Terror-cell alliance at work in US?

Mohamad Hammoud had big business ideas and desperately wanted to stay in the US. But the government had denied the Lebanese national's visa request. So in 1996, he married an American girl in Detroit rather than the one waiting for him back home.

That enabled him to obtain his green card and later establish a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling operation. From his profits, he sent money and equipment to the Hizbullah terrorist organization in Lebanon.

Last month, Mr. Hammoud was convicted of, among other things, financing suspected Hizbullah terrorists.

Although it was the first trial of this kind, the FBI reportedly believes at least 12 other Hizbullah cells in US cities are following a pattern similar to that of Hammoud's operation. More striking, US authorities believe that Hizbullah is increasingly linking up with Al Qaeda, the No. 1 target in the US war on terror. Their pooling of resources could pose the most formidable challenge yet to US security in the post-Sept. 11 world, US officials and terrorism experts say. "If I were Osama bin Laden and needed to fall back on a network, it would be Hizbullah," says Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who investigated the 1983 US Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut. "It is known that Hizbullah is very good at car-bombings, owns stinger missiles, is good at hijacking and putting operatives all over the world.

"We know there is tactical cooperation," which, Mr. Baer adds, "goes back – at least on some levels – to 1995-96. There is definite information that [Hizbullah] set up an alliance between pro-Iranian Shia groups and Al Qaeda in July 1996. There was a meeting with Iranian intelligence. And from that, it is only inevitable that these relations developed."

Baer says it's not clear what the cooperation level within the US is between Al Qaeda and Hizbullah. But terror experts and government officials say that in addition to the Al Qaeda sleeper cells in place here, several Hizbullah cells are also entrenched in US cities – especially those with strong Shia Muslim communities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Kansas City. It would surprise no one in the intelligence community if the two were cooperating – helping particularly with logistics.

In fact, another Lebanese national, Semi Osman, was arrested in May in the Seattle area. And FBI officials there are looking into the same kind of cell operation as Hammoud's. Apparently Mr. Osman married a local Muslim, joined a well-known Seattle mosque where he became an imam, or prayer leader, and possibly operated a jihad training camp in Bly, Ore.

He's not been charged with acts of terrorism so far, but is being held on charges of immigration fraud and the illegal possession of a semiautomatic handgun with its serial numbers removed. The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that he is suspected of leading a cell there that may have ties to Al Qaeda.

There are no clear-cut connections between Hizbullah and Al Qaeda in either of these cases. But the similarities in the way the cells operate are striking, and the suicide-bombing techniques used by both organizations are essentially the same.

Page: 1 | 2