Hezbollah poses the most immediate international terrorist danger, Israeli experts said at a conference that drew top U.S. officials. The Institute for Counter-Terrorism, an independent think tank comprising former top Israeli security officials, ran a workshop Wednesday at the Israeli Embassy in Washington on changing strategies in combating terrorism. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group, posed the most immediate danger even though its last attack outside the Middle East was in Argentina in 1994, the experts said. Hezbollah’s legal and illegal operations in more than 40 countries, including the United States and Canada, “can transfer in a short time from the criminal arena to the terrorist arena,” said Eitan Azani, the institute’s expert on the organization. “It can carry out an attack in a short time.” A likely trigger for a Hezbollah attack would be a Western attack on Iran to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program, institute experts agreed. Top U.S. counter-terrorism officials attended the conference.
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