Brazil has a Hezbollah problem. It directly threatens Brazil’s domestic security and the integrity of its financial system. Brazil should recognize this threat and sanction Hezbollah as a terror organization.
Brazil, the largest and most populous country in Latin America, is a critical node in Hezbollah’s regional activities. However, for years, the Brazilian government has refrained from declaring Hezbollah a terrorist group.
By designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Brazil would instantly enhance powers already vested in its intelligence and law enforcement communities to preventively conduct surveillance and investigations of Hezbollah’s activities, without having to wait for actionable intelligence of impending plots to move against them.
Terrorist designations also allow financial sanctions, asset freezes, and travel bans – powerful weapons that Brazil can deploy to protect its national security and financial integrity.
Without such a declaration, the government lacks a legal framework to monitor Hezbollah’s support networks. Consequently, Brazilian authorities have only investigated and prosecuted individuals engaged in criminal conduct, without paying much attention to the vast support networks Hezbollah has established among the local Shi’ite Lebanese diaspora. This is a mistake.
Since its creation, Hezbollah has heavily invested in diaspora communities, often capitalizing on the blood ties and political sympathy that bind them to the terror group, to fundraise and ensure logistical support for intelligence gathering and terror plots, including one recently foiled in the country’s capital, Brasilia.
Hezbollah threats in Brazil?
Some evidence of the extent to which Hezbollah commands loyalty among Shi’ite Lebanese communities in Brazil comes from death announcements and vigils. Since October 7, 2023 – when, hours after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds more hostage, Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel on its northern border – Shi’ite communities in Brazil have lost relatives in the fight.
And as Hezbollah’s media department announces the names of its fallen fighters, social media accounts and mosque announcements in Brazil echo the lament of mourners across the ocean.
However, their grief, expressed in social media and communal events at mosques, is not just personal but political as well; it’s not just for family, but also for Hezbollah and Iran and their holy war against the Jews and America.
Communal institutions and their members identify with Hezbollah’s and Iran’s worldview and goals, confirming the close ties that bind Shi’ite Lebanese diaspora communities to the resistance movement that has turned their country into a vassal of Iranian expansionism.
THE LATEST example of this is Muhammad Hussein Sabra, a senior Hezbollah commander from Haddatha, in south Lebanon, who was killed on June 11 in an Israeli strike that also eliminated three other top Hezbollah officers.
His younger brother, Mustafa, runs a video game shop in São Paulo. When news of Muhammad’s martyrdom reached São Paulo, the social media of the Lebanese community in Brazil came alive with grief. While Mustafa was in Lebanon to attend his fallen brother’s funeral procession, Mustafa’s wife, a Brazilian-born convert to Shi’ite Islam from the Tri-Border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, eulogized the martyr on Facebook and the community shared in her family’s mourning, congratulating the family on their relative’s martyrdom.
Alongside the mourning, there is piety and rage at the death of fallen Hezbollah fighters. Ibrahim Hammoud, a Lebanese resident of São Paulo, published the martyrdom photo of his friend, Hussein Nabih Fawaz, on May 26, hours after Hezbollah media announced his death. Hammoud then mourned his friend’s death at the hands of “terrorist Israel.”
Such postings, and mournful vigils, have become routine in recent months. São Paulo’s Shi’ite mosque organized an evening of remembrance for two Hezbollah fallen commanders, Muhammed Hussein Mustafa Shehoury and Haji Ismail Yousef Baz, shortly after an Israeli strike killed them on April 16. Shehoury’s brother and first cousin both live in São Paulo.
They were not the only ones to mourn a family member who died wearing a Hezbollah uniform. On April 20, it was Mubarak Ali Hamiyah who joined the martyrs, to be mourned by Brazil’s resident Ali Hamie, who only two weeks before had lamented the death of another relative, Hezbollah fighter Haj Ismail Ali El Zein.
NOT ONLY do the Lebanese Shi’ites of Brazil mourn and lionize their fallen friends and relatives; they also cheer and cry for their political leadership.
On May 24, Hezbollah media announced the passing of Hajja Um Hassan – mother of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general – the oldest Shi’ite mosque in Brazil, in the southern city of Curitiba, expressed its heartfelt condolences to the “leader of the Resistance” and invited the faithful to a vigil at the mosque on May 28.
Among those voicing sorrow was Nizar Hussein Hachem, a local Lebanese businessman who is also the mosque’s president and Lebanon’s honorary consul in the city.
This came a few days after the same congregation had gathered to mourn the death of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and Iran’s foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian. Members of the congregation were not alone in their desire to mourn Iran’s fallen leaders. The much larger Shi’ite mosque in São Paulo did as well.
Brazilian authorities need to open their eyes to this reality. The Shi’ite Lebanese community’s militancy is not limited to mourning Hezbollah martyrs and Iranian leaders. Many of its members play an active role in fundraising for Hezbollah, helping perpetuate conflict in the Middle East, providing intelligence and logistics support to the terror group, and supporting its disinformation and propaganda campaigns in the country.
It is time for Brazil to acknowledge it has a Hezbollah problem, which law enforcement measures alone cannot fully address. Recognizing Hezbollah as a terror group is a first step in the right direction.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based non-partisan research foundation focusing on national security. Please follow him on X @eottolenghi.