the United States continues to ignore the mounting terrorist threat in its own “backyard” of Latin America at its own peril. A greater portion of financing for Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, is coming from Latin America, while they are also setting up...

Sebastian Rotella has a story out for ProPublica with the blockbuster headline "Government Says Hezbollah Profits From U.S. Cocaine Market Via Link to Mexican Cartel". Does that mean Hezbollah is running blow across the border on behalf of the cartels? Perhaps to an extent. But it appears based on the story that the main link is more via money laundering than drug smuggling per se. So how does that work? Why would a Mexican drug cartel selling cocain to North America want to...