US Accuses Hezbollah of Seeking ‘Option’ of Terror Attacks Inside US

State Dept Offers Millions for Capture of Top Hezbollah Officials

Israel is playing up hysteria surrounding the “next” war with Hezbollah, and US officials seem eager to go along with the narrative, with National Counterterrorism Center director Nicholas Rasmussen accusing Hezbollah of seeking the capability to have the option of carrying out terror attacks inside the US.

While US officials have made intermittent claims for decades of Hezbollah plotters in North America, they’ve never amounted to anything. Officials offered no details on the reason for this latest round of speculation.

They did, however, coincide with the State Department offering multi-million dollar bounties on a pair of top Hezbollah officials, including one that they accuse of a “central role” in the 1983 attack on a US barracks in Beirut.

Israel’s latest hype surrounding Hezbollah included claims Hezbollah “runs the Lebanese Army.” This is sort of true, since Hezbollah is one of Lebanon’s largest political parties, and a major player in the nation’s civilian government, which does control the army.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.