Authors: Matthew Levitt
91.
Alireza Nourizadeh, “Imad Mughniyeh: Hezbollah’s Phantom Killed,”
Al Sharq al Awsat
, February 15, 2008.
92.
Gordon and Filkins, “Hezbollah Said to Help.”
93.
“Hezbollah-Israeli Fight Stirs Shiite-Sunni Issues,”
Seattle Times
, July 22, 2006.
94.
Gordon and Filkins, “Hezbollah Said to Help.”
95.
Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, “Hezbollah Said to Train Shiite Militiamen in Iraq,” Associated Press, July 1, 2008.
96.
Gordon and Filkins, “Hezbollah Said to Help.”
97.
Niles Lathem, “House of Jihad,”
New York Post
, February 5, 2007.
98.
Knights, “Evolution of Iran’s Special Groups in Iraq.”
99.
Latif and Sands, “Mehdi Fighters.”
100.
Iraqi Shi’a resented and distrusted their Iranian sponsors and trainers. Hezbollah compensated for Iran’s shortcomings. See Harmony document IR 012, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 69.
101.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
102.
Hendawi and Abdul-Zahra, “Hezbollah Said to Train.”
103.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
104.
Harmony document IR 011, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 66.
105.
Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 56–57.
106.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
107.
Harmony document IR 007, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 57–58.
108.
Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 59.
109.
Statement of Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr.,
Iran’s Military Power
; press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
110.
Harmony document IR001, in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 63.
111.
Quote from MNF-I debriefing, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 64.
112.
Harmony document IR002, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 64.
113.
Harmony documents IR009, IR016, IR013, and IR011, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 63.
114.
Statements of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker,
Situation in Iraq
.
115.
Harmony documents IR004, IR014, IR020, IR002, IR-016, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 66.
116.
Harmony document IR014, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 68.
117.
Harmony documents IR001, IR005, cited in footnote 61 in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 69.
118.
Statement of Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr.,
Iran’s Military Power
.
119.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
120.
Statements of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker,
Situation in Iraq
.
121.
Hendawi and Abdul-Zahra, “Hezbollah Said to Train.”
122.
Statements of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker,
Situation in Iraq
.
123.
Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran, Congressionally Directed Action, April 2010, 3.
124.
Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department, “Hizballah External Security Organisation,” May 16, 2009.
125.
Harmony document IR 005, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq,” 69–70.
126.
Urban,
Task Force Black
, 214.
127.
Damien Cave, “Gunmen in Police Uniforms Kidnap 5 British Civilians,”
New York Times
, May 30, 2007. In an interesting twist, the finance minister at the time was himself a senior SCIRI official and a former Badr Corps commander.
128.
Duncan Gardham, “Hizbollah ‘Planned Kidnap of British Workers in Iraq,’”
Telegraph
(London), July 2, 2008.
129.
Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O’Kane, Guy Grandjean, “Revealed: Hand of Iran Behind Britons’ Baghdad Kidnapping,”
Guardian
(London), December 30, 2009.
130.
Ibid.
131.
Deborah Haynes, “Peter Moore Went for a Job—and Ended Up as a Hostage for 946 Days,”
Times
(London), December 30, 2009.
132.
Stephen Jones, “The UK Government’s Decision to Proscribe the Military Wing of Hezbollah,” Standard Note SN/IA/4791, International Affairs and Defence Section, House of Commons Library, July 10, 2008; Alexander Horne, “The Terrorism Act 2000: Proscribed Organisations,” Standard Note SN/HA/00815, Home Affairs Section, House of Commons Library, December 7, 2011.
133.
Author interview with former White House official, Washington, DC, January 26, 2012.
134.
Urban,
Task Force Black
, 224.
135.
Ibid., 222.
136.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner; US Military Commission Charge Sheet for Ali Musa Daqduq al Musawi, ISN Number 311933, January 3, 2012; Urban,
Task Force Black
, 224–25.
137.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
138.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: False Identification Documents,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
139.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
140.
Universal Strategy Group,
Directed Study of Lebanese Hezbollah
, produced for the United States Special Operations Command, Research and Analysis Division, October 2010, 38; Daniel Byman,
A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 262.
141.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: False Identification Documents,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
142.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
143.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: Translated Excerpt from Personal Journal,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
144.
Urban,
Task Force Black
, 225; “Attacks on “Palace” in Basrah,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
145.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: Translated Excerpt from Personal Journal,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
146.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: Translated Excerpt from Training Manual He Carried,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
147.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
148.
Michael R. Gordon and Andrew W. Lehren, “Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militants,”
New York Times
, October 22, 2010.
149.
US Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Individuals and Entities Fueling Violence in Iraq,” September 16, 2008.
150.
Carrie Johnson, “As Iraq Hostilities End, Fate of Combatant Unclear,”
NPR
, November 15, 2011; David B. Rivkin Jr. and Charles D. Stimson, “Obama and the Hezbollah Terrorist,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 7, 2011.
151.
US Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Individuals and Entities Fueling Violence in Iraq.”
152.
“Ali Musa Daqduq: Documents Found in His Possession,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
153.
Charlie Savage, “Prisoner in Iraq Tied to Hezbollah Faces U.S. Military Charges,”
New York Times
, February 23, 2012.
154.
US Military Commission Charge Sheet for Ali Musa Daqduq al Musawi, ISN Number 311933, January 3, 2012.
155.
Laura Jakes, “Hezbollah Commander Could Be Transferred in Days,” Associated Press, July 20, 2011.
156.
US Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Hizballah Commander Responsible for American Deaths in Iraq,” November 19, 2012; Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, “Iraq Frees Hezbollah Commander who Helped Mold Shia Terror Groups,”
Long War Journal
, November 16, 2012.
157.
Press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
158.
US Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Sanctions Five Individuals Tied to Iranian Plot to Assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States,” October 11, 2011.
Hezbollah’s Criminal Enterprise in America
IN THE SPRING OF
2012,
the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism office in Detroit told an audience at the local Jewish community center that while he knew of no specific Hezbollah threat to Jewish communities in metropolitan Detroit, he remained concerned about potential and “general” threats in the area, from Hezbollah and other violent extremists. “The Iranian issue … that is a huge deal,” he said. “Their use of the proxy group Hezbollah—these are things we’re very concerned about.”
1
But while Detroit has seen its share of trained Hezbollah gunslingers pass through town, the vast majority of Hezbollah cases in Detroit and around the country revolve around financial and logistical support for Hezbollah through criminal enterprise.
“Hezbollah acts like a basic crime organization here in the United States,” explained a former head of the FBI’s Iran-Hezbollah unit.
2
Employing an “Al Capone” disruption model—getting the bad guys on whatever legitimate charges will most easily stick—can be an extremely effective means of disrupting terrorist activity. In fact, the vast majority of cases targeting Hezbollah supporters in the United States have been prosecuted in just such a fashion, without any mention of the group.
This was the strategy behind several Dearborn-based investigations that morphed into Operation Bathwater, a major case aimed at disrupting Hezbollah activities by focusing on the group’s broad array of criminal schemes. While some bit players involved in the Hezbollah support network were caught up in the investigation, the FBI focused on the higher-level figures. “Some Hezbollah supporters [in the United States] are not actual members, they are just useful idiots who want to be associated with a glorious cause but don’t need or want to know more,” explained the former FBI unit chief.
3
Operation Bathwater was predicated on information developed in January 1999 by US Secret Service agents assigned to the Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).
4
Investigating a series of financial crimes, the agents stumbled onto what proved to be not only the largest credit card fraud scheme in the country at the time but also a Hezbollah fundraising enterprise. The scheme dated back to 1994, though authorities would become aware of it only in November 1998, when an off-duty
Toledo police officer moonlighting as a department store security guard arrested Nancy Paulino, a single mother from New York, for trying to purchase $1,600 in clothes with a counterfeit Visa credit card. A couple of days later, another New Yorker named Jose Diaz Jr. traveled to Toledo to post bond for Ms. Paulino’s release and was himself arrested on outstanding theft warrants from Wisconsin. The two suspects quickly conceded their roles as shoppers in an elaborate credit card scam run out of Toledo by Dearborn resident Ali Nasrallah.
5
What police officers and federal agents learned from their investigation amazed them. In 1994, Ali Nasrallah, then living in New York, approached Diaz with a business proposition: Nasrallah would provide Diaz with fraudulent credit cards and counterfeit identification to match, and Diaz would recruit shoppers—like Ms. Paulino—who would use the cards to buy electronic equipment for Nasrallah. In return, the shoppers would be paid 5 percent of the purchase price for the items they bought. Nasrallah’s organization later expanded beyond New York, first to Florida and then to Michigan.
6
Diaz walked federal agents through Nasrallah’s scheme. In an effort to “keep the heat away from where he lived,” Nasrallah used Toledo as his base of operations, away from his Dearborn home but close enough to make regular trips down Interstate 75.
7
Diaz would meet Nasrallah at a Knights Inn or an Olive Garden restaurant to pick up counterfeit credit cards and plan shopping trips. The shoppers, often single mothers from New York, drove across the country buying laptops in places like Oklahoma City; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Jackson, Mississippi. The laptops were then shipped to one of several addresses in Michigan or Virginia. “The idea,” the prosecutor explained, “was to move around, not get caught, and not stay anywhere too long.”
8
Nasrallah and his business partners obtained active credit card numbers from computer hackers who breached the security systems of some 138 financial institutions from New Zealand to Switzerland. They acquired more than 10,000 blank credit cards that were stolen from a security company in Nebraska, which they then embossed with legitimate but stolen credit card numbers, and produced false IDs to match. In the words of one prosecutor, “It was incredibly sophisticated, and it utilized the latest computer technology.”
9
Based on the information Diaz provided, authorities obtained a search warrant for Nasrallah’s Dearborn home. They found ample evidence of his criminal enterprise—including a list of 1,300 credit card numbers issued by banks across the globe, just under $20,000 in cash hidden in socks, and store circulars from cities where the computers were purchased—but Nasrallah himself had fled south to Toledo just as the authorities were about to raid his home. What followed was a Hollywood-worthy chase down I-75, involving officers from fourteen police agencies. Eventually, Nasrallah was pulled over just short of a highway interchange in Toledo and arrested. Within months, he was convicted, sentenced to six years in prison, and fined $5.1 million.
10
According to Secret Service agent Dan Sullivan, who supervised the case, the full extent of the financial losses resulting from Nasrallah’s
scam will never be known, but the total for just two dozen of the affected financial institutions came to $1.7 million.
11