WASHINGTON — The United States is pushing Bolivia to kick suspected Iranian spies out of the South American country and designate Tehran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Washington also wants the government in La Paz to designate Hezbollah and Hamas — both of which the United States considers to be proxies of Tehran — as terrorist organizations, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

The private diplomatic push comes amid a broader US effort to deepen its geopolitical influence in Latin America and diminish that of its adversaries in the region.

Following an operation earlier in January to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, US officials quickly pushed the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez to curtail economic and security cooperation between Caracas and Tehran, according to a separate source familiar with the matter. For years, Venezuela and Iran had been steadfast allies.

Asked for comment, the Bolivian foreign ministry said that “there is still no completely defined position regarding this matter.” The State Department did not respond to a request for comment, while the Iranian mission to the United Nations declined to comment.

Bolivia, a landlocked country of 12 million people located in the heart of South America, would at first glance seem to be an unlikely venue for a proxy struggle between major world powers. Some current and former US officials, however, said the nation has become an important base for Iran’s diplomatic and intelligence operations throughout the continent.

In part, that is because of what US officials have described as a permissive counterintelligence environment, as well as the nation’s central location bordering several other nations, some of which have allegedly been the victim of attempted Hezbollah plots in recent years.

Rick de........

© The Times of Israel