Army plans training exercise in Chile, while Senate debates an Iranian nexus

"One of the things I don’t think gets enough attention is how long Hezbollah has had a presence in our hemisphere," Sen. Marco Rubio said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting. "One place in particular where that’s been going on for a while is Chile. We’ve seen multiple instances of these TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] partnering with foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere," he continued.

While Rubio made the case for sanctions against Chilean-based companies that may provide fronts and intelligence platforms for Hezbollah, the U.S. Army planned an upcoming training exercise in Chile called Southern Fenix.

The reasons given for the training exercise are a bit obtuse.

"The objective of Southern Fenix 2024 is to execute a field training exercise combining units of the Chilean Army and [U.S.] Army South in a fictitious context of [military operations other than war] related to an adversary with unconventional characteristics," said Commander in Chief of the 6th Division of the Chilean Army, Brig. Gen. Ruben Castillo Herrera.

A U.S. Army official got a little closer to an explanation. "Southern Fenix 24 is the first of its kind for the U.S. Army in the Southern Command area of operations," explained Col. Charles Karels , U.S. Army South training and exercise director, going on to say that this would be the first SOUTHCOM deployment of the HIMARs (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), which is considered a strategic asset and normally deployed to other theaters of operation.

"HIMARS deployments are common in other theaters but training with this strategic asset with our Chilean partners is a major opportunity to increase our interoperability and training and deployment readiness," Karels said.

Southern Fenix will also see the deployment of the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division to Chile, which is the only U.S. military unit focused on arctic warfare. Chile has high-altitude deserts that are similar to the Arctic environment.

"The strategic and rapid deployment of Airborne forces cannot be dismissed. As a unit aligned against Indo-PACOMs immediate response force, we are counted on to remain ready to deploy on short notice," said U.S. Army Maj. Leah Ganoni who is the 11th Airborne Division public affairs officer.

The U.S. and Chilean militaries will conduct one more planning session for the exercise in July before Southern Fenix kicks off later in the year.