wretchard the cat's Library tagged latin_america →  View Popular

A top US military commander said Wednesday he fears a "disastrous" linkup between drug traffickers and radical Islamists in Latin America, where he said Iran wields growing influence.

"I fear greatly that the connectivity between narcoterrorism and Islamic radical terrorism could be disastrous in this region," Admiral James Stavridis, head of the US Southern Command, told a conference on Latin America.

"What I worry about in this region with outside actors coming into it is the potential for those streams to cross, if you will, for the fuel of narcoterrorism to become engaged in Islamic radicalism here in the Americas, here in our home," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

Not long ago Iran began banking operations in Venezuela as well, in an effort to bypass the international sanctions in place and those that may follow in coming days.

According to the OFAC statement, one of the men designated, Ghazi Nasr al Din, is a Hezbollah fund raiser who has facilitated the travel of senior Hezbollah operatives to Venezuela to raise funds and open Hezbollah-funded social centers.

This, of course, is greatly facilitated by the direct flights now operating between Caracas and Tehran, with return stops in Damacus, Syria. The added beauty of these flights is that those who board them don’t need visas, so there is no record available as to who has come or gone. And, despite being commercial flights, it if virtually impossible for a normal person to book and fly on the flights.

Critics of Plan Colombia, such as authors Doug Stokes and Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, argue that the main intent of the program is not drug eradication but to fight leftist guerrillas supported by part of the lower rural class in Colombia. They argue that these Colombian peasants are also a target because they are calling for social reform and hindering international plans to exploit Colombia's valuable resources, including oil and other natural resources.^[18] As of 2004, Colombia is the fifteenth largest supplier of oil to the United States^[19] and could potentially rise in that ranking if petroleum extraction could be conducted in a more secure environment. From 1986 to 1997 there were nearly 79 million barrels (12,600,000 m³) of crude oil spilled in pipeline attacks. Damage and lost revenue were estimated at $1.5 billion, while the oil spills seriously damaged the ecology.^[20]

While the assistance is defined as counternarcotics assistance, critics such as filmmaker Gerard Ungeman argues it will be used primarily against the FARC.^[21] Supporters of the Plan such as the U.S. embassy in Bogotá and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman argue that the distinction between guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug dealers may have increasingly become irrelevant, seeing as they could be considered as part of the same productive chain. As a result, counternarcotics assistance and equipment should also be available for use against any of these irregular armed groups when necessary.

For the second time in three months, Venezuela has been implicated in foreign terrorism. The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control named two well-connected Venezuelans as facilitators of Hezbollah Wednesday. Ghazi Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan'an, along with two Caracas travel agencies, were put on the list this past week, their assets frozen and businesses prohibited.

It follows confirmations last March of Venezuelan state support for Marxist terror in Colombia from a captured FARC computer verified as authentic by Interpol in May.

Using 12 aliases and a government expense account, Ghazi met Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon to discuss "operations," helped Hezbollah raise money, gave donors Hezbollah bank account numbers, and shuttled Hezbollah members from the Middle East to Caracas. He even arranged Hezbollah travel to Iran for "training."

Back in Caracas, Kan'an kept busy, too. Using six aliases and two travel agencies, he raised cash in Venezuela and funneled it to terrorists in Lebanon as "a significant provider of financial support," OFAC said. In Lebanon, Kan'an met Hezbollah leaders to discuss kidnappings and terror attacks. He made the Iran shuttle runs, too.

Ghazi's connections weren't just with top Hezbollah terrorists. According to Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo, he's close to Venezuela's Vice Minister of the Interior Tarek el-Ayassami, deputy to Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin.

Speaking in Caracas, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said they wanted to co-ordinate the group to reduce the amount of crude oil on the market.

Mr Ahmadinejad is visiting Venezuela at the start of a tour aimed at boosting ties with Latin America.

Venezuela has been a strong ally of Iran in its controversial pursuit of a nuclear power programme.
<!-- E SF -->

Mr Chavez welcomed Mr Ahmadinejad to Caracas, calling him a "fighter for just causes, to a revolutionary and a brother".

Baer says his Hezbollah contacts told him an attack against the US was unlikely because Iran and Hezbollah did not want to give the Bush administration an excuse to attack.

While US officials say there is no credible information of a Hezbollah attack on American soil, the Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, told Fox News two weeks ago, that "they make al Qaeda look like a minor league team."

"Hezbollah remains a threat to security in different parts of the world," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, section chief for the national Press Office.

Baer says his Hezbollah contacts told him an attack against the US was unlikely because Iran and Hezbollah did not want to give the Bush administration an excuse to attack.

While US officials say there is no credible information of a Hezbollah attack on American soil, the Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, told Fox News two weeks ago, that "they make al Qaeda look like a minor league team."

"Hezbollah remains a threat to security in different parts of the world," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, section chief for the national Press Office.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuela's foreign minister on Thursday rejected U.S. government accusations that a Venezuelan diplomat helped finance Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro did not specifically refer to Ghazi Nasr al Din, who was targeted Wednesday in a U.S. Treasury Department action ordering any assets he controls in the United States to be frozen and forbidding U.S. citizens from doing business with him.

But Maduro told reporters that "there are no terrorists here," and said officials should be going after the assets of President Bush.

"If they want to search for terrorists, look for them in the White House," he said