Sunday, September 22, 2019

US: Lebanese man indicted for Terrorist Activities on Behalf of Hizballah

(New Jersey) 42 year old Alexei Saab,— also known as Ali Hassan Saab, Alex Saab, or “Rachid” — was charged in the US on Thursday in a nine-count indictment for allegedly providing material support to the Hezb-allah terrorist group. It appears that for the past 22 years Rachid has been a card carrying memeber of the lebanese party of god. 


 Ali Hassan Saab
On arriving in the US he scouted locations for Hezbollah to carry out terrorist attacks in the US providing the group with intelligence on the Port Authority, Grand Central Terminal, the New York Stock Exchange the United Nations headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square, the Empire State Building, the federal offices at 26 Federal Plaza, and local airports, tunnels, and bridges, including the George Washington Bridge.
“According to the allegations, while living in the United States, Saab served as an operative of Hezbollah and conducted surveillance of possible target locations in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States,” 
said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a press statement.
“Such covert activities conducted on U.S. soil are a clear threat to our national security and I applaud the agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this investigation and prosecution.”
Saab joined Hezbollah in 1996, and his earliest activities with the group include spying in Lebanon on the movements of Israeli and Southern Lebanese Army soldiers, and intelligence-gathering in Istanbul, the indictment alleges. He trained in the use of firearms, including AK-47s, and in 2000 Prior to lawfully entered the United States using a Lebanese passport, he received extensive training in military tactics, including how to construct bombs and other explosive devices, the indictment alleges. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2008,