“If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead.” These words were uttered by a young Arab Muslim named Mustafa Khalil Meri. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.”

The worrying fact, however, is that this fire-breathing Islamic radical, one of Hezbollah’s devoted militiamen, lives in South America.

If you thought Hezbollah operations are limited to the Middle East, think again. The Iranian-backed terrorist group is spreading across the Atlantic and setting up shop on the United States’ back door.

A remote region of South America known as the tri-border area (tba), or the Triple Frontier, has become a top-level concern for Washington since Sept. 11, 2001. Even long before that, the region—divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina—was labeled by U.S. intelligence agencies as a “free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism.”

Stratfor reported last year, “Relying on contacts and supporters within the tba’s large Arab community (predominantly ethnic Lebanese), Hezbollah has used the area as a logistics and transshipment base for years. The U.S. government also has investigated money-laundering and counterfeiting operations linked to Hezbollah and Hamas in the region” (Sept. 26, 2006).

U.S. officials are afraid this large lawless and corrupt region will also provide Hezbollah terrorists easy means to infiltrate the southern U.S. border without detection. Potential terrorists can travel to the U.S. through Brazil and then Mexico by posing as tourists.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said “Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.”

Smuggling networks along the Mexican border are also inviting for Hezbollah operatives. The cia’s Counter-Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper, “Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico.”

These threats have already been proven to be dangerous and very real. Several illegal Muslim immigrants were arrested last week in New Jersey for planning a terrorist attack. Three of them reportedly arrived in the U.S. by crossing the Mexican border.

South America provides fertile ground for Hezbollah’s developing Western base. The continent is home to about 25,000 Arabs. Many of them come from families that immigrated from Lebanon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

Edward Luttwak, a counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group, described the tri-border as “the most important base for Hezbollah outside Lebanon itself.” He also said, “The northern region of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and even Brazil are large terrains, and they have an organized training and recruitment camp for terrorists.”

U.S. and South American officials report that Hezbollah runs an extensive lucrative smuggling network that funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East, and to support training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America.

Many Arabs in the region openly admit that they send money to Hezbollah, saying it is to help their families. The U.S. government, however, believes the money is used by Hezbollah to finance operations and terrorists attacks. Hezbollah has been accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks on the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the early 1990s.

For more on how Hezbollah might use its Western base to its advantage and America’s detriment, read “How Terrorists Could Get Into the U.S.”