Consensus: Iranian Regime Greatest Terror Threat
JERUSALEM, Israel – There seems to be a consensus in the United States and Israel that Iran poses the greatest single terror threat worldwide. The Iranian regime arms, funds and trains jihadist groups thousands of miles away from Tehran.
Last week, Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of the U.S. Central Command overseeing the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa (CENTROM), told the House Armed Services Committee the Islamic Republic poses "the most significant threat" to U.S. national interests and those of its allies.
The Iranian nuclear deal strengthened the regime, Votel said. "Iran aspires to be a regional hegemon."
Meanwhile in Israel, National Infrastructure Minister Yuval Steinitz said Iran, not ISIS, poses "the greater threat" on Israel's northern border with Syria.
"The greater threat is coming from Iran – and not just its nuclear program," Steinitz recently told The Jerusalem Post. "The most immediate and urgent threat is the Iranian plan to transform Syria after this horrible, brutal civil war is over, into some kind of extension of Iran."
Then there's Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Iranian proxy, that has been fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces for several years.
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah repeatedly warns its missiles can reach strategic Israeli sites and major population centers that will evoke mass casualties.
Since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah, now part of the Lebanese government, has amassed some 140,000 missiles and rockets, which are stowed inside residential areas throughout southern Lebanon.
And of course there's Hamas, the Palestinian arm of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, that's ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
In mid-February the group announced changes in its chain of command.
Hamas officials appointed Yahya Sinwar, a convicted murderer and founding member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the terror group's "military wing," to replace outgoing Gaza chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Haniyeh replaced Khaled Meshaal, who stepped down several months ago as the group's political head.
Last week Meshaal declared "an open battle" with Israel for the recent assassination of one of its terror masterminds. But it doesn't stop there. In Ramallah, the Palestine Liberation Organization's Fatah faction is cut from the same cloth.
World leaders generally distinguish between Hamas and Fatah, the party of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's "peace partner."
A recent article by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, published in the Palestinian daily, al-Quds and translated by the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI), tells a different story.
Zaki called on Fatah to recruit "tens of thousands of activists to rise up against Israel" and invited other Islamist groups to join them in the battle against the Jewish state.
There's an Iranian connection to many of these terror organizations, a fact that has drawn the attention of the current U.S. administration much more than the last one.
