Report of Hezbollah Base in Cuba

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, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

Internet Hagnah

Shiite terror group to use operations center to launch attack on Israeli target in South America,
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, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the attack is meant to avenge the death of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah. The organization alleges that Israel was behind his 2008 assassination.

• According to the report, three Hezbollah members have already arrived in Cuba with the purpose of establishing a terrorist cell there.
• The cell is to include 23 operatives, hand-picked by Talal Hamia, a senior member tasked with heading the covert operation.

The operation, titled "The Caribbean Case," was reportedly allocated a budget of $1.5 million. The Cuba base is to be initially used for logistics purposes, including intelligence collection, networking and document forgery.

Hezbollah has been active in South America for quite some time now, primarily in Paraguay, Brazil and Venezuela, the report notes.

The Rest @ YNET NEWS

Tres Letras Uno, Traficantes, Cero

Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, one of the purported top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization is about to go on trial in Chicago. He has alleged (see article below) that he had a "deal" with the US Government that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate in exchange for giving up information on rival cartels.

Only a traficante del sur would believe that the federal government would agree to such a "deal". It should surprise nadia that personas de las tres letras regularly gain information from one Traficante in exchange for hunting him down and prosecuting him last.

Vaya con Dios, Trabajadores de la ley del mundo

-Gochoa

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Deal Allegedly Gave Sinaloa Bosses Immunity in Exchange for Providing Info on Rival Drug Organizations

The son of a heavy hitter in a powerful Mexican drug trafficking organization has filed explosive legal pleadings in federal court in Chicago accusing the US government of cutting a deal with the the “Sinaloa Cartel” that gave its leadership “carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States.”

The source of that allegation is Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, one of the purported top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization — a major Mexican-based importer of weapons and exporter of drugs.

The top capo of the Sinaloa drug organization, named after the Pacific Coast Mexican state where it is based, is Joaquin Guzman Loera (El Chapo) — who escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico in 2001, only days before he was slated to be extradited to the United States. Chapo has since gone on to build one of the most powerful drug “cartels” in Mexico.

With the death of Osama Bin Laden in May, Chapo (a Spanish nickname meaning “shorty”) jumped to the top of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” persons list. He also made Forbes Magazine’s 2010 list of “The World’s Most Powerful People.”

Zambada Niebla, himself a key player in the Sinaloa organization, was arrested in Mexico City in March 2009 and last February extradited to the United States to stand trial on narco-trafficking-related charges.

The indictment pending against Zambada Niebla claims he served as the “logistical coordinator” for the “cartel,” helping to oversee an operation that imported into the US “multi-ton quantities of cocaine … using various means, including but not limited to, Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, private aircraft … buses, rail cars, tractor-trailers, and automobiles.”

Zambada Niebla also claims to be an asset of the US government. His allegation was laid out originally in a two-page court pleading filed in late March with the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

The latest allegations being advanced by Zambada Niebla, who is now being held in solitary confinement in a jail cell in Chicago, are laid out in motions filed late this week in federal court. Those pleadings spell out the supposed cooperative relationship between the US Department of Justice and its various agencies, including DEA and the FBI, and the leaders of the “Sinaloa Cartel” — including Zambada Niebla.

That alleged relationship was cultivated through a Mexican attorney, Humberto Loya Castro, whom Zambada Niebla claims is a Sinaloa Cartel member and “a close confidante of Joaquin Guzman Loera (Chapo).”

From Zambada Niebla’s court pleadings, filed on July 29:

• [Humberto] Loya was indicted along with Chapo and Mayo [Zambada Niebla’s father] in 1995 in the Southern District of California and charged with participation in a massive narcotics trafficking conspiracy (Case No. 95CR0973).
• That case was dismissed on the prosecution’s own motion in 2008 after Loya became an informant for the United States government and had provided information for a period of over ten years.
• Sometime prior to 2004 [when George W. Bush was president], and continuing through the time period covered in the indictment, the United States government entered into an agreement with Loya and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, including Mayo and Chapo.
• Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government.
• In return, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against Loya, not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel, to not actively prosecute him, Chapo, Mayo, and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to not apprehend them.
• The protection extended to the Sinaloa leadership, according to the court filings, included being “informed by agents of the DEA through Loya that United States government agents and/or Mexican authorities were conducting investigations near the home territories of cartel leaders so that the cartel leaders could take appropriate actions to evade investigators.”
• In addition, the pleadings allege, the US government agreed not to “share any of the information they had about the Sinaloa Cartel and/or the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel with the Mexican government in order to better assure that they would not be apprehended and so that their operations would not be interfered with.”

More from the July 29 pleadings:

• Zambada Niebla was a party to the agreement between the United States government and the Sinaloa Cartel and provided information to the United States government through Loya pursuant to the agreement.
• Loya arranged for Mr. Zambada Niebla to meet with United States government agents at the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City in March [17th] of 2009 [after the Obama administration took power] for the purpose of introducing Mr. Zambada Niebla to the agents and for the purpose of his continuing to provide information to the DEA and the United States government personally, rather than through Loya.
• Loya’s federal case had been dismissed in 2008 [while Bush was still in the White House] and the DEA representative told Mr. Loya-Castro that they wanted to establish a more personal relationship with Mr. Zambada Niebla so that they could deal with him directly under the agreement.
• Mr. Zambada Niebla believed that under the prior agreement, any activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the kind described in the indictment, were covered by the agreement, and that he was immune from arrest or prosecution.

Zambada Niebla claims, in the court pleadings, that he attended the meeting in March 2009 at the hotel in Mexico City as scheduled, with Loya present, and while there, even though he was then under indictment in the US, was told by US federal agents that he would not be arrested and that arrangements had been made “at the highest levels of the United States government” to assure his immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation in providing information on rival narco-trafficking groups.

However, Zambada Niebla contends he was double-crossed, despite the assurance of the US agents.

He alleges in his pleadings that government agents “were satisfied with the information he had provided to them” at the meeting at the Sheraton Hotel on March 17, 2009, and that “arrangements would be made to meet with him again.”

"Mr. Zambada Niebla then left the meeting,” the court pleadings assert. “Approximately five hours after the [hotel] meeting, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican authorities.”

Fast, Furious and the House of Death

Zambada Niebla’s pleadings also reference the controversial U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) weapons-trafficking interdiction program Fast and Furious — an operation, now the subject of Congressional hearings, that allegedly allowed some 2,000 guns to be smuggled across the US/Mexican border under ATF’s watch. Zambada Niebla contends that Fast and Furious is yet another example of the US government’s complicity in the carnage of the drug war.

From Zambada Niebla’s pleadings:

• The United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel — without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated.
• Essentially, the theory of the United States government in waging its “war on drugs” has been and continues to be that the “end justifies the means” and that it is more important to receive information about rival drug cartels’ activities from the Sinaloa Cartel in return for being allowed to continue their criminal activities, including and not limited to their smuggling of tons of illegal narcotics into the United States.
• This is confirmed by recent disclosures by the Congressional Committee’s investigation of the latest Department of Justice, DEA, FBI, and ATF’s “war on drugs” operation known as “Fast & Furious.”

As a result of Operation Fast and Furious, the pleadings assert, about “three thousand people” in Mexico were killed, “including law enforcement officers in the sate of Sinaloa, Mexico, headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel.”

Among those receiving weapons through the ATF operation, the pleadings continue, were DEA and FBI informants working for drug organizations, including the leadership of those groups.

“The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers’ dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities,” the pleadings allege. “…

It is clear that some of the weapons were deliberately allowed by the FBI and other government representatives to end up in the hands of the Sinaloa Cartel and that among the people killed by those weapons were law enforcement officers.

“… Mr. Zambada Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests [from the US government] will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation ‘Fast & Furious’ were provided under the agreement entered into between the United States government and [Chapo Guzman confidante] Mr. Loya Castro on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel that is the subject of his [Zambada Niebla’s] defense [regarding] public authority.”

The Zambada Niebla pleadings even reference the infamous House of Death case, so named by Narco News, which has published an exhaustive series of investigative stories on the mass-murder case dating back to 2004.

From the pleadings:

Mr. Zambada Niebla also requests … that the United States government produce material relating to the … “House of Death” murders, which took place in Juarez, Mexico, and were committed by United States government informants. As confirmed in the Joint Assessment Report [JAT] prepared by government authorities investigating those murders, agents of the United States government had prior knowledge that murders were going to be committed by their informants but did not take any measures to either inform the Mexican government or the intended victims, because government representatives determined it was moreimportant to protect the identity of their informants.

The informants were assisting the United States government in the investigations of major drug traffickers and the government determined that the killings of over a hundred Mexican citizens was an acceptable price to pay for enabling them to continue their narcotics investigations.

The Great Pretense Unmasked

In its response to Zambada Niebla’s claim that he was working under “public authority” as an informant or confidential source, US federal prosecutors don’t claim outright that he was not a US government asset.

They argue, instead, only that “the government denies that defendant [Zambada Niebla] exercised public authority when he committed the serious crimes charged in the indictment.”

In other words, even if Zambada Niebla was offered some type of deal in exchange for his cooperation, that deal did not extend to the specific acts he is accused of in the indictment against him.

Federal prosecutors also ask that the court order Zambada Niebla to produce, prior to trial, “evidence that a specific American official or officials with actual or apparent authority expressly authorized [him] to import multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and heroin into the United States, as charged in the indictment, or expressly assured [him] that these acts were not criminal, and that [he] reasonably relied on these communications.”

Narco News spoke with several former DEA and FBI agents about Zambada Niebla’s contention that he worked, in essence, as an informant for the US government. Not one of those former agents, who asked that their names not be revealed, considered it out of the realm of possibility that Zambada Niebla might have cut a deal with the US government.

In fact, one former DEA agent said that by making such a claim, Zambada Niebla was essentially putting his life in jeopardy by outing himself as an informant, an extreme move that would seem to indicate that at least he believes he had a deal in place.

But, in the end, all of the former federal agents agree that unless Zambada Niebla has proof of his allegations that passes legal muster, he has little chance of prevailing — and at least one of those former agents said prosecutors would not likely have challenged him to produce such proof if they did not have a high degree of confidence that it does not exist.

A former FBI agent explained it this way:

• The U. S. Attorney General Guidelines for Informants requires that there be a written document called an “otherwise criminal activities memo” signed by both parties.
• This document spells out exactly what the informant is authorized to do and tells him that he may be prosecuted for any other illegal activities.
• This should be provided to the defense in discovery; however, it does not always happen. Some attorneys are not aware of this and do not ask for it in discovery and the government does not willingly give it up.

I suspect that the government did not provide this document to the defense and that is why they are demanding that he provide proof of his status. ... It would be very easy to prove what he was authorized to do by having the memo. [So] this may be a case of where the memo was never done….

The former DEA agent, who has extensive overseas experience, added:

• My instincts say he was an informant. It’s [Zambada Niebla’s pleadings are] an effort to “scare” or “frighten” the government to dismiss or reduce charges. Posturing, as it were. But there is a substantial risk for him. It’s pretty much a last ditch effort.
• Were it otherwise, the defendant would not want to be exposed as having cooperated with the government agents. However, he will have an enormous challenge proving his allegations.

… An agent [or US government agency would approve such a cooperative relationship with a narco-trafficker] … so the agent can snag a higher-level trafficker and garner the resulting awards, commendations and promotions. Sometimes, there is outright bribery or gifts of value.

It’s a win for the criminal informant because he may earn more money from trafficking and at the same time receive cash payments from the government for arrests he orchestrates. And that isn’t all: the informant’s own fear of arrest is reduced and he has a unique opportunity to effectively destroy his unwanted competition or archenemies.

And yet another DEA agent points out that “there is such an animal called an Attorney General-exempt operation, where the Attorney General of the United States [in the Zambada Niebla case, which allegedly dates back to at least 2004, it would have been the Bush administration’s Attorney General] could authorize that laws be violated [by an informant to advance a case].”

“This is usually done in money laundering investigations, however,” the DEA source said.
The other possibility, the former DEA agent adds, is that Zambada Niebla was tricked on an even deeper level, and was, in fact, not dealing with US law enforcement agencies, but rather a CIA intelligence operation.

“This would not be the first time CIA has used an informant and led them to believe it was an FBI, ICE or DEA operation,” the DEA source said.

If that is the case, the former DEA agent adds, Zambada Niebla’s case is sunk, since even if documents and other evidence exist to prove his allegations of US government complicity, that evidence would almost certainly be deep-sixed under claims of national security that would be invoked by that very same US government.

Stay tuned ….

The Rest @ Narcosphere

Hector Antonio Martinez Guillen Sentenced for Selling arms to the FARC

A former officer in El Salvador's Special Forces was sentenced to 31 years in prison after attempting to sell weapons to an undercover agent posing as a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC).

The U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia found Hector Antonio Martinez Guillen guilty of arms and explosives trafficking, charges which carry a minimum sentence of 30 years.

Martinez pleaded guilty earlier this year after being arrested following a sting operation carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The retired military officer sold the weapons and explosives in January 2010 to an undercover DEA agent who posed as a member of the FARC, the left-wing Colombian guerrilla group. He was subsequently arrested in Washington D.C. in November 2010, while attempting to smuggle a 20-kilo load of cocaine into the country on behalf of the FARC.

In late May, authorities in El Salvador arrested six members of the military charged with attempting to sell over 1,800 hand grenades to criminal gangs. That month, another former army lieutenant for trying to sell three M-16 machine guns. Similarly to neighboring Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador has huge stockpiles of military weapons, a legacy of a series of civil conflicts.

The Rest @ Insight Crime

20 Dead in Zetas - Gulf Shootout in Monterrey

t least 20 killed in Mexico bar, officials say

The attack takes place in the downtown of Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub hit by over a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.


Forensic workers load a truck with bodies after gunmen stormed into a bar in downtown Monterrey, Mexico, late Friday and killed at least 20 people. (Hans Maximo Musielik, AP / July 10, 2011)


By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Mexico City—
Gunmen targeting a rival drug cartel opened fire in a crowded bar in the northern city of Monterrey, killing at least 20 people and wounding several, authorities said Saturday.

The attack occurred late Friday in the Sabino Gordo bar in downtown Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub that has been buffeted by more than a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.

Authorities said most of the dead — four of them women — were bar employees. Mexican news reports said the toll rose to 21 after a wounded man died in a hospital.

The attack may have stemmed from a dispute over narcotics sales at the bar, officials said.

"The most probable line that we're following is that it was a direct attack against the establishment, rather than against the people who were enjoying themselves there," Jorge Domene, security spokesman for Nuevo Leon state, said in a television interview.

Monterrey, Mexico's richest city, was once known as a peaceful if uninspiring factory town. But the drug violence has turned it into something more like a Wild West outpost, with gun battles in the streets, brazen kidnappings and frequent slayings of police officers in outlying communities.

Some have expressed worry that if Monterrey is lost to violence, so is all of Mexico.

The government of President Felipe Calderon launched an aggressive, military-led campaign against drug traffickers in late 2006, a drive accompanied by furious fighting between drug gangs. About 40,000 people have died.

The latest carnage wasn't limited to Monterrey. In the northern state of Coahuila, next door to Nuevo Leon, the decapitated bodies of seven men and three women were found around the city of Torreon. The killings were attributed to clashes between the Zetas and traffickers based to the west, in the state of Sinaloa.

Also, 11 bodies turned up in the municipality of Valle de Chalco, in the central state of Mexico, outside Mexico City, in an attack believed linked to crime groups.

In the western state of Michoacan, federal police in recent days have battled hit men from a faction of the splintering La Familia gang. On Saturday, the government deployed 1,800 more federal officers to the crime-torn state.

The spate of bloodletting prompted Calderon's public safety spokesman, Alejandro Poire, to call a rare Saturday news conference to defend the government's strategy.

Poire said the violence was caused by "absurd" rivalries between criminal groups and not the crackdown, which faces rising public criticism as the toll climbs.

"The violence is not going to slow down by dropping the fight against criminals," he said.

The Rest @ Intermex

Drug Sub Captured with 2/5 Tons of Cocaine

The drugs were on the vessel sunk off the Caribbean coast of Honduras around two weeks ago by its four-man crew after the coast guard caught up with the suspected traffickers.

General Rene Osorio of Honduras said the semi-submersible sub had been carrying around 5 tons of cocaine and that half of the narcotics shipment was still on board.

Honduras is used by Mexican and Colombian cartels to traffic drugs to the United States. Mexican drug gangs have been moving into Central America since Mexico's government launched an army-led drive to crush them 4-1/2 years ago.

(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Editing by Eric Walsh)

The Rest @ Reuters

Guns at Tuscon Garage Sales

Earlier this week, the Justice Department said gun shops in four Southwest border states, including Arizona, will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered rifles.

It's an effort to track the flow of guns into Mexico.

What if they're buying somewhere else where a background check and registration are not required?

On any typical summer Saturday morning in Tucson, you can drive through nearly any neighborhood and find a yard sale or garage sale.

You can get almost anything from these bargain bonanzas; from furniture to sporting goods, even weapons.

"If someone wants to sell a gun at a garage sale, it's their right to do so. It is what it is: personal property," said Tom Mangan, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

While exploring one morning we found an East Side garage sale that had two rifles for sale.

"They've never been used," the owner informed us. He had all the papers of purchase and was ready to make a deal.

Anyone could buy them if they had the cash. No background check, no registration required. Even a convicted criminal could make the purchase.

"Certainly, selling them at a garage is their right to do so," Mangan said.

Darrell Murray is a retired highway patrolman with the Department of Public Safety who makes a little extra cash as a private gun dealer. He has his own bill of sale form to use when he sells a gun.

"Folks on their own, most responsible gun owners, are drawing up their own when they buy a gun from somebody," Murray said. " They get the serial number, how much they paid, the driver's license and the date it was purchased."

He and other dealers saw a spike in gun sales after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. He also saw a similar boost after the Tucson shootings six months ago.

"They tend to do that when they think legislation is coming that would be hindering the purchase of firearms," Murray said.

No additional laws have been put in place.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns endorsed legislation to improve background checks on those trying to buy a gun.

In January, the group led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg commissioned a sting operation at a Phoenix gun show. It illustrated the holes in the federal background check system and drew criticism from both sides.

If a gun shows up at a crime scene, it can be traced to the last register user. That's why it's in the best interest of the seller to have the gun registered to the new owner.

Some gun owners we talked to off camera say they want to avoid registering a gun because they think the government will take notice of their purchases. That's what makes private sales more appealing for them.

We spoke to a man who didn't want to be identified who bought a gun from a private seller years ago and plans to sell it at a garage sale.

"If I took it to a dealer or pawn shop I'd get $45 or $50. But at a yard sale I know I could get $150 easily," he said.

Back at the garage sale, we are certain at least one deal was made for at least one of the rifles. No background check, but no cash either. The customer decided to trade for another gun.

Finding a garage sale with guns requires some persistence and patience.

From our experience, some publications and websites don't allow the word "gun" in an ad. Sellers use other phrases, like ".22," ".30 cal" or "pea shooter."

They might also have everything else related to guns in the ad - i.e.: loader, powder, ammo, etc. - and you just have to fill in the blanks.

By Scott Kilbury

The Rest @ KOLD News 13

Terrorist Attack on Lewis-McChord in Seattle Stopped

he Department of Justice arrested and charged two American Muslims who conspired to kill US soldiers at a processing center for military recruits in Seattle. The men were identified as Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh. A third man, who acted as a paid informant for the FBI, was not identified. They planned on carrying out an armed attack on soldiers at a military center, just as Major Nidal Hassan did at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. So far, no links to external terror groups have been ascertained. From Reuters:

Abdul-Latif mentioned the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, where an Army major is accused of killing 13 people, noting that "if one person could kill so many people, three attackers could kill many more," the informant told authorities, according to the criminal complaint...

The two men originally planned to attack the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state but then switched targets to the place where military enlistees are screened and processed, according to prosecutors.

Abdul-Latif developed an extensive plan of attack on the military centre, three miles south of downtown Seattle, and noted he wanted to attack people in the military, not civilians, the complaint said. He expressed little concern about dying in the planned assault, it added.

"Abdul-Latif explained that, in his view, murdering American soldiers was justifiable," the affidavit said. The two were provided weapons that were brought by the informant but had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement authorities.

Abdul-Latif provided the informant with $800 in cash to help buy the weapons and arranged to buy a bus ticket for Mujahidh to travel from Los Angeles to Seattle to participate in the attack, prosecutors said.

After being arrested, Mujahidh waived his legal rights and told FBI agents that the plot was to prevent US military personnel from going to Islamic lands and killing Muslims, the affidavit said.

The Rest @ The Long War Journal
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