Hezbollah terrorist ‘trained for jihad’ arrested in Texas

Ebbadi said his training was focused on killing people “who are not Muslim.”

By World Israel News Staff

A Lebanese man nabbed by U.S. Border Police while attempting to illegally cross into Texas admitted he is a member of the Hezbollah terror group and that he was planning to travel to New York to “make a bomb.”

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was picked up by immigration authorities last week near El Paso, Texas.

During post-arrest interview, the Lebanese national said he had “trained for jihad” over the course of seven years with Hezbollah, according to a New York Post report.

Ebbadi said his training was focused on killing people “who are not Muslim” and that had spent an additional four years as an armed guard protecting Hezbollah assets in Lebanon.

When asked by immigration agents about why he traveled to the U.S., Ebbadi clarified that he was bound for New York, where he was “going to try to make a bomb.”

Later in the interview, however, Ebbadi contradicted himself, claiming that he was seeking refuge in the U.S. to get away from rampant terror in his home country.

He told agents that he “didn’t want to kill people.” Referring to membership in a terror group, he said that “once you’re in in, you can never get out,” according to internal ICE documents viewed by the Post.

In a November report from Politico, American officials had expressed concerns that members of foreign terror groups could potentially try to carry out attacks on U.S. soil.

“The arrests of individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Hezbollah’s main overseas terrorist arm, and their intelligence-collection and procurement efforts, demonstrate Hezbollah’s interest in long-term contingency planning activities here in the homeland,” FBI director Chris Wray said at the time.

The Department of Homeland Security has previously admitted that there has been an increase in migrants on terror watchlists attempting to illegally cross into the U.S. via the southern border.