FBI warns of revenge attacks by Hezbollah
State and local law enforcement receive an intelligence bulletin to watch for potential retaliation by the Lebanese militia group, which has vowed to avenge the death of its leader.
WASHINGTON — The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin today to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
"While retaliation in the U.S. homeland is unlikely, Hezbollah has demonstrated a capability to respond outside the Middle East to similar events in the past," according to the "intelligence bulletin" that was sent to about 18,000 state and local law enforcement officials late this afternoon.
FBI officials also said they were ramping up their own domestic intelligence-gathering efforts to identify and neutralize any potential Hezbollah threats in the United States in the aftermath of Tuesday's car-bomb assassination of Imad Mugniyah in Syria.
On Wednesday, the FBI quietly sent a confidential internal bulletin to its 101 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country warning of the possible domestic consequences of Mugniyah's killing. As part of that effort, FBI officials at headquarters told the bureau's field offices and multiagency task forces to increase monitoring and surveillance of suspected Hezbollah operatives and to conduct fresh interviews with sources and informants about the U.S.-designated terrorist group, according to two FBI officials.
U.S. authorities have long described Hezbollah as the "A Team" of terrorism, with far more discipline than Al Qaeda, vast financing from the government of Iran and a global network of sleeper operatives that could be called upon to launch an attack at any time. Various federal investigations and prosecutions have uncovered dozens of Hezbollah fundraisers and other supporters in the United States, but few people are believed to be actual "bomb-throwers," according to a senior FBI counter-terrorism official who focuses on Hezbollah.
So far, the FBI and DHS have found no specific threats to targets in the United States, according to the intelligence bulletin. But the FBI officials said that such precautionary measures were warranted because of Mugniyah's stature within Hezbollah, and because the organization and its Iranian supporters had publicly blamed his death on Israel and "Zionist forces."
