Should we not be worried about terrorist working with drug cartels and entering thru mexico and latin america?
Does this change your mind about who we are letting slip in here?
Friday, March 27, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: Hezbollah uses Mexican drug routes into U.S.
Sara A. Carter (Contact)
EXCLUSIVE:
Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America's tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.
Hezbollah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
"They work together," said Mr. Braun. "They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.
"They'll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling]."
His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.
While Hezbollah appears to view the U.S. primarily as a source of cash - and there have been no confirmed Hezbollah attacks within the U.S. - the group's growing ties with Mexican drug cartels are particularly worrisome at a time when a war against and among Mexican narco-traffickers has killed 7,000 people in the past year and is destabilizing Mexico along the U.S. border.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Mexico on Thursday to discuss U.S. aid. Other U.S. Cabinet officials and President Obama are slated to visit in the coming weeks.
Hezbollah is based in Lebanon. Since its inception after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it has grown into a major political, military and social welfare organization serving Lebanon's large Shi'ite Muslim community.
In 2006, it fought a 34-day war against Israel, which remains its primary adversary. To finance its operations, it relies in part on funding from a large Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim diaspora that stretches from the Middle East to Africa and Latin America. Some of the funding comes from criminal enterprises.
Although there have been no confirmed cases of Hezbollah moving terrorists across the Mexico border to carry out attacks in the United States, Hezbollah members and supporters have entered the country this way.
Last year, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille was sentenced to 60 years in prison by Mexican authorities on charges of organized crime and immigrant smuggling. Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, owned a cafe in the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. He was arrested in 2002 for smuggling 200 people, said to include Hezbollah supporters, into the U.S.
In 2001, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani crossed the border from Mexico in a car and traveled to Dearborn, Mich. Kourani was later charged with and convicted of providing "material support and resources ... to Hezbollah," according to a 2003 indictment.
A U.S. official with knowledge of U.S. law enforcement operations in Latin America said, "we noted the same trends as Mr. Braun" and that Hezbollah has used Mexican transit routes to smuggle contraband and people into the U.S.
Two U.S. law enforcement officers, familiar with counterterrorism operations in the U.S. and Latin America, said that "it was no surprise" that Hezbollah members have entered the U.S. border through drug cartel transit routes.
"The Mexican cartels have no loyalty to anyone," one of the officials told The Washington Times. "They will willingly or unknowingly aid other nefarious groups into the U.S. through the routes they control. It has already happened. That's why the border is such a serious national security issue."
One U.S. counterterrorism official said that while "there's reason to believe that [Hezbollah members] have looked at the southern border to enter the U.S. ... to date their success has been extremely limited."
However, another U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed that the U.S. is watching closely the links between Hezbollah and drug cartels and said it is "not a good picture."
A senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing operations in Latin America, warned that al Qaeda also could use trafficking routes to infiltrate operatives into the U.S.
"If I have the mon MS-13 has ties with Al Qaeda, and drug cartels for the purpose of trafficking people, drugs, and weapons into the U.S. MS-13 is thee largest hispanic street gang in the U.S. right now, and are expanding at an alarming rate. Their membership is comprised of legal immigrants, and illegal aliens from various hispanic countries.
This is just one reason I quit doing drugs long ago. uh uh......you asked one of those questions you're not supposed to ask
keep it up and you'll realize that the US Government actually deliberately CREATES the problems it claims to try to solve with the money it steals from your paycheck I have been saying this for some time! If the low skilled illegals can make it across the border with no problem, I am quite certain a determined terrorist could do so as well! Of course we should worry about this. The southern border is worthless. Anyone can and does come thru there illegally. Read the book titled Spy by Ted Bell. It is fiction but feasible. Yes we do. Deportation now is the only real solution to the illegal alien invasion. WORRYING DOESN'T DO ANY GOOD.WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We do , that's why the borders need to be closed with strict entry requirements, There are many that can harm us that have already entered and continue to enter, It just a matter of time which i believe is soon , that the next big "Attack " on our soil will occur Yes, Yes, and Yes! The Mafia and terrorists are working together to achieve their evil objectives (drugs, slave trade, gangs, murder of innocent people, weapons smuggling, and terrorist attacks) in the United States.
This is why the border patrol and immigration law has to be enforced like there was no tomorrow. If it means closing the border, then so be it.
And illegal immigration will only make it worse.
Additional comment: Ya heard me, good point! UH! of coarse we should! and we should also worry about the drug users that cause the cartels to do business here, and the gun smugglers that make these cartels powerful.....
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vie...
U.S. Drug Users: Main Cause for Mexico鈥檚 Bloodbath
It鈥檚 time to take the gloves off and lay the responsibility for the bloodbath taking place on a daily basis in Mexico where it belongs 鈥?U.S. drug users. Mexican-style mafiosos are killing each other along with Mexican police officers, judges, prosecutors, journalists and innocent bystanders -- be they adults or children -- in order to gain transportation corridors through which to smuggle illicit drugs into the waiting hands of U.S. drug users.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2...
Trial of Phoenix gun seller to start today
Court papers claim dealers in Arizona and other states bordering Mexico provide three- quarters of the black-market firearms to Mexico, a nation that strictly controls gun ownership. Phoenix is considered a hub for illegal exportation of AK-47s, SKS rifles, .50-caliber rifles and other weapons favored by narcotics gangsters. |
