U.S., Mexican Officials Say They Can't Confirm Arrest of Hezbollah Operative on Border

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published July 09, 2010

FoxNews.com

AP

June 2: A Hezbollah supporter holds up a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah as he protests with others along the Lebanese-Israeli border in southern Lebanon.

Officials in the U.S. and Mexico say they cannot confirm a widely-circulating report out of Kuwait that a Hezbollah leader has been arrested in Mexico. 

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported last week that Hezbollah operatives had employed Mexican nationals with ties to Lebanon to set up a network in South America designed to target Israel and the West, and that the group's alleged leader, Jameel Nasr, had been arrested in Tijuana.

According to the report, authorities in Mexico conducted a surveillance operation on Nasr, who traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive instructions from Hezbollah militants.

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Obama orders 1,200 Guard troops to border

$500 million also sought to improve protection, law enforcement

Ross D. Franklin / AP file

A United States National Guard unit patrols the Arizona-Mexico border in Sasabe, Ariz., in this Jan. 19, 2007, file photo. President Obama on Tuesday pledged 1,200 National Guardsman but Arizona's two senators say that's not enough.

msnbc.com news services

updated 2 hours, 29 minutes ago

TUCSON, Ariz. - President Barack Obama on Tuesday ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to boost security along the U.S.-Mexico border, pre-empting Republican plans to try to force votes on such a deployment. 

Obama will also request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement activities, according to lawmakers and administration officials.

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The president announced the deployment shortly after he returned from lunch with the 41-member Senate Republican Caucus, who told him that U.S. borders first need to be secured before work could start on a sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.  Arizona's two Republican senators said the deployment wasn't enough.

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