Counterterrorism Blog: Can Hezbollah Launch Long-Range Terror Attacks?
In his new book Homeland Security, Assessing the First Five Years, former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff argues:Al-Qaeda and its network are our most serious immediate threat, they may not be our most serious long-term threat….[Hezbollah] has developed capabilities that Al-Qaeda can only dream of, including large quantities of missiles and highly sophisticated explosives.
Chertoff’s statement is conventional wisdom among many terrorism experts. Shortly after 9/11 then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage stated:
Hezbollah may be the ‘A-Team of Terrorists’ and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the ‘B’ team.
But Hezbollah has not carried out a successful out-of-area attack since the 1996 Khobar strike. Is Hezbollah still capable of carrying out long-range terror attacks?
