German Hezbollah members send funds to Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists
Islamist 'stokes hate against Israel and West' at Hezbollah center, says intel
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL German special police leaves the El-Irschad (Al-Iraschad e.V.) centre in Berlin, Germany, April 30, 2020, after Germany has banned Iran-backed Hezbollah on its soil and designated it a terrorist organisation(photo credit: REUTERS/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE)
A Hezbollah-controlled community center in the northern German city of Bremen funnels money to the Lebanese-based terrorist movement Hezbollah, The Jerusalem Post can report on Friday.Bremen’s domestic intelligence service wrote in its Thursday released report that the Al-Mustafa community center "is involved in the financial support” of the Shi’ite terrorist organization Hezbollah. Al-Mustafa organized a talk with a radical Germany-based Islamist who agitates against Israel's existence, said the report.The Bremen intelligence report documents security and terrorism threats to the city-state of Bremen and covers the year 2019.According to the intelligence authors of the report, “the approximately 50 followers of Hezbollah in Bremen are organized in the association Al-Mustafa Community. This Arab Shiite cultural association acts as a contact point for Shi'ite Muslims in Bremen, especially from Lebanon." The document did not state the amount of funds that Hezbollah members and supporters in Bremen sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon.There are 50 Hezbollah supporters in Bremen, according to the report, and an estimated 1,050 Hezbollah members and supporters across Germany.The report suggested that the Al-Mustafa center sent funds to family members of dead Hezbollah terrorists. The report noted that Al-Mustafa filled the vacuum after the German government banned the pro-Hezbollah organization Waisenkinderprojekts Libanon e.V. (Lebanon Orphan Children Project) in 2014.The Orphan Project sent money to the families of deceased Hezbollah fighters involved in murdering Israelis. Former German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said at the time about the Orphan Project: "Organizations which directly or indirectly work against Israel's right to exist from German soil cannot rely on the guaranteed right to freely organize.”It is unclear if Bremen or the German government will shut down the Al-Mustafa center for terror finance. After the German interior ministry outlawed all Hezbollah activities in April, 2020, the authorities raided the Al-Mustafa center.
The Post previously uncovered the Shi’ite organization’s bank account – the Bremen-based Sparkasse.The Sparkasse bank did not immediately respond to Post press queries on Friday.“It is also known that at events within the association premises that regular mullahs from Lebanon appear with speeches and prayers. The mullahs have some references to Hezbollah, “ wrote the intelligence officials in the report about the events at the Al-Mustafa center.The report said that the Al-Mustafa center organized cooperation events with other Shi’ite Islamist associations from northern Germany and provided room space to these radical Islamic groups.The 112-page intelligence report cites Hezbollah 23 times.According to the intelligence document, a “nationwide known Islamist from the Bremen area together with other members of his family” who participated in a religious festival at the Al-Mustafa center, and the Islamist’s "goal is to spread the ideology of the Iranian Mullah regime and to stoke hatred against Israel and the West. This was also evident in the speeches, which largely consist of depictions of classic enemy images against Israel - in that [the] speeches only referred to [Israel] as ‘the Zionist regime.”Hezbollah is the main terror proxy for the Islamic Republic of Iran.
