Hezbollah poses
the most immediate international terrorist danger, Israeli experts said
at a conference that drew top U.S. officials. The Institute
for Counter-Terrorism, an independent think tank comprising former
top Israeli security officials, ran a workshop Wednesday at the Israeli Embassy in Washington on changing strategies in combating terrorism. Hezbollah, an
Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group, posed the most immediate
danger even though its last attack outside the Middle East was in
Argentina in 1994, the experts said. Hezbollah’s legal and illegal
operations in more than 40 countries, including the United States and
Canada, “can transfer in a short time from the criminal arena to the
terrorist arena,” said Eitan Azani, the institute’s expert on the
organization. “It can carry out an attack in a short time.” A likely
trigger for a Hezbollah attack would be a Western attack on Iran to
stop its suspected nuclear weapons program, institute experts agreed. Top U.S. counter-terrorism
officials attended the conference.
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