Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Brazil: Palestinian Authority opens embassy in Brasilia

The first one in our hemisphere, and designed to make a statement (emphasis added):

Built on a piece of land that is more than 17,000 square feet and donated by the Brazilian government when it was led by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the space is considered large in comparison to other diplomatic missions. Topped with a golden dome, the building resembles the famous mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas laid the cornerstone for the building in 2011.

Lula donated a strategic location in his own country’s capital: There’s a security component,

The inauguration of the embassy comes as Brazil and Israel tussle over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nominee to fill the vacant Israeli envoy position.

The closeness of the new embassy to major Brazilian governmental buildings, including the Planalto Palace, Congress, Supreme Court and ministries, has been widely criticized due to security concerns.

“Diplomats and their vehicles cannot be checked. The embassy is a sovereign Hamas area now,” an unnamed military source told Brazil’s Veja magazine in an article published last year. “The site is strategic. Terrorists could access the whole governmental structure in a half an hour.”

For decades the Brazilian government has ignored Hezbollah’s activities in the Tri-Border Area. Now Hamas and the PA have a strategically-important spot in the middle of Brasilia.

What could possibly go wrong?

UPDATE
Linked to by Babalu. Thank you!

I also linked to it in today’s post.



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Honduras’ arrest of Syrians points to Hezbollah’s Tri-Border Area connection UPDATED

Long-time readers of this blog know that I have been writing about the Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay Tri-Border Area (TBA) for nearly a decade. According to Infobae, Lebanon-based Hezbollah generates at least $10million/year from drugs and weapons trafficking, but Hezbollah’s total take may be much larger.

This 2003 report on the Tri-Border Area (TBA) report prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Director of Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics Center,

During the 1999-2001 period, Islamic extremist groups, specifically Hizballah and Hamas, received a total of between US$50 million and US$500 million from Arab residents of Foz do Iguaçu through Paraguayan financial institutions.105 An investigation begun in September 2001 also determined that a group of 42 Arabs in Ciudad del Este remitted abroad, mostly to Lebanon, approximately US$50 million, apparently during the 1997-2001 period. It is believed that these funds were derived from arms trafficking and other illicit activities.

Now it appears human trafficking has been added to the trade:

The Daily Mail reports that the five Syrians arrested in Honduras with fake Greek passports paid US$10,000 each to travel to the South American Tri-Border area.

The five men departed Syria for Brazil via Lebanon. Once in Brazil, they were given fake Greek passports. From there, they went to the TBA near Iguazu Falls, where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet and reached Argentina by land. From Argentina, they flew to Costa Rica and Honduras, but missed their connecting flight to the northern Honduras city of San Pedro Sula, just 20 miles from the border with Guatemala.

The plan was to reach the U.S. by crossing through Guatemala and Mexico. Their lawyer claims they wanted to stay in Guatemala as a final destination.

The Daily Mail has details and video:
EXCLUSIVE – Extraordinary lengths five young Syrian men went to in bid to enter US amid ISIS fears: Greek passports forged in Brazil, hopping from country to country and not checking luggage to avoid scrutiny. The five Syrians were arrested in Honduras with forged Greek passports

  • Men obtained stolen documents in Brazil and had their photos added on
  • Officials believe they were making their way towards the United States
  • Only had hand luggage with them to avoid checks as they made journey
  • After missing a flight because of delays, they were found to not be Greek
  • Men are not considered terrorists, Honduran officials tell Daily Mail Online
  • Men fled Syria after fears they would be kidnapped by ISIS, police say

Last May I wrote,

The Infobae report states that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is Hezbollah’s strategic partner, having cemented the late Hugo Chávez’s ties with Hezbollah and Iran.

If that doesn’t got your attention, note that the report also talks about the growing ties with Mexican drug cartels – which are in charge of human traffic across the border – and the terrorist group for bringing into the U.S. Islamic terrorists, in exchange for weapons.

I am not alleging that the five Syrians detained in Honduras are themselves involved in terrorist activities. Clearly,

The men are now not considered terrorists, Honduran officials told Daily Mail Online

However, the route they took and the amounts of money involved point to the likely involvement of Hezbollah in their transport.

UPDATE
Honduran special police force spokeman Anibal Baca, said they had been tipped off by Greece about the men’s imminent arrival.

Official: 3 Syrians With Fake IDs Detained in St. Maarten (emphasis added)

Officials said the three Syrians had traveled from Europe then stopped in Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Haiti before entering St. Maarten. It is unclear where they were headed.

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Hezbollah in Latin America: $100million a year, and more

The “more” includes growing ties with Mexican drug cartels – which are in charge of human traffic across the border – and the terrorist group for bringing into the U.S. Islamic terrorists, in exchange for weapons.

Read my article, Hezbollah in Latin America: $100million a year, and more

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Iran no longer on Terror Threat List. Many in LatAm will be happy.

This week’s “smart diplomacy” news:
U.S. Omits Iran and Hezbollah From Terror Threat List

An annual security assessment presented to the U.S. Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, has excluded Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from its list of terror threats to U.S. interests, despite both being consistently included as threats in previous years.
. . .
In a previous report from January 2014, Clapper included Iran and Hezbollah in the ‘Terrorism’ section, writing that both “continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S. allies. Hizballah [sic] has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since the 1990s”. Iran was also given its own sub-heading in the ‘Terrorism’ section of such assessments in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Any evidence that Iran and Hezbollah have changed their ways?

No; instead,

“I think that we are looking at a quid pro quo, where Iran helps us with counter-terrorism and we facilitate their nuclear ambitions and cut down on our labelling of them as terrorists,” says [professor of political science at Northeastern University and member at the Council of Foreign Relations Max] Abrahms.

In the wake of Alberto Nisman‘s death, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some smiling faces in Argentina. As you may recall, a congressional committee had invited him to testify [in 2013] about Iran’s spy network in Latin America and its alleged role in a plot to bomb John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

Last December, the government fired a powerful spy chief who was Nisman’s lead investigator. The prosecutor retaliated with a bombshell: He accused the president, her foreign minister and other political figures of conspiring to absolve the accused Iranians in exchange for commercial deals. Iranian diplomat Mohsen Rabbani, a top suspect in the 1994 attack, participated in secret talks, according to Nisman’s criminal complaint.

Argentine spies “negotiated with Mohsen Rabbani,” an indignant Nisman said in a television interview on Jan. 14. “Not just with the state that protects the terrorists, but also with the terrorists.”

The Argentine government denied his allegations.

Indeed, back in 2006,

Nisman charged senior Iranian officials and leaders of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah with plotting the AMIA attack

Some others at the Tri-border area will be happy.

Let’s not forget Venezuela, which for years has been helping Iran dodge UN sanctions and use Venezuelan aircraft to ship missile parts to Syria. The monthly flight allegedly

flew from Caracas carrying cocaine to be distributed to Hezbollah in Damascus and sold. The plane then went to Tehran carrying Venezuelan passports and other documents that helped Iranian terrorists travel around the world undetected.

Of course, the regime in Cuba, where Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, is already happy.

Related:
The Terror-Crime Nexus

Sing it!

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Uruguay: Gitmo releases will be free to leave

He probably doesn’t want to upset the folks in the tri-border area:

Mujica: Guantánamo detainees could leave Uruguay 

President José Mujica said in an interview Monday that any Guantánamo detainees his country takes will be treated as refugees and will be free to travel wherever they wish, even if they have promised the United States that they’ll stay in the South American country for at least two years.

Mujica told El Espectador radio that Uruguay has tentatively agreed to take four Syrians and a Palestinian who have been held at the military detention center in the U.S.-held corner of Cuba.

Mujica denied that the five are dangerous and said that “in no way” would Uruguay prevent them from traveling.

While he was at it, Mujica also said he’ll skip meeting Pres. Obama in Washington, thank you.

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Hezbollah in the tri-border area, Hezbollah in the tri-state area

For years I have been blogging on Iran’s presence in Latin America, which includes Hezbollah’s influence in the tri-border area of Paraguay-Brazil-Argentina.

Most readers probably consider this an abstraction of sorts, things happening far away that have no bearing in their lives.

In fact, this is a matter of national security important to the USA. Mitchell Silber, director of intelligence analysis for the New York City Police Department, explains why in today’s Wall Street Journal,
The Iranian Threat to New York City
As the West’s conflict with Iran over its nuclear program heats up, New York City—with its large Jewish population—becomes an increasingly attractive target.

Iran has a proven record of using its official presence in a foreign city to coordinate attacks, which are then carried out by Hezbollah agents from abroad, often leveraging the local community—whether wittingly or not—as facilitators. Most notable are the 1992 and 1994 bombings of Israeli and Jewish targets in Argentina, which killed 29 and 85 people, respectively. The New York City Police Department, where I work as director of Intelligence Analysis, sent a team to Argentina to study the modus operandi of those attacks and to meet with Argentine security officials who worked the investigations. Coupled with open source information, this is what the NYPD learned:

Iranian agents were sent to Argentina years before the attacks, where they integrated into society and became Argentine nationals. Mohsen Rabbani is believed to have been in charge of coordinating the 1994 attack and is subject to an Interpol arrest warrant for his involvement. He first came to Argentina in 1983, where he subsequently became the main imam at At-Tauhid, an Iranian-funded mosque in Buenos Aires.

After traveling to Iran in August 1993 to participate in a meeting that allegedly gave the planned attack the green light, Mr. Rabbani returned to Argentina as a cultural attaché to the Iranian Embassy, conveniently providing him diplomatic immunity. Then, Hezbollah agents from abroad received logistical support from members of the local Lebanese-Shiite community and the Iranian Embassy to carry out the attack.

The Argentine attacks were by no means isolated incidents. Hezbollah has been tied to failed attacks in 2009 against Israeli and Jewish interests in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Turkey. Last month, Thai officials arrested a suspected Hezbollah militant for possibly planning attacks there or perhaps facilitating the movement of weapons through Bangkok.

In the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania area,

Hezbollah and its supporters have a presence in New York and the surrounding area as well. In 2008, two Staten Island men pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah. Just down the road in Philadelphia, 26 people—including a former Brooklyn resident—were indicted in federal court in 2009 for conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group.

Lebanese-linked businesses in the tri-state area and elsewhere have been implicated in a massive money-laundering scheme benefiting Hezbollah. This scheme was revealed in a civil suit filed against several Lebanese financial institutions last December by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Meanwhile, at least 18 other Hezbollah-related cases have been brought in federal courts across the United States since 2000.

Among them, Moussa Ali Hamdan, a naturalized US citizen who lived in Brooklyn, worked in New Jersey, and is wanted in Philadelphia for exporting stolen cars to Lebanon to finance terror organizations there.

And, for what it’s worth, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi is wanted by Interpol for being behind the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires.

Cross-posted in the Green Room.

UPDATE
Linked by The Other McCain. Thanks!


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