Since Hugo Chavez's rise to power in 1999 with the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV), the former military man has pursued an anti-Western policy and at the same time led a rapprochement with the Shiite Axis in Ahmadinejad's days. Of Iran.
After Operation Cast Lead (2009-2008) Caracas severed diplomatic relations with Jerusalem and has not had an Israeli representative in the capital since.
Following the death of "Commandant" Chavez in 2013, Nicholas Maduro continues to pursue a hostile policy toward Israel and has even strengthened the alliance with the regime in Tehran.
However, the beginning of the presence of terrorist elements in South America occurred in the late 1980s when Iran led a policy of exporting the Islamic Revolution to the world.
Most of the terrorist activity was concentrated in the border triangle of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and the turning point occurred in 1992 after the targeted assassination of the then Hezbollah leader, Abbas Mousavi, in an IDF operation in southern Lebanon.
Maduro supporters demonstrate in Venezuela, Photo: AFP
In response, a month later the organization attacked in the capital Buenos Aires with a suicide bomber who drove a car bomb that exploded in the Israeli embassy building and killed 29 civilians and left over 200 wounded.
Two years later, Hezbollah attacked again, this time against the Jewish community building (Amia) in a terrorist attack that killed 85 people.
The Argentine legal system has ruled that Iran and the Shiite-Lebanese organization were responsible for the tragedy and since then there has been an effort to judge the planners and perpetrators.
To date, attempts have been unsuccessful and a number of countries in the region have re-approached the regime in Tehran.
This effort was led by Venezuela and was followed by Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil.
Concern in the West has for years been based on the scenario that Iran will use its allies in South America to circumvent sanctions and even obtain equipment for the nuclear program.
According to reports, in 2008 Israel assassinated one of the planners of the 1994 attack on the Amiya, Imad Mourniyeh, commander of the military wing of the Hezbollah organization
