Now Arizona has more than one war in our backyards
MY OPINION: Hezbollah using drug routes
By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, April 23rd, 2010

For years, I have been warning that the Mexican drug war will sweep over Southern Arizona if we don’t close the border. Well now the war is here. But today, I am writing to warn you of another war. It is using the drug routes but it isn’t connected to the cartels.

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group, is on its way to involving Tubac, Tucson, Phoenix and other parts of Arizona in the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the drug trade. Where are our NIMBYs?

For at least four years, the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research has been keeping an eye on a Hezbollah militia that has taken root in South America in the what’s known as the tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. According to reports, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials say Hezbollah is relying on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels.â€