Hezbollah Cell News Today

KUWAIT CITY, Dec 29: The detention renewal judge extended for another 14 days the detention of 12 out of 21 defendants, including four money changers, in the Hezbollah Cell case for the fourth time, reports Al-Seyassah daily. The 12 defendants and their lawyers were present in the recent session.

One night i was finishing up some work. very late in the office. probably everyone was gone. i went outside my office and saw an agent there doing some paperwork. i introduced myself and we started speaking. >> bob caught me at a good time. i had spent the first 11 years of my fbi career working criminal cases, despite the fact i had been an intelligence officer in the army, had travelled extensively throughout the middle east, had arabic language training, the bureau put me to work on criminal ...

Corrupt organizations, rico cases in which you group together individuals and prosecute them in that manner. >> these people were affiliated because of their membership in hezbollah. because they were engaged in criminality, they were vulnerable to the use of criminal statutes, to and including the racketeering statutes. >> that was their achilles heel, because in no other manner could we attack them except through criminal prosecution. >> by prosecuting them for racketeering, theyll no longer e...

And that operative was mohammed hammoud. >> who gave you the tip? >> we cant disclose that. at this time its still classified. with this information, i contacted the charlotte office and they initiated an investigation on this individual. they started coming across more individuals in charlotte working together that seemed to have some kind of group. as we got more intelligence from overseas, we started seeing that this could be a hezbollah cell. no one would be looking for them here. this is no...

Very specific time, i thought we had enough criminal information to dismantle this hezbollah cell. at that time i said, lets take it down. >> so rick begins preparing an after the f affidavit for searches. we drafted a 100-page affidavit. it was one of the longer affidavits we drafted. we were biker gangs, we were killing with the rico statute. one of the things before we indicted a rico case is go hit their clubhouse and find indicia of an organization doing things together to commit criminal a...

Obtain a green card. they went out and found exotic dancers in strip clubs and theyre domino is co-workers. >> you think are you dealing with an immigrant seeking residency. you have no idea you are dealing with a terrorist. >> i come here to charlotte looking at this cell. who are they speaking with, what they are doing? and we start getting a picture of eight core hezbollah operatives. each one of these cell members was battle hardened, but engaging in low level criminal activity. and i knew t...

The spiritual leader. he knew the players. >> every thursday night, he would have a gathering at his home. >> these thursday night meetings were not just core cell members, like biker gangs that hang arounds. they would come and mohammed hammoud would appreciate to them. >> he was almost a dr. jekyll and mr. hyde personality. >> he was a low-key polite on one hand. at the meetings he would get fired up he would be the motivational speaker. >> he would show speeches by hezbollah leadership, video...

Core hezbollah cell. and it was interesting, because you can tell a lot about somebody on a soccer pitch. hammoud was quiet and harb was one of these bigger than life guys, very skilled player, very selfish player. the game ended and the core group the cousins and the brothers went off to eat together. harb didnt go with them. he went to a bar, watched a football game, ordered some alcohol and i thought, you know what, this is somebody thats going to become our insider down the road. >> you thou...

Equipment. >> you have a cell in north carolina, a cell in canada, key players in hezbollah and lebanon directing these activities. its a global operation. so you had this statute that was on the books that gave you a tool to go after these organizations. >> nobody had really used yet. >> this statute called a material support statute, makes it illegal to assist a designated terrorist group with something of a material nature, of money, weapons, dual use equipment. >> providing support to a terr...