The first institute for the training of imams and preachers in all of Latin America is set to open its doors beginning in March 2009. The Latin American Institute for Islamic Studies is located in the city of Maringa in the northern state of Parana, will not simply be the first of its kind in Brazil, but a first for Latin American Muslims. The institute will focus on teaching Islamic studies, training imams, and have a 12-member teaching stuff. It is expected to enroll some 150-250 high...

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...

Brazilian authorities on Tuesday gave approval for the sale of 100 missiles to Pakistan which can be used in air-to-surface attacks on radar tracking instalations, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said. The MAR-1 medium-range missiles made by the Brazilian firm Mectron are tactical anti-radiation weapons whose existence was kept under wraps for many years, according to Jane's Information Group. Jobim called them "very effective ways to monitor" areas flown by war planes, and said the...

“Iran affords South America major priority in its foreign policy and Brazil enjoys a special position in this respect,” Mottaki stated in Tehran on Saturday. He made the remark in a meeting with his Brazilian counterpart Celso Amorim. As to Brazil's international positions, the Iranian foreign minister said that Tehran and Brasilia generally share the same interests in numerous global matters which can be used as potential for bilateral consultations. Amorim, for his...

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...

The German newspaper "Die Welt" reported last month that Venezuela is becoming a safehaven for Islamic terrorists. The close friendship between the leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and his Iranian colleague Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline Muslim radical, resulted into ever closer cooperation between the two countries. Western intelligence services have reason to believe that Iran's fundamentalist regime is sending terrorists and Muslim radicals to an increasing number...

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...

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Islamic terrorist groups have networks in Latin America and the Caribbean and could use the region as a base to launch attacks on the United States, the senior U.S. military commander for the region says. “For sure, members, facilitators, and sympathizers of Islamic terrorist organizations are present in our hemisphere,” Adm. Jim Stavridis, head of the U.S. Southern Command, wrote in an article in the fall edition of Americas Quarterly journal, obtained by...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay -- For years, this region -- where the boundaries of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina converge -- has been considered a teeming stew of globalization's more unseemly byproducts. Much of the trade that crosses the borders, officials say, is illegitimate. The region is full of smuggled goods and laundered money. Now U.S. officials are launching a broad series of new measures aimed at uncovering money-laundering rings that they believe are funding Hezbollah and other...