Posted on 01/05/2005 4:01:55 AM PST by Straight Vermonter
A burgeoning East Boston-based street gang made up of alleged rapists and machete-wielding robbers has been linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, prompting Boston police to ``turn up the heat'' on its members, the Herald has learned.
MS-13, which stands for La Mara Salvatrucha, is an extremely violent organization with roots in El Salvador, and boasts more than 100 ``hardcore members'' in East Boston who are suspected of brutal machete attacks, rapes and home invasions. There are hundreds more MS-13 gangsters in towns along the North Shore, said Boston police Sgt. Detective Joseph Fiandaca, who has investigated the gang since it began tagging buildings in Maverick Square in 1995.
In recent months, intelligence officials in Washington have warned national law enforcement agencies that al-Qaeda terrorists have been spotted with members of MS-13 in El Salvador, prompting concerns the gang may be smuggling Islamic fundamentalist terrorists into the country. Law enforcement officials have long believed that MS-13 controls alien smuggling routes along Mexico. The warning is being taken seriously in East Boston, where Raed Hijazi, an al-Qaeda operative charged with training the suicide bombers in the attack on the USS Cole, lived and worked, prosecutors have charged.
Also, the commercial jets that hurtled into the World Trade Center towers in New York City were hijacked from Logan International Airport.
``The terrorist aspect, especially when you think in terms of 9/11 and how intent these terrorists are, will turn the heat up on our efforts with MS-13,'' Fiandaca said. MS-13 members congregate near the Maverick Square train station sporting white and blue bandannas, their skin inked with spider webs and ``laugh now, cry later'' clown faces.
``MS-13 is the most dangerous gang in the area,'' Fiandaca said. ``They are big. They are mobile. Now they have a terrorist connection.''
The theory that Salvadoran criminals manage to smuggle people over the border was bolstered this month when two Boston men described as MS-13 leaders were spotted on the North Shore days before Christmas - a year after they were deported by Boston Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators for gang-related crimes.
One of the two men, Elmer ``Tiger'' Tejada, 24, who had been deported after being convicted of a slew of crimes, including attempted murder charges for hurling a machete at Chelsea cops, was busted in Lynn on New Year's Day. Tejada is described as ``an original MS-13 member'' from East Boston, sources said.
A manhunt has been launched for the second fugitive, who is in the country illegally, Boston police said.
The growing number of MS-13 members, and the degree of violence the gang engages in, prompted investigators from 14 local and national agencies to form the North Shore Gang Intelligence task force in 2000, Fiandaca said.
Among the most notorious local crimes attributed to MS-13 was the gang rape of two deaf girls, one 14, the other 17, in a Somerville park in 2002. Three MS-13 gang members were charged in the brutal rapes, during which one victim was knocked from her wheelchair before the assault.
Eastie?? Is that a real world?
"In recent months, intelligence officials in Washington have warned"
"form the North Shore Gang Intelligence task force in 2000"
Sounds to me like they're about five years too late (as usual) on this "clamp down".
This is a another sterling example of why DIVERSITY needs to be posted on all of our school-room walls as one of America's Core Democratic Values.
Also one has to wonder how legitimate immigrants who have fled their native land because of just what these gangs are doing, feel when it is happening to them again in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
When I see pictures like the one above, I have conflicting emotions and feelings, ranging from nausea, to sadness, to all-consuming anger. What is becoming of our beloved country?
I sometimes saw these people hanging out at Revere Beach at night. Scared the bejeezus out of me.
I also had no idea about that Somerville attack. My lord.
Kill them
ping
SNIP
Man's Fingers Severed In Va. Machete Attack
Gang Suspected in Multiplex Incident
A Fairfax man walking from a Merrifield movie theater was attacked late Monday by several men -- one of them wielding a machete -- and in the flurry of blows, three fingers were severed from the victim's left hand, police said yesterday.
The attack was similar to one in the Alexandria area in May, in which a teenager lost four fingers in a machete onslaught. Police believe that the assailants in both cases were members of the street gang Mara Salvatrucha. Three men have pleaded guilty in the first case; the assailants in Monday night's attack remain at large.
You don't understand... ;) The Liberals BLAME America for these Salvadorian gangs. They say that they learned this lifestyle originally in the US and California. Therefore, it would be unfair for us to deport them.
What a bunch of sick animals. If Abortion Protesters fall under Rico for demonstrating.....why are these vicious criminals allowed to run free.
They don't turn up the heat unless it's something they can get Homeland Security funding to go after. "Hey, we got a bunch of AlQ shoplifting cells!"
This is frigging wild. How things have changed for the worst. When I lived there a 'made man' could double, even triple park his car and never get a tagged with a ticket from the cops. It was area which was tight, most people knew each other. This crap would not be tolerated.
They might have gotten some of the tattoos and trappings of gangsterism from the West Coast (or from MTV), but gangs have long been a problem in Latin America, where there is a weak and corrupt police presence and the gangs have been able to control entire towns unopposed.
It might happen pretty soon.
I don't think we have to wait for Mexicans. We have plenty of domestic thugs who are converting to Islam in our prisons, and some of them have indeed gone out and set up shop for AQ when they get out (think of the al Fuqra movement, a black group that has terrorist training camps all over the country, or the terrorists arrested in Seattle and Portland in recent years).
Gang activity makes losers feel powerful. This is the same effect that Islam has on its devotees, because being given permission by their religion to be vicious and have no restraint makes them feel superior to the law-abiding, civilized (and in their view, weak) society around them.
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