Posted on 03/18/24
| News Source: NY Post
A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal.
Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.
But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hamas because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in in, you can never get out,” according to internal ICE documents.
Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show.
Ebbadi’s training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” he said.
Border agents continue to see a surge in migrants whose names appear on the terror watchlist entering the US illegally as crossings continue at record levels.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group, has launched missiles into northern Israel following Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 that have killed about a dozen IDF soldiers and seven civilians.