Most intelligence and counterterrorism analysts credit the group with an extraordinary global presence of several thousand operatives, with cells in Europe, Africa and North and South America. In the United States, the group has limited itself to recruitment as well as fundraising through a variety of illegal schemes, including cigarette smuggling and drug-trafficking.
In addition to the North Carolina cell disrupted in 2002 that was sending cheap cigarettes purchased in that state to Dearborn, Mich., Hezbollah-linked rings have been caught or implicated in Los Angeles and New York, often funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the organization through cashier's checks and money orders.
"If it appears that there's a crisis with Iran, we have to be very concerned about Hezbollah agents operating in this country," said Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. "There are people under surveillance ... and we are constantly on the lookout through international intelligence and our own to be on our guard against Hezbollah."
"Now that Hezbollah has regained power in Lebanon, it is a strategic extension of the Iranian regime," said Walid Phares, director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, who recently provided a closed briefing on Lebanon to congressional staff members. "If we get an escalation of tension with Iran, the Iranians will use Hezbollah against the interests of the U.S. and its allies. They will use the Lebanese republic and the Lebanese diaspora."
One possibility likely to lead to increased tension would be any echoes of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that engulfed the country in the summer of 2006.
Claire Lopez, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies who teaches a course on Middle Eastern intelligence services, said because of the recent power-sharing agreement in Lebanon, there is "a strong possibility of hostilities breaking out again.
"You almost don't know what could set it off," she said. "In an atmosphere like this, it could be any little spark, any little trigger. ... If Israel responds with strong force, Hezbollah cells elsewhere certainly could be activated for a terror attack mission."
