HIZBALLAH LINKED TO TERRORISM IN SOUTH AMERICA. The U.S. Treasury Department on 10 June designated Lebanese Hizballah member Assad Ahmad Barakat and two of his companies -- Casa Apollo and Barakat Import -- as responsible for terrorist financing in South America's triborder region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, according to the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs (http://usinfo.state.gov/). Barakat reportedly used strong-arm tactics and coercion to raise money that was sent to Hizballah in Lebanon and Iran. He reportedly threatened shopkeepers in the triborder region that if they did not give him money for Hizballah their family members in Lebanon would be placed on a "Hizballah blacklist."

As of late 2001, he reportedly made annual trips to Lebanon and Iran. On these trips he allegedly met with Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and spiritual leader Hussein Fadlallah. Barakat also served as deputy financial director for a religious center in Brazil, the Husseinieh Imam Khomeini. Regional intelligence sources previously identified Assad Ahmad Barakat's brother, Sheikh Akram Ahmad Barakat, as a kind of roving Iranian ambassador for Latin America (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 17 July 2000). Barakat currently is imprisoned in Paraguay for tax evasion. (Bill Samii)

RFE/RL Iran Report