Hezbollah Page 29
Mohammad Hassan Dbouk and his brother-in-law, Ali Adham Amhaz, ran the Canadian portion of Hezbollah’s funding and procurement network under the command of Haj Hassan Hilu Laqis (then Hezbollah’s chief military procurement officer). Their activities were funded in part with money that Laqis sent from Lebanon, in addition to their own criminal activities in Canada.144 Under the win-win scam, they procured materials for Hezbollah and still made a profit. While their credit card and bank frauds covered the cost of the items they bought for Hezbollah, they still received fifty cents on the dollar from Laqis for the materials they procured.145 At one point Harb told Mohamad Hammoud about the Canadian dual-use procurement ring and asked if he wanted to help. “No,” Hammoud replied, “I’m helping in my own way.”146
The items that the Hezbollah procurement network purchased or discussed purchasing in North America for smuggling into Lebanon were used, according to a defense specialist who served as an expert witness, to increase Hezbollah’s tactical capabilities on the battlefield. Commander James Campbell, a former Defense Intelligence Agency counterterrorism intelligence officer, said the list was ambitious and indicative of Hezbollah’s increasing military sophistication: night-vision devices (goggles, cameras, and scopes), surveying equipment, global positioning systems (watches and aviation antennas), mine and metal detection equipment, camera and video equipment, advanced aircraft analysis and design software, and a variety of computer equipment including laptops, high-speed modems, processors, joysticks, plotters, scanners, and printers. Commander Campbell pointed out to the jury several video clips—from videos seized at Mohamad Hammoud’s home—of Hezbollah militants using the kind of equipment Dbouk’s network procured for Hezbollah in Canada.147 Such examples were not coincidental, given that Hezbollah sought specific items its fighters needed in the field. For example, the procurement network was asked to send specific compasses because “the guys were getting lost, you know, in the woods, or whatever, and they need compasses.”148
In one instance, Said Harb provided Dbouk with $4,000 toward the purchase of such items. As Harb later recalled in testimony, Dbouk once asked him, when the two met in Canada, “Would you like to get anything, you know, for the guys?” Instructed to explain this more clearly, Harb elaborated: “We were talking about Hezbollah. Hezbollah has social, military, political, different branches within Hezbollah. We were talking about the military branch. You know, The Resistance.”149
In support of its procurement efforts for “the Resistance,” the Canadian Hezbollah network considered supplementing its income through other schemes, including importing counterfeit $100 bills from Lebanon or taking out life insurance policies for Hezbollah operatives committing acts of terrorism in the Middle East.150 Neither of these ideas were acted upon, in part because the network had more money than it needed through basic credit card bust-out schemes, but it demonstrates the ingenuity of Hezbollah logisticians. As for the insurance scheme, in effect, the Hezbollah network considered trying to take out a life insurance policy in Canada for a prospective Hezbollah fighter in Lebanon who might be killed carrying out a suicide attack, or otherwise engaging in combat from which he would not return. Concerned a Canadian insurance company would not honor the policy of a suicide bomber, Dbouk suggested a death certificate could be produced falsely claiming the person was a civilian killed while “sitting in his village.”151
In the years since the July 2006 war, Hezbollah’s procurement program has taken on renewed importance as the group has spent most of its time replenishing its weapons stocks. Big-ticket items, like missiles, are provided by Iran and sometimes Syria. But other items, from small arms and ammunition to shoulder-fired rockets and dual-use items, are also procured globally through Hezbollah networks. According to Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, “the resistance is using this period to prepare, to train, to strengthen capabilities, and the enemy itself can attest to this.”152 Speaking in December 2011, Nasrallah himself underscored the group’s procurement efforts. “We will never let go of our arms,” he said. “Our numbers are increasing day after day, and we are getting better and our training is becoming better and we are becoming more confident in our future and more armed. And if someone is betting that our weapons are rusting, we tell them that every weapon that rusts is replaced.”153
“I Know Why You’ve Done This
to Me … You Want Dbouk”
In 2001, Mohamad Dbouk was indicted in US federal court under Operation Smokescreen. According to US investigators, Dbouk is an Iranian-trained Hezbollah operative and “an intelligence specialist and propagandist [who] was dispatched to Canada by Hezbollah for the express purpose of obtaining surveillance equipment.”154 According to information collected by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) during its investigation into Mohamad Dbouk’s activities in Canada, first in Montreal and then in Vancouver, Dbouk was acting under the direction of Hezbollah’s then chief of procurement, Haj Hassan Hilu Laqis, who was based in Lebanon. Mohamad Dbouk reportedly lived in the Detroit area for about six months, taking his activities to the US side of the Ambassador Bridge linking Michigan and Ontario.155
Dbouk solicited the assistance of his friend Said Harb to help facilitate the purchase of dual-use equipment and to test a scheme to use counterfeit credit cards to purchase these materials.156 According to CSIS intercepts, in 1999 Dbouk informed an unidentified male that he had known Harb for more than fifteen years and that the two had been jailed and beaten together (presumably during the Lebanese civil war).157 Harb was already at the center of a laundry list of criminal enterprises and frauds, but it was his relationship with Dbouk that brought him to the attention of CSIS agents who were already monitoring Dbouk’s activities.158
US Attorney Robert Conrad, whose office successfully prosecuted the Hezbollah case in Charlotte, testified before the US Congress that according to human source intelligence (HUMINT), “Dbouk is such a major player in the Hezbollah organization that on five separate occasions his application to be a martyr was rejected.” Given his overall intelligence, his military training, and his expertise in information operations, Dbouk was too valuable a commodity to expend on a martyrdom mission.159
Dbouk appears to have accepted Hezbollah’s refusal to send him on a martyrdom mission, and dove into his procurement responsibilities in an attempt to secure a place in heaven through devotion to his assigned task. According to the CSIS intercepts, in a conversation with someone named Said (last name unknown), Dbouk tried to discuss politics and Said said he wanted to be careful about what they discussed on the telephone. Ignoring the kind of operational security protocol for which Hezbollah is well known, Dbouk responded that “he did not care about anything and was committed to securing all the items for the brothers at any cost; he was attempting to avoid going to hell and secure a place in heaven by so doing.”160
Another indication of Dbouk’s seniority within Hezbollah is not only that he worked directly for Hezbollah’s chief procurement officer Haj Hassan Hilu Laqis but that CSIS intercepts indicate the two were close. Moreover, Laqis clearly assessed that Dbouk played a key role for Hezbollah as a procurement agent in Canada, while others considered him important enough to be needed back in Lebanon.161
Others recognized Dbouk’s seniority as well. At one point during an FBI interview, Said Harb asked the agent to stop taking notes and said, “I know why you’ve done this to me and my family; you want Dbouk—you want Hezbollah.” Harb went on to identify Dbouk, who by this time had left Canada and returned to Lebanon, as well as Dbouk’s wife, as salaried employees of Hezbollah’s al-Manar television station.162
Back in Canada, members of the Hezbollah procurement group, now being run by Dbouk’s brother-in-law Ali Amhaz, were also concerned their ties to Dbouk might be their undoing. One cell member worried Canadian law enforcement might “know that Dbouk was related to you…. They are not stupid, and when you take lenses to (Lebanon) you are helping Hezbollah[,] who would use
them in operations.”163
Other members of the network appear to have been keenly aware that the dual-use items they were providing Hezbollah were being used to improve the military capabilities of Hezbollah’s Islamic Resistance militia. They also appear to have been aware of the important role Dbouk played in this procurement effort. For example, on February 28, 1999, Hezbollah operatives set off two roadside bombs as an Israeli military convoy drove by in southern Lebanon. An Israeli general was killed in the blast, along with two sergeants and a reporter. On hearing the news, Ali Amhaz congratulated Dbouk for his part in improving Hezbollah military capabilities.164
Dbouk appears to have recognized that his procurement efforts for Hezbollah came under the ultimate authority of Imad Mughniyeh. In April 1999, Dbouk sent a fax to Hezbollah procurement chief Laqis, informing him that payment was needed for several items Dbouk had purchased. Dbouk boasted that he had sent Laqis “a little gift” in the form of a Palm Pilot and a pair of binoculars, and added, “I’m ready to do any thing you or the Father want me to do and I mean anything!”165 “The Father,” according to US Attorney Robert Conrad, is a reference to Mughniyeh.166
In other instances, Dbouk made explicit references to Mughniyeh. On June 1, 1999, Ali Amhaz told Dbouk about an individual who was speaking openly about his past work for “Haj Imad Mough/Moug/Mugh (ph),” someone who was “down there” and “working with the young men.” Dbouk described Imad as the “whole story” and cautioned Amhaz “to be careful and to pretend to know nothing.” Dbouk was shocked when told that this individual had invited Amhaz to ask Haj Imad about him. “Would anyone bring up Imad’s name [redacted], here (Canada) or in any other country, and stay alive?” Dbouk asked rhetorically.167
According to the testimony of Said Harb, before his time in Canada, Dbouk received “extensive military training” coordinated by the IRGC, including in special operations skills such as parachuting. “Dbouk’s cover is that he works for the Hezbollah al Manar television station,” Harb told the FBI. But Dbouk does more than just produce what Harb described as “Hezbollah propaganda videotapes.” According to Harb, Dbouk told him “he is responsible for reconnaissance and surveillance operations,” which he conducts “in advance of Hezbollah attacks.”168 In other words, Dbouk provided preoperational surveillance for Hezbollah attack squads working under the cover of Hezbollah’s satellite al-Manar television station. The preoperational footage he recorded was used to plan Hezbollah attacks on Israeli positions prior to the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and the live footage of the actual attack was then used to produce propaganda videos like those seized in the homes of the Charlotte cell members.169 The US Treasury Department referred to Dbouk’s preoperational surveillance when it listed al-Manar as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity. According to the Treasury Department, “One al Manar employee [is] engaged in preoperational surveillance for Hezbollah operations under cover of employment by al Manar.”170 When agents searched the home of Charlotte cell leader Mohamad Hammoud in July 2000, they found “a virtual library of Hezbollah propaganda,” including videotapes—some produced by Dbouk—and other literature, some of which talked about “establishing Hezbollah resistance cells around the world.”171
Hezbollah in the Great White North
Mohammad Hussein al Husseini, Fawzi Ayub, Mohamad Dbouk—these were not outliers. Hezbollah has been active in Canada since the 1980s, raising money through criminal activities and charity, procuring dual-use items, and sometimes engaging in potentially preoperational surveillance of principally Jewish or Israeli targets.172 The group also produces false travel documents in Canada, and in a few instances fugitive Hezbollah operatives wanted for their roles in terrorist activities have been found hiding in Canada.173
In 1991 during the Gulf War, Canada expelled several Iraqi diplomats for fear of possible Iraqi terrorist reprisal attacks abroad. Speaking anonymously to the press, a government official said the government believed the Iraqi diplomats “had infiltrated Arab nationalist groups in Canada on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.” Specifically, they sought to “cultivate links with small cells of the Lebanese Shiite group, Hezbollah, in Montreal and Toronto,” as well as with other extremist groups across the country.174 While fears of an Iraqi-inspired revenge attack in Canada did not materialize, reports of an organized Hezbollah presence in Canada were confirmed two years later with the arrest and interrogation of Mohammad Hussein al Husseini.
According to a former senior Canadian intelligence official, by 1997 a covert network of fifty to a hundred Hezbollah operatives—above and beyond the significantly larger pool of Hezbollah sympathizers and supporters—was “directly involved in Hezbollah activities in Canada.” Just a week before his comments, CSIS informed a Canadian court that Hezbollah had established an “infrastructure” in Canada involving individuals who “receive and comply with direction from the Hezbollah leadership hierarchy in Lebanon.”175
The summer 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel had immediate consequences, not only in the region but far beyond as well. In Canada, officials assessed the possible ripple effects back home of Hezbollah’s militant escalation along the Israeli-Lebanese frontier. In an unclassified report, Canada’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) warned that while Hezbollah had not carried out an attack against Western interests in several years, the group “retains the capability to conduct terrorist attacks against Western targets in Lebanon, and a limited capability to do so internationally.”176
Two days later, ITAC issued another report, this one highlighting the evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon amid the July 2006 war. More than 40,000 Canadians were resident in Lebanon, according to the report, and Ottawa was already in the process of evacuating thousands of them via marine vessels to southern Turkey and Cyprus. Hezbollah posed a threat even to this humanitarian mission, as punctuated by the advanced C-802 missiles Hezbollah fired at an Israeli naval vessel and Cambodian merchant ship off the coast of Lebanon.177
In the 1980s and 1990s, a third ITAC report on Hezbollah in as many weeks noted Hezbollah carried out terrorist attacks in Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Africa, but “these attacks have largely ceased since the mid-1990s.” Yet Canadian intelligence and law enforcement officials remained very concerned about the activities of Hezbollah operatives and supporters in Canada.178 Their concerns were well founded, especially given the frequent travel of Hezbollah supporters back and forth between Canada and Lebanon. Investigators pointed to one case involving several members of “a major Lebanese crime family with ties to Hezbollah” who obtained permanent residency in Canada through illicit means.179 As Canadian officials watched the events in Lebanon in summer 2006, what they saw must have underscored their concerns: One of the Hezbollah spokesmen appearing before the media throughout the July 2006 war had lived in Montreal. He reportedly reminisced about missing the St. Lawrence River after he returned to Lebanon. Asked about this case, a Montreal-based analyst commented, “Montreal is like a Club Med for Hezbollah.”180
In February 2008, Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus. Attending Mughniyeh’s funeral, Nasrallah accused Israel of the killing and promised an “open war, without boundaries.” The meaning was clear, according to the Canadian intelligence report that followed these events: “Nasrallah [was vowing] to retaliate against Israeli interests anywhere in the world.” Much of the Canadian report remains classified, but the declassified portion listed potential Israeli targets in Montreal and Toronto, indicating Canada was not reassured by the lack of a previous Hezbollah attack on Canadian soil.181 ITAC issued a new report two weeks later, further analyzing the implications for Canada of Hezbollah’s “open war” threat. The report pointed to past Hezbollah attacks in South America as evidence that the group had “engaged in large-scale, mass-casualty, attacks outside the Lebanese-Israeli theater to retaliate against Israel,” and noted that Canada has the world’s fourth largest Jewish population. Beyond the Israeli diplomatic presence in th
e country, the report added Canada has more than a hundred Jewish institutions, “including schools, synagogues, [and] cultural and political centers.”182
In June 2008, reports emerged that Hezbollah had activated suspected sleeper cells in Canada aimed at carrying out an attack to avenge the death of Imad Mughniyeh four months earlier. According to this report, Canadian intelligence and law enforcement had some twenty suspects under surveillance. One subject, “a known Hezbollah weapons expert,” was followed as he traveled to Canada and was “seen at a firing range south of Toronto, near the U.S. border.”183 Nothing came of this threat reporting, possibly due to Canadian counterterrorism measures, and Canadian intelligence officials have since played down the significance of this surveillance, saying it was not directed toward an imminent plot but rather to build a portfolio of targets for a possible Hezbollah attack in Canada at some later date. Those engaged in this surveillance, the intelligence officials stressed, were lower-level operatives tied to Hezbollah’s Foreign Relations Department, which is responsible for setting up platforms in foreign countries, spotting potential recruits, and organizing the local Shi’a community to be sympathetic toward and to support Hezbollah. These were not IJO operatives who live in Lebanon and just travel abroad for particular missions.184
The following year, a Canadian citizen and Hezbollah IJO operative was reportedly involved in one of three Hezbollah plots foiled in Turkey.185 Speaking in late 2009, just a few months after the foiled plot in Turkey, the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police warned that Canada was in no way immune from Hezbollah terrorist plots. “While Hezbollah has not articulated any specific grievance with Canada,” he explained, “from its perspective any state that supports Israel or Israeli interests is the enemy, which casts a wide net.”186