Free Republic

EXCLUSIVE: I've obtained the leaked security briefing that's been provided to Trump national security officials in recent months regarding the criminal group Tren de Aragua and the Venezuela government. President Trump designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on January 20th by Executive order because it's “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” inside the United States. According to the order: “TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking.” It's not a street...

Thanks to oil, Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in the region — before becoming the continent’s poorest, ravaged by corruption and feckless economic policy. And amid the economic decline, high-ranking government officials became conspicuously wealthy. But how? According to U.S. indictments, former government officials, and regional experts, officials linked to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and members of Maduro’s government built a massive drug syndicate — while most of the country increasingly struggled to find food to eat, or medicine to care for the sick. “Venezuela was a narco state several years ago, but it has become darker and...

Local civilians in El Alto, Bolivia, detained three Cuban nationals and handed them over to police on Wednesday, who found evidence that the foreigners were paying people to riot on behalf of the nation’s socialist party. The revelation follows the arrests of several Venezuelan and Cuban citizens among the thousands rioting in El Alto and La Paz, the seat of the executive branch, and the positive identification of a man injured during protests two weeks ago as an Argentine member of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group. Members of anti-socialist groups who organized peaceful protests against...

They were leaving a social event in the south-western department of Huila when their vehicle hit a road mine. They were then shot dead in the ambush, a police spokesperson said. It is the worst attack on security forces since former guerrilla Gustavo Petro was sworn in as Colombia's first left-wing president less than a month ago According to the national police and attorney general's office, three of the officers who were killed were aged 20 or younger. Mr Petro condemned the attack, calling it "a clear act of sabotage against peace" in a tweet. Late on Friday he travelled...

As mayor of Bogota, Gustavo Petro has put forth a ban on carrying guns in public even with a legal permit. Skeptics have countered that criminals will not follow the ban, and the result will only disarm citizens legally carry guns for security reasons. In 2002 Brazil implemented restrictions which made it virtually impossible for citizens to obtain a permit. According to Brazil’s National Confederation of Municipalities as recently as 2008, more than half of the homocides in Brazil were perpetrated with a firearm, despite restrictions on legal ownership of firearms. The nation suffers at three times the global average...

Bout is alleged to have fueled multiple conflicts across the globe through arms dealing, sometimes to both sides ... A senior defense official is concerned that convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the "Merchant of Death" .. could go back to illegally trafficking weapons, thereby fueling deadly conflicts around the world. "I think there is a concern that he would return to doing the same kind of work that he's done in the past.. Bout was in the middle of serving a 25-year prison sentence in a U.S. prison for several offenses, including conspiring to kill Americans ... Bout, a...

Like sheep led to the slaughter. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” –George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905 Over the course of the 20th Century, murder by communist government acccounted for the deaths of over 100 million people. The brutalities are well known—or should be—there are countless histories of the terror inflicted upon citizens by believers in Marxian doctrine. In fact, the scourge persists still today, most notably in China. Despite the tremendous amount of evidence (both historical and current) detailing the most unspeakable horrors at the hands of men like Pol Pot, Mao...

The U.S. has offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. In a sharp reversal of previous policy, Blinken also said he expects to speak with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time since before Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the deal and other matters. Blinken's comments marked the first time the U.S. government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and...

Venezuela is moving troops to the border with Colombia with technical assistance from Russia and Iran, Colombia's defense minister Diego Molano said on Thursday, calling the possible deployment "foreign interference." Molano, citing intelligence sources, said troop movements were registered in Venezuela opposite Colombia's Arauca province, the scene of fierce fighting between guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents for control of the drugs trade.

A Marxist organization that had been on America’s list of terrorists since 1997 has now had the slate wiped clean by the Biden administration. FARC, the Spanish acronym of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, “no longer exists as a unified organization that engages in terrorism or terrorist activity or has the capability or intent to do so,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Tuesday. The foreign terrorist designation makes it a crime to support a group. ... An estimated 260,000 people were killed during the decades when Colombia was fractured by civil war... As noted by...

MIAMI - The Biden administration’s plan to remove a Colombian rebel group from a list of foreign terrorist organizations barely caused a ripple outside Washington when the news broke this week. But in Florida, home to an estimated 150,000 Colombian American voters, it’s a different story. Biden’s policy is reverberating loudly among Democrats, leading some of the state’s top elected officials, strategists and activists to rail against the decision. “This is terrible. It’s bad policy. It’s bad politics,” said Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who’s Colombian American. Calling the news “outrageous,” Taddeo criticized the Biden administration...

As if dealing with the Taliban as a "partner" and taking the Houthis off the terrorist watch list weren't enough, Joe Biden has decided to succor another terrorist group: FARC. He took them off the terrorist watch list. Most people don't remember them, but these were the vile Marxist narco-terrorists who terrorized Colombia for 60 years and then got off scot-free based on a "peace deal" from a lousy Colombian president whose hankering for a Nobel prize was so strong that he literally ignored a popular referendum rejecting such a deal. They had good reason: in FARC's war on that...

Anonymous alleged “U.S. and congressional officials” told the Wall Street Journal this week President Joe Biden is planning to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a nearly 60-year-old terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, from America’s list of designated foreign terrorist groups. The FARC, a communist group, has been responsible for a wide variety of human rights atrocities in Colombia since its founding in 1964 that include mass killings, kidnappings, child rape, forced abortions, the use of child soldiers, and one of the world’s most lucrative drug trafficking operations. The government of then-President Juan Manuel...

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia on Saturday accused FARC dissidents of detonating a car bomb in the town of Corinto in the country’s Cauca province, which left 43 people injured, including 11 public officials, and caused material damages.

FARC, whose leaders are going on trial, is one of the many murderous offshoots of that ‘real socialism’ the Left insists ‘has never been tried.’A special court has been convened in Colombia to try eight leaders of the Marxist-Leninist terrorist outfit known as FARC — Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. Perhaps justice will be done upon these eight — will it ever be done for their enablers in the United States and elsewhere?FARC is one of the many murderous offshoots of that “real socialism” that our leftist friends always insist “has...

Labor Raid: The FBI raids the Chicago home of a local union leader looking for terrorist connections as the union's former chief is investigated for corruption. Why are we not surprised? Thuggery and corruption are not quite synonyms for unionism, but it gets very close when you consider the Service Employees International Union, formerly led by Andy Stern. From being involved in fraudulent voter registration in Texas to beating up Tea Party activists outside town hall meetings in Missouri, SEIU's reputation is well-established. Now we can possibly add a linkage to terrorism. On Friday, the FBI searched eight addresses in...

The operation involved at least three boats, though only one was captured. One of its commanders sent audio recordings to Venezuelan military and police WhatsApp groups, calling for troops to rebel and take to the streets. Alemán, a Venezuelan lawmaker now living outside the country, said Sunday he had been involved in Alcalá’s operation in Colombia since last year. He said the group had to “make some adjustments” after a shipment of weapons destined for the camps was seized by Colombian authorities in March. Alemán said the plan was for the boats to land at La Guaira, home to Venezuela’s...

Bill Clinton was recently in Saint Lucia celebrating the new solar farm that the Clintons were instrumental in erecting.

The United States has indicted Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and other top regime officials in a narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy that aimed to “flood the United States with cocaine,” the Justice Department announced. The criminal indictment accuses Maduro of teaming up with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

In a stunning announcement amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Justice Department plans to announce Thursday that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other government officials have been charged with turning Venezuela into a narco-state by collaborating with a leftist Colombian guerrilla group that exported tons of cocaine to the United States. An indictment, to be unveiled at a “virtual” news conference in Washington, D.C., accuses Maduro and other top officials in his socialist regime of conspiring with the U.S.-designated terrorist group known as the FARC so that Venezuela could be used for narcotics shipments to finance a long-running civil war against...