Speaking Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the U.S. Southern Command said that during the last 5 years, Iran has nearly doubled the number of embassies in the region and that during Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s 12 years in office, Chavez and Ahmadinejad have had at least nine visits. Fraser said there were still too many unknowns in the alliance.
He mentioned the weekly flights between Iran and Venezuela and that visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua and added that the main concerns is that there is not a lot of visibility in who is visiting and who is not. Referring to the close ties between Iran and the groups that it supports, such as Hezbollah, Fraser said: “we are still skeptical and watching that on a routine basis.”