New Jersey man arrested for scouting targets for Hezbollah.

The New York Stock Exchange was one of the targets scouted. ABC News/AP.

A New Jersey man has been arrested for scouting terror targets for Hezbollah. ABC News. Alexei Saab joined Hezbollah in 1996 and participated in operations against Israel in Lebanon. He was trained in firearm use and how to make explosives. Saab entered the United States in 2000 and was granted citizenship in 2005. Saab's intelligence history was put to use in the Untied States where he scouted targets in New York, looking for vulnerabilities to exploit. Saab was charged with multiple terrorism and immigration charges. The immigration charges come from a sham marriage that was used to gain citizenship. Saab also attempted to kill an Israeli spy in Lebanon in 2003 but failed when his gun failed to fire. 

My Comment:

I am guessing that Alexei Saab is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Iranian spooks in the United States. Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, has cells active in the United States and I am guessing there are a lot of other sympathizers for the Iranian government in the Iranian expat community. 

Indeed, on of my great worries of any potential conflict between the United States and Iran (or even Saudi Arabia and Iran with minimal to no involvement from America) is terror attacks launched by Hezbollah. Hezbollah is one of the world's most active and powerful terror groups and they have many battle hardened veterans in the various campaigns in the Middle East. 

The good news is that Trump's travel ban includes Iran. That makes it much more difficult to get new terrorists into the United States. They still have many dozens or even hundreds of operatives that entered America under less strict immigration. However, those terrorists are on their own and cannot be easily reinforced. 

Speaking of immigration, it's clear that Alexei Saab should have never been let into the country in the first place. He was a member of Hezbollah and had been active with them for a long time. He even tried to assassinate an Israeli spy. Plus he committed immigration fraud. He should have never been let into the country or he should have been deported a long time ago. 

I think that there will be additional arrests. As tensions with Iran increase, it's only natural that law enforcement and counterintelligence would begin to focus on Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies. They are an obvious threat and could be ordered to attack at any time. 

Though the threat of a Hezbollah attack in America is fairly high, I think it would be much worse in Europe. They don't have the travel ban that we have in America and I doubt their Iranian immigrants are as integrated as the ones in America. Americans in Europe and our instillation there should probably keep their alert level up.  

If a battle or war between America and Iran I think it's almost certain that there would be Hezbollah attacks in America. These attacks would either be explosive based, assassinations and gunman attacks. It's even possible that these attacks could include nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. It's even possible that Iran could start a conflict with their Hezbollah proxies launching an attack before any conflict began...