On April 30, 2020, Germany designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization and declared it illegal, thus prohibiting all activity on its behalf. Later, Horst Seehofer, the then Minister of the Interior, ordered arrests of Hezbollah operatives and suspects, and searches of their homes, mosques, and known gathering spots. But three years after the designation, it seems that Hezbollah continues to function, representing a significant security threat to Germany. Despite the nation’s efforts to reduce Hezbollah activity on its soil, its ranks have only swelled and the level of identification with the organization has only increased since then. Operations are in full swing mostly within Shiite Muslim associations linked in some way with Hezbollah through which the radical, Iran-inspired Shiite ideology is disseminated. A 2022 special report by the German intelligence services claims that Hezbollah “demands the application of the Shari’a, the Islamic legal system” and aims “its propaganda against Wester institutions” to further its agenda.
These Shiite associations are maintained by diverse Hezbollah supporters. Some are active association members and others are Lebanese Hezbollah supporters living in Germany. There are also Hezbollah operatives who come directly from Lebanon to Germany to participate in religious ceremonies, memorials, commemorations, and so on. All this allows the organization to preserve active, widespread connections with its operatives abroad, all under Iran’s watchful eye.
A case in point is the Islamische Zentrum Hamburg (IZH), an association infamous for its ties with Iran and Hezbollah, which has been monitored by the German authorities since 1993: in 2022, Seyed Soliman Mousavifar, a former IZH deputy director, was expelled from Germany and deported with his family to Iran for supporting radical Shiite organizations, including Hezbollah. Moreover, in 2021, Philipp Woldin, Hamburg managing editor of the daily Die Welt, wrote that “the IZH is Iran’s most important center of Iranian propaganda in Europe,” which sends busses full of pro-Iranian and pro-Hezbollah activists to Berlin to participate in the annual International Quds Day march and rally.
The IZH’s pro-Iranian work has cast a shadow on the association’s connections with Hamburg’s Shura Council, the umbrella organization of Muslim (Sunni and Shia) groups, which represents some 40 communities, mosques, and other Islamic institutions in the city. To dissociate itself from IZH activity and not risk tainting the entire Islamic population of Hamburg as subversives, the Shura Council removed the IZH from its board of directors in January 2022. It explained its decision as a response to the IZH’s support for the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Qassam Suleimani, its former commander, and to accusations that the center was “the long arm of Iranian terrorism in Europe,” after Germany’s intelligence agency confirmed ties to both Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and Hezbollah.
Iran and Hezbollah use Shiite Islamic associations in Europe as a way to function via an elaborate continental network sustaining terrorist activity and promoting Iran’s ambitions while also undermining and harming the interests and institutions of its enemies (i.e., Jewish and Israeli targets abroad). Hezbollah itself earns millions of dollars flowing in from drug smuggling and distribution via its operatives throughout Europe in general and Germany in particular as the latter is a key crossroads for of terrorist organizations’ global trade in illegal drugs. In addition to drug smuggling, their activities also include money laundering and trading in stolen vehicles. Furthermore, Hezbollah uses Germany as a base for recruiting operatives and supporters, engaging in espionage, and acquiring weapons.
It would therefore seem that despite German declarations and its thwarting efforts, the Iranian-Hezbollah activity in Germany continues to thrive. he hardening of official policy towards them has not ended this subversive network; greater efforts are necessary. The German authorities must develop a better understanding of the personal and ideological connections between Shiite citizens of Germany (of both Iranian and Lebanese extraction) and Shiite organizations and groups (in the Middle East and throughout Europe) belonging to the axis directed by Tehran. Their religious zealotry for the fundamentals of the Shia supersedes their loyalty to the German republic.
In spite of surveillance of Shiite Islamic centers, the fact that various plots are constantly being uncovered is evidence of continuing subversive activity at those centers; thus, the network continues to be active and there are still key figures that must be arrested and placed behind bars. Only this May, two Hezbollah operatives, working to realize the organization’s goals via a local NGO called Al-Mustafa, were arrested. The two had organized appearances by preachers to increase ideological support and establish a youth group of the NGO. The two had been recruited by Hezbollah in Lebanon; one, Abd al-Latif was even a member of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s elite special ops unit. Since 2012, he’d served as the chairman of Al-Mustafa. Germany banned the NGO in 2022. The activity of these two is but a fraction of the operations of a large network of Lebanese-Germans, exploiting their double citizenship to promote the goals of Hezbollah and Iran.
The German authorities must therefore increase security at all of the nation’s ports, control and limit the entry of Iranian and Lebanese nationals, and track radical activity in the social media and among the contacts of those entities. Similarly, they must increase surveillance of local merchants who are members of Shiite communities all over Germany. It is necessary to investigate the connections among parties in the community and understand how propaganda materials, weapons, logistics, and intelligence from espionage, all under the guise of normal business, are disseminated.
Undercover operatives of the Quds Force have infiltrated Iranian and Shiite communities in Germany to spy on Iranian exiles opposed to the Ayatollahs’ regime, and on Jewish and Israeli targets in the country. Iran has never stopped spying and gathering intelligence on Jewish and Israeli parties around the world to carry out terrorist attacks even after local and foreign security services managed to eliminate agents acting on its behalf.
Iranian terrorist activity spans the entire globe and uses Shiite communities as its springboard. Hezbollah, the prime organizational protégé of the ayatollahs, is an effective and lethal tool in the Iranian arsenal, while Shiite communities are pawns in Iran’s game of chess against Germany and the West. Hezbollah may have been designated illegal in Germany, but religious and social activity continues to thrive in Shiite societies along with terrorist activity. German law is one thing; Shiite ideology is quite another.
