Hezbollah eyeing terror strikes

THE terrorist threat from Hezbollah is at its highest level for 20 years, US security officials have warned, as the European Union mulled the option of listing the group as a terrorist organisation.

Western intelligence agencies believe that the Lebanese group is now more active overseas than at any time since the early 1990s, with attacks planned on Israeli and American tourists.

The warning follows Tuesday’s report from Bulgaria that blamed members of Hezbollah’s military wing for the bomb attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in the Black Sea resort of Burgas last July. Five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed, along with one of the bombers.

Funded and armed by Iran, with ties to international drug cartels and crime syndicates in Mexico and West Africa, Hezbollah has expanded its overseas operations.

Hezbollah and Iranian agents have been implicated in recent plots in Cyprus, India, Thailand, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Egypt and South Africa. All were foiled or unsuccessful but the range of targets underscores the group’s renewed ambition.

“We are seeing a new scale to Hezbollah’s operations overseas that we have not seen,” a US State Department official said. “The group has had an international presence for a long time, but now it has near-global reach.”