Sleeper Hizbullah Cells Activated

Sleeper Hizbullah cells activated

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By YAAKOV KATZ
7/23/2006

Hizbullah "sleeper" terror cells set up outside Lebanon with Iranian assistance have been put on standby The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday, and are likely planning attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets throughout the world.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed to the Post Sunday night that it had instructed embassies, consulates and Jewish institutions it was responsible for abroad to raise their level of awareness in light of the conflict in the North.

The assumption within Military Intelligence is that Hizbullah would only attack targets abroad if it felt pushed into a corner. According to this thinking, the Islamist group hesitates to carry out such attacks because it does not want to be associated with Global Jihad and al-Qaida.

Hizbullah has attacked Jewish and Israeli targets abroad in the past. The organization is believed to have been behind the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 during which a suicide bomber drove a pick-up truck filled with explosives into the building, killing 29 people and wounding 242, following Israel's assassination of the group's leader at the time, Sheikh Abbas Musawi.

Hizbullah is also thought to have been responsible for the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires in 1994, when an explosives-laden van rammed into the structure and killed 85 people.

Another attack attributed to the group was the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847. One passenger was murdered; the remainder of the hostages were released over a two-week period.