Center for a Secure Free Society Global Dispatch Turning the Tables: How Brazil Defeated an ISIS Threat by Leonardo Coutinho GlobalIssue Dispatch5 • September 2017 page 1 September 2017 or several decades, Brazil has been criticized groups, especially those conducting financial or for serving as a haven for Islamist extremists intelligence support to terrorist operations. Fin South America. Foz da Iguaçu, a southwestern In the 1980s, high-level Hezbollah Brazilian city within the Tri-Border Area, at the operatives, sponsored by the Islamic Republic crossroads of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, of Iran, made Brazil an important logistical hub was used as a logistical base to carry out the for the AMIA attack. Argentine special prosecutor 1994 terrorist attack on the Asociación Mutual Alberto Nisman revealed that when the Iranian Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires.1 mastermind of the AMIA attack, Mohsen Brazil’s historic lack of legislation for effectively Rabbani, arrived in Argentina in 1983,3 Tehran combatting terrorism, further incentivized a deployed Shi’ite cleric Taleb Hussein al-Khazraji larger presence of Islamist militants in the to Brazil.4 Al-Khazraji created Centro Islâmico no country leading to several sanctions by the U.S. Brasil (Arresala) and was imam of the Prophet Treasury since 2004.2 Mohammed Mosque now known as the Brás On March 16, 2016, the legal conditions Mosque in an immigrant neighborhood of São changed when the Brazilian Parliament passed Paulo.5 its first antiterrorism law, despite opposition from left-leaning political and social movements. Those opposed to the law believed it “unnecessary;” Brazil is known within viewing it unlikely that terror groups at home or abroad would “import” the threat of terrorism to the counterterrorism a country that’s never suffered such an attack. community as a Recent events proved its opponents wrong prominent haven in merely four months after the new law went into Latin America for effect. On July 21, 2016, Brazilian federal police members of Islamist arrested twelve ISIS sympathizers for plotting terror groups. a terrorist attack at the Rio Summer Olympics. One year later, on May 4, 2017, Brazilian courts upheld the charges against those arrested, convicting eight of them of terrorist crimes. One In tandem with Rabbani in Argentina, Al-Khazraji more was sentenced a month later, sending to helped spread much more than the Islamic faith prison a total of nine Jihadists in what is the throughout the region from his post in Brazil. first Islamist terror conviction in Latin America’s According to the AMIA investigation, both clerics history. worked as undercover Iranian intelligence This Dispatch describes the agents, collecting information and recruiting environment and circumstances that led to the supporters in South America on behalf of the first antiterrorism law in Brazil, detailing Brazil’s Islamic Republic. Operating under the cover of evolution from a country poorly informed of halal (Islamic dietary law) beef inspectors, both the Islamist terror threat to the first country to Iranian clerics received guidance and instruction successfully try and convict Islamist extremists from Iranian embassies in Buenos Aires and in Latin America for terrorist activity. Brasilia, respectively. “The strategic alliance between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah is very tight in the ‘Tri-border Area.’ Moreover, it exceeded South America’s Terror Base those boundaries reaching other Brazilian cities such as São Paulo and Curitiba. A report razil has never suffered an attack from an from the Brazilian Federal Police states that Islamist terror group. Brazilians, therefore, radicalized Lebanese Shias, members of the Bhave never conceived of the global jihadist terrorist organization Hezbollah, and Sunnis movement as an imminent national security related to Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Gamat AlIslamiyah, were detected particularly in the threat, while political leaders in Brazil felt little Brazilian States of São Paulo, Paraná and the public pressure to directly confront or even Federal District.”6 acknowledge the issue. Nonetheless, Brazil is known within the counterterrorism community as (...) a prominent haven for members of Islamist terror Global Dispatch page 2 September 2017 Ahmad-Nia, Civil Attaché of the Iranian be tried for his terrorist activity. Ali was instead Embassy in Brasilia between 1991 and 1993, charged and convicted for the crime of racism, would have worked as an Intelligence agent 7 a legal offense under Brazilian law, despite (VEVAK). About him, Mesbahi also stated having been responsible for the translation of that during operative actions this person was Al-Qaeda’s propaganda material and one of “in situ”, from where he directed and solved potential logistic problems. It is striking that the group’s principal he entered Argentina on March 16, 1992 and broadcasters of its left on March 18, 1992, that is, the previous radical messaging in and the following day of the Israeli Embassy the region.15 bombing in Buenos Aires.”8 Cases like Khaled Hussein According to Nisman, São Paulo, Ali (Al-Qaeda) and Brazil’s largest city, is an important hub for Farouk Abdul Hay Hezbollah in South America.9 This includes Omairi (Hezbollah) members of the Barakat clan10 in Foz do illustrate how Islamist Iguaçu and Sheik Bilal Mohsen Wehbe,11 the terror organizations religious leader of the Brás Mosque in São have historically Paulo, all sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s taken advantage Office of Foreign Assets Control for suspected of Brazil’s lack of Khaled Hussein Ali, operative for Al-Qaeda in Brazil, con- links to Hezbollah. According to the Treasury antiterrorism laws victed of racism Department, Wehbe is recognized as one of the to operate in a state leaders of the Shiite militia in Brazil.12 Another of legal grace. Even important Hezbollah operative is Farouk Abdul when the suspects were caught and arrested, Hay Omairi, arrested with his son, Kaled the legal infrastructure in Brazil made it difficult for Omairi, for cocaine trafficking in 2007. Both the judiciary to effectively punish terror activity. son and father had already been targeted by Because of this, those involved with extremist U.S authorities, identified a year earlier as terror groups in Brazil had to be tried for other important members of Hezbollah’s financial types of crimes, such as the cases of Khaled apparatus in the TBA.13 At the time, however, Hussein Ali (al-Qaeda) for racism and Farouk Brazil had no anti-terror legal framework, thus, Abdul Hay Omairi (Hezbollah) for drug trafficking. Farouk and Kaled Omairi were charged with Under former Brazilian President Luis Inácio drug trafficking and sentenced to eleven years Lula de Silva, the social and legal aspects of this and eight months in prison. environment became especially complicated. Brazil’s role as a terrorist haven extends beyond Hezbollah, as evidenced by the 2009 arrest of an Al-Qaeda operative secretly living in São Paulo.14 A Lebanese native, Khaled A Legal Vacuum Hussein Ali had been identified by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a high- nder Lula de Silva’s administration, talk of ranking member of implementing effective antiterrorism legislation the communications Uhalted. The government believed such legislation team for Al- would push Brazil into the middle of a conflict in Qaeda’s Jihad which it had no part and would place the country Media Battalion into the spotlight of global terrorism. In 2006, the (JMB). Using this administration organized an event in Brasilia called information, the Why (not) Designate Terrorism in Brazil? The Brazilian Federal event underscored the government’s opposition Police found to passage of anti-terror legislation in the country. and arrested Ali. During the event, then Secretary of Unfortunately, without Legislative Affairs for the Ministry of Justice, the appropriate Pedro Abramovay, declared that Brazil would 16 Farouk Omairi is one of Hezbollah’s anti-terrorism legal not “criminalize legitimate social movements,” top operators in the TBA, arrested and infrastructure in adding that Brazil does not treat “members convicted for drug trafficking in Brazil. place, he could not fighting for legitimate social causes as terrorists.”17 Global Dispatch page 3 September 2017 Though this statement referred exclusively to local movements like the Landless Workers’ Movement or MST,18 the Brazilian government did not recognize foreign groups like Hezbollah or Hamas as terror groups, making the punishment of their members for fundraising and planning in support of terrorist operations all but impossible. The Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores— PT) in Brazil not only refused to draft anti-terror legislation, but actively blocked other anti-terror legislative proposals from passing the legislative 19 Saudi Sheikh Muhammad al-Arifi (in white) visits Brazil in 2016. process in Brazil. He is barred from entry in several countries. Brazil’s anti-terror legal vacuum is perhaps most exemplified by the failure to detain and apprehend Iranian cleric Mohsen Rabbani and 94 Islamic centers operating in Brazil. In when he was in Brazil in 2010,20 despite the 2002, there were only 59 centers and in 1983, 24 Interpol Red Notice issued for his role in the 1994 there were merely 33. This represents a AMIA bombing. This failure allowed various other significant growth of Islam in Brazil that has been well-known terrorists to visit and travel throughout a focus of Islamist elements