Posted on 03/14/2005 10:38:56 PM PST by elhombrelibre
Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years.
By Yoram East
© 2005 Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin
Documents confiscated by European intelligence and law enforcement agencies show Irish terrorists, including the Irish Republican Army, are working once again with Islamic terror organizations in the Middle East.
According to these documents, IRA officials were in touch during the last two years with Islamic groups, non-jihadi Palestinian groups and criminal elements dealing with various types of smuggling.
The renewal of such links, common in the 1970s and 1980s, are predicated on several IRA needs:
a new echelon of rank-and-file IRA terrorists is coming of age awaiting and expecting action; funds accumulated through illicit deals are running low; pressure is being exercised on top IRA members to keep financial promises given to families of fallen comrades. While some in the U.S. believe the Irish conflict was settled years ago through negotiations headed by former Sen. George Mitchell, renewed violence by the IRA is expected by many observers.
Recently, IRA operatives have been snagged participating in high-profile bank robberies, such as the case of the $5 million heist in Belfast in December. In addition, IRA operatives have been involved in major drug deals.
Meanwhile, the Irish police, known as Gardai, are cooperating with Bulgarian intelligence over an ambitious IRA plan to purchase a bank in Sophia. According to information coming from Dublin, Irish authorities have apprehended for questioning a number of known business people with alleged ties to the IRA.
One of them is a 56-year-old businesswoman who was later released without serving charges. The woman who was interrogated in a police station in northern Dublin allegedly has ties to a seven-member IRA delegation that arrived in Sophia during February with the intention of establishing a major money-laundering facility.
Bulgarian detectives, working on a tip from Ireland, monitored some of the meetings of the so-called "Magnificent Seven," who, in one meeting held at a Sophia restaurant, elaborated on the plan to buy a bank which would enable them to launder approximately GBP 30 million a year.
The plan was to have the bank serve groups and individuals described as top terrorists and crime lords – including the IRA's associates in the Middle East. At least one of those who attended the meeting in Sophia is a former senior Irish government aide identified by the Bulgarians as Phil Flynn. Also recognized by Bulgarian sources were Ted Cunningham and at least two others suspected of being involved with bank robberies in Ireland or in Northern Ireland.
Alarm bells echoed in London, Belfast and Dublin, when the Bulgarians reported links had been established between an unnamed Bulgarian arms dealer and the IRA. This fact was later verified by the Irish security service following a monitored meeting between the Bulgarian and his Irish contacts.
This new criminal side of the IRA may explain why President Bush has broken with tradition and not invited Sinn Fein or Irish Republican Army officials to the White House on St. Patrick's Day.
Instead, Bush has invited the sisters and fiancee of a Catholic man said to have been killed by the IRA.
The invitation is a significant political message from Bush, whose aides announced last week for the first time since 1995, Sinn Fein and other Irish parties would not be invited.
Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the separatist group, will be touring the United States when Ireland's patron saint is honored Thursday, and will speak in Washington, although he was not invited to the White House.
Officials in the Bush Administration told the newspaper Bush believes neither Adams nor his aide Martin McGuinness can be trusted. McGuinness announced last week he would not be accompanying Adams on the U.S. tour, as Sinn Fein is mired in scandal over the bank robbery, as well as the shooting death of Robert McCartney outside a Belfast pub.
But Bush also knows the IRA is back in the business of aiding and cooperating with the sworn enemies of the U.S. – the radical Muslim jihadists of the Middle East.
ping
Ping!
The IRA and the PLO were always in partnership.
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