(LibertySociety.com) – Officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrested a 22-year-old Lebanese man named Basel Bassel Ebbadi on March 9. He was caught attempting to enter the United States near El Paso, Texas. During a sworn interview following his arrest, Ebbadi said that he spent seven years training with the Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah, and was coming to the United States to “try to make a bomb.” He reportedly told officials that after his training was complete, he guarded locations where Hezbollah’s weapons were stored for four years.
Ebbadi was immediately isolated while CBP called up the Tactical Terrorism Response Team to interview him after he reportedly made “terroristic threats to personnel.” According to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ebbadi said that he did not have any identification because he was robbed at knifepoint in Costa Rica. He also said he went by a fake name and date of birth while in Sweden, Ecuador – where he said his father lives – and Panama. He was planning to travel to New York first, then make his way around the United States. The New York Post reported that internal documents showed he was going to be deported but did not include information about where he would be sent. He is reportedly in custody at the El Paso Sector Hardened Facility.
Those documents also showed that he later claimed he fled Lebanon to escape Hezbollah because he did not want to be made to kill people and because it was impossible to leave the terror group after joining. Hezbollah is one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in existence. Arab Media reported that the terror group praised Hamas after the October 7, 2023, terror attack in Israel. Hezbollah has launched missiles into Israel on multiple occasions since that day.
The Daily Caller obtained data from CBP that showed 20,287 encounters with individuals who were deemed Special Interest Aliens (SIAs). So far this year, 12,114 have been allowed into the United States and were given notices to appear in court. The Department of Homeland Security lists individuals as SIAs if they often travel in areas where terrorism occurs. In 2023, 172 people on the terrorist watchlist were caught trying to come into the United States.
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