Posted on 02/21/2014 12:20:10 AM PST by Cindy
Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
Previously...
Snippet - Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3113540/posts
Iran Is Cultivating Closer Ties with Anti-American Countries in Our Hemisphere
The Blaze ^ | January 19, 2014 | Sharona Schwartz
Posted on January 20, 2014 at 1:09:49 AM PST by Cincinatus’ Wife
...It is said that wherever Iran goes, Hezbollah is not far behind.”...
This has been going on for quite a number of years. And the libs want to throw the borders open, even when Iranian money has been found on our border with Mexico.
Resource Links:
http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/forum/iran-%7C-islamic-revolution
http://www.longwarjournal.org/tags/Iran/common/
“Subcommittee Hearing: Terrorist Groups in Latin America: The Changing Landscape”
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade | 2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-6128 | Feb 4, 2014 2:00pm
~
Video - Description - quote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMJLTXYBtts
Subcommittee Hearing: Terrorist Groups in Latin America: The Changing Landscape
House Foreign Affairs Committee·723 videos
Streamed live on Feb 4, 2014
Subcommittee Hearing: Terrorist Groups in Latin America: The Changing
Landscape
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade | 2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-6128 | Feb 4, 2014 2:00pm
Category News & Politics
License Standard YouTube License
#
Quote:
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA18/20140204/101702/HHRG-113-FA18-Wstate-RealuyoC-20140204.pdf
Statement of
Celina B. Realuyo*
Professor of Practice
William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies On Hezbollah’s Global Facilitators in Latin America
At a Hearing Entitled “Terrorist Groups in Latin America: The Changing Landscape”
Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation, and Trade House Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives
February 4, 2014
Stepping back to 2013:
~
SNIPPET - quote:
2013-07-10, 12:41
See also
Wanted: Ayman Saied Joumaa
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?430
Something about the IRGC and used car dealers
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?443
US Treasury takes another bite out of Hizballah’s money laundering enterprise
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?481
Hezbollah in Latin America: Terrorism and Organized Crime
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?962
US Treasury vs Ayman Joumaa & the Hizballah criminal enterprise, Round 3
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?1145
US Treasury targets Hizballah support work in West Africa
http://forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?1289
Stepping back to 2013:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3012110/posts
Treasury Identifies Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for Exchange and Halawi Exchange Co. ...
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY ^ | April 23, 2013 | n/a
Posted on April 24, 2013 at 11:05:11 PM PDT by Cindy
Stepping back to 2012:
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/tg1624.aspx
“Treasury Targets Major Money Laundering Network Linked to Drug Trafficker Ayman Joumaa and a Key Hizballah Supporter in South America”
6/27/2012
WASHINGTON
Yes, it’s an ongoing situation.
I started this thread to basically update the archives.
Stepping back to 2011:
“Lebanese Drug Lord Charged in US: Links to Zetas and Hezbollah”
By Jason Ryan
Dec 13, 2011 9:00pm
SNIPPET: “A Lebanese drug kingpin who allegedly has connections to the Zeta drug cartel and Hezbollah has been charged with drug dealing and money laundering, the Justice Department and DEA announced today.
Ayman Joumaa, a.k.a “Junior,” and his associates allegedly shipped an estimated 85,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and laundered more than $850 million in drug money coming out of Mexico from the Zeta cartel through front companies and The Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB).
In a federal indictment that was unsealed Monday, Joumaa was charged with cocaine distribution and money laundering.
In January, the Treasury Department designated Joumaa a major narcotics trafficker, alleging that he used cash exchange houses in Lebanon that had accounts with the Lebanese Canadian Bank.”
ADDING to post no. 2:
Background Link:
http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/exporting-terror-in-americas-backyard/
“Exporting Terror in America’s Backyard”
IASW | Friday, June 14th, 2013
Foreign Policy
BY MATTHEW LEVITT
SNIPPET: “But that’s not all. Closer to the United States, Iran not only continues to expand its presence and bilateral relationships with countries like Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but it also maintains a network of intelligence agents specifically tasked with sponsoring and executing terrorist attacks in the Western Hemisphere.”
SNIPPET: “Nisman found evidence that Iran is building intelligence networks identical to the one responsible for the bombings in Argentina across the region — from Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Colombia to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname.
Nisman’s 2006 report on the AMIA bombing already demonstrated how Iran established a robust intelligence network in South America in the early 1980s.”
SNIPPET: “In 2011, not long before the last defendant in the JFK airport bomb plot was convicted, evidence emerged suggesting Rabbani was still doing intelligence work in South America. An April 2011 article in the Brazilian magazine Veja, citing documents from the FBI, CIA, and Interpol, reported that Rabbani “frequently slips in and out of Brazil on a false passport and has recruited at least 24 youngsters in three Brazilian states to attend ‘religious formation’ classes in Tehran,” according to an article in the Telegraph.”
SNIPPET: “The growth of this Iranian extremist network in South America has immediate repercussions for the security of the United States.”
ADDING to post no. 10.
Stepping back to 2012:
NOTE The following text is a quote:
defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=116071
Panetta: Violent Extremism Threatens Latin America
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
BRASILIA, Apr. 24, 2012 – Even in a region where some of the United States’ closest military partners are steadily improving national stability and security, the threat of violent extremism is spreading, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said here yesterday.
During a weeklong trip that includes stops in Bogota, Colombia; Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Santiago, Chile, the secretary is meeting with military and political leaders to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help with common defense challenges.
Increasingly, one of those challenges involves violent extremist organizations and the growing engagement of Iran in the region.
“We always have a concern about, in particular, the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and efforts by the IRGC to expand their influence, not only throughout the Middle East but also into this region,” Panetta said during a briefing en route to Colombia.
“In my book,” he added, “that relates to expanding terrorism.”
Last month, in written testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, detailed the regional activities of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shi’a Muslim militant group and political party, and Iran.
Southcom’s area of responsibility includes Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
“We do see evidence of international terrorist groups benefitting from the intertwined systems of illicit trafficking and money laundering in our AOR,” Fraser said.
In South America, funding for Hezbollah is raised through charitable donations as well as through drug trafficking and dealing in counterfeit and pirated goods, he said.
In 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department identified the Lebanese Canadian Bank as a “primary money laundering concern” for its role in facilitating money laundering activities of Ayman Joumaa and his Lebanon-based drug trafficking network, which also channeled financial support to Hezbollah.
Joumaa also is accused of smuggling U.S.-bound cocaine through Central America and Mexico and laundering money for a group called Los Zetas, and many Colombian and Venezuelan suppliers.
“In addition to Hezbollah supporters throughout South America, the region is home to a small number of violent extremist organizations, Fraser said.
“We remain vigilant for the potential radicalization of homegrown extremists,” the general added.
For example, a small number of Sunni extremists are involved in the radicalization of converts and other Muslims, Fraser told the panel.
“These efforts can be seen through the influence of public personalities like Jamaica’s Shaykh Abdullah al-Faisal, who was convicted in the United Kingdom for inciting terrorism,” the general said.
Al-Qaida senior operative Adnan el-Shukrijumah has held valid passports for the United States, as well as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, where he has family and associates, Fraser added.
Despite recent convictions in a 2007 plot to attack the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, one alleged co-conspirator remains at large in Guyana, he said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited the region six times in six years, and Iran continues its overtures to countries there to try to circumvent international sanctions, Fraser said.
Iran has established modest economic, cultural and security ties, the general added, mostly with nations aligned with a group known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of our Americas, called ALBA. These include Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Iran also has established 36 Shi’a cultural centers in the region, Fraser said.
The Fundacion Cultural Oriente is an Iranian outreach center dedicated to strengthening Iran’s ties to Latin America, Fraser said.
The center is run by radical cleric Moshen Rabbani, who is on the Interpol Red List for involvement in the 1994 bombings of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, the general said, adding that Rabbani oversees several media outlets and has recruited students from the region to study in Iran.
“We take Iranian activity in the hemisphere seriously and we monitor its activities closely,” Fraser said.
“The U.S. government’s successful detection and thwarting of the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States,” he added, “reinforces the importance of that monitoring and the effectiveness of U.S. countermeasures.”
The expansion of terrorism is an area of concern for the region and its partners, Panetta said.
“I hope we can work together,” the secretary added, “to make sure that all the steps are taken to ensure that anything that encourages terrorism can be fought against.”
ADDING to post no. 8...
2 Background Links:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3343/lebanese-drug-lord-indicted-linked-to-hizballah
http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/news/2011/12/20111213joumaanr.html
http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/hezbollah-in-the-streets-of-caracas-2/
“Hezbollah in the streets of Caracas?”
IASW | Thursday, February 20th, 2014
SNIPPET: “A man whom the US Treasury Department has designated as an operative of the terrorist organization Hezbollah has relocated from the Syria war zone to Venezuela in recent days, apparently in support the government’s violent crackdown against student demonstrators. Ghazi Atef Nassereddine was sanctioned by the US government in 2008 for providing logistical and financial support to Hezbollah.”
SNIPPET: “Two witnesses also have told me that Nassereddine worked personally to obtain Maduro’s approval of Hezbollah money laundering schemes using Venezuelan entities. One plan involved the transfer of Syrian oil through a Venezuelan-operated refinery in the Caribbean to evade international sanctions. These deals would produce enormous profits for corrupt representatives of the Maduro regime as well as Hezbollah.
As part of the late Hugo Chávez’s radical, anti-US agenda, the Venezuelan regime has promoted and even funded the presence and activities of Iran and Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere.”
SNIPPET: “Ghazi Nassereddine appears to have returned to Venezuela to help the regime in its fight to hold to power and silence protesters against Nicolás Maduro’s criminal regime. He tweeted from Caracas on February 19 that he “supports the actions taken by the government [against the opposition]” and labeled the government’s actions against the opposition as “humanitarian and patient.”
Nassereddine’s return to Venezuela shows that the regime knows that it is in fight for survival and prepared to use violence.”
SNIPPET: “In recent years, numerous policymakers and experts in the region have documented the presence of Iran’s terrorist proxy in the Hemisphere – although the State Department continues to minimize this threat.”
###
###
treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/hp1036.aspx
“Treasury Targets Hizballah in Venezuela”
6/18/2008
hp-1036
SNIPPET: “Washington - The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated two Venezuela-based supporters of Hizballah, Ghazi Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan’an, along with two travel agencies owned and controlled by Kan’an.
“It is extremely troubling to see the Government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor to Hizballah facilitators and fundraisers. We will continue to expose the global nature of Hizballah’s terrorist support network, and we call on responsible governments worldwide to disrupt and dismantle this activity,” said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Today’s action was taken pursuant to Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists, those owned or controlled by or acting for or on behalf of terrorists, and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. Assets the designees hold under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions in property or interests in property blocked under the order.”
“Ros-Lehtinen: Nicolas Maduro is Becoming Worse Than Chavez”
Secure Freedom Radio Podcasts | February 18, 2014 | Latin America
SNIPPET: ““I handed to Secretary of State John Kerry during one of his appearances before a foreign affairs committee, proof of electoral fraud [in Venezuela], but of course the United… did nothing…. We have a sort of ‘let’s ignore this guy and maybe the problem will go away.’”
Ros-Lehtinen also warned of the progress Iran and North Korea are making into Latin and Central America, particularly through alliances with the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) countries. As proof, she put forward the example of purported Iranian consulates in the region.
“Now, you’ve got to think, what are the consulates for? Usually it’s to do passport service and visas. Well, I can’t see a huge number of Latin Americans travelling to Iran. Obviously those are make-believe embassies and consulates that are really operations for espionage.”
Ros-Lehtinen urged Americans to see Iran, as well as North Korea, as threats that are close-to-home, and not as distant as they may seem.
“For those folks who think ‘Iran is over there in some other part of the world, and South America is another part of the world—no, no, no. South America is right here and Iran is right here with them.””
During the Clinton administration, high ranking Venezuelan military personnel went to Washington with proof that Chavez campaign was funded by large money transfers that came in from the Middle East.
Terrorists groups in Ecuador, Alfaro Vive Carajo, were trained in the Middle East. This was all happening well before 9-11. These are just 2 examples that I happen to have have first hand knowledge of. Our government is well aware.
The US government has known this for a long time and did nothing about it. At minimum they could have ensured public awareness. It was almost like a gag order was put on this information.
First hand knowledge is the best sourced.
Thank you for this post, mgist.
Thanks Cindy.
Are We Facing an Iranian Missile Crisis? The Dereliction of our Media
Pajamas Media | May 18, 2011 | Ron Rodosh
Posted on 5/19/2011 10:06:42 AM by AU72
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2722057/posts
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