Saudi Arabia Arrests Christians In Major Crackdown
SAUDI ARABIA LAUNCHES SEVERE CRACKDOWN ON CHRISTIANS
By Jeremy Reynalds, ASSIST News Service
http://www.texaspanhandleplains.com/newspaper/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1872&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Former Soviet nukes still a threat
By Philip Turner
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Washington, DC, Jun. 3 (UPI) -- Nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union remain a dangerous proliferation and environmental threat, Russian and U.S. experts warned Friday.
snip
Former Soviet nukes still a threat
By Philip Turner
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Washington, DC, Jun. 3 (UPI) -- Nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union remain a dangerous proliferation and environmental threat, Russian and U.S. experts warned Friday.
snip~~~~
Russian researchers from the Bellona Foundation, a Norway-based environmental organization, released their latest report on the state of the Russian nuclear industry and the need to reform it. They said the Soviet nuclear legacy has left Russia and the world vulnerable to nuclear materials left over from the Cold War.
~~~~~~~~Your tax dollars at work....
Helmke has been a major supporter of the program crafted by former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that since 1991 has provided billions of dollars to Russia to tighten security around nuclear facilities and dispose of nuclear materials.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050603-032853-3333r.htm
N. Korea Calls Cheney 'Bloodthirsty Beast'
http://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3755
al Qaeda in Iraq declares creation of new cell http://www.zeenews.com/links/articles.asp?aid=220685&sid=WOR Beware the Holy War http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050602/cm_thenation/20050620bergen/nc:742
Davey, i have read some place that al Qaeda has training camps in Cuba.....forgot where.
This report says that Castr supports:
ETA
Puerto Rican Macheteros
Carlos the Jackal
"Other terrorist groups not named.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.cuba/browse_thread/thread/7ec3f04e27f69885/76ca192aa92d64aa?hl=en#76ca192aa92d64aa
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Cuban
Totalitarianism
09/17/01
Having suffered such horrific, unimaginable tragedy before the eyes of the
world, as a nation, as a people, and as individuals, the US will again lead
globally by example, not only showing its might, unity, and resolve but
also tempering with irrefutable patience, deliberation, and ingenuity.
Along with any effective judicial and military responses, the other
challenge the US faces is a war of ideology. This "war", can only be "won"
with world-wide public relations efforts, fought on the moral
high-ground of legality and of human rights. To increase America's
leadership will thus require honest endeavors at resolution of existing
domestic and global, economic and social inequities. Along with
addressing issues of aggression and political injustice, only such
concurrent humanitarian initiatives will also effectively reduce the fertile
soil on which extreme fanatic terrorism has always thrived.
May God Bless America.
R.L.C.
Cuban Weapons of Mass Destruction
Cuban-Chinese Weapons Build-up
US Department of State: Patterns of
Global Terrorism (1997 & 2001)
Overview of
State-Sponsored
Terrorism
Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism
Consistently, the Secretaries of State have
designated Cuba among the seven governments
that state sponsors terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. These
governments support international terrorism
either by engaging in terrorist activity themselves
or by providing arms, training, safe haven,
diplomatic facilities, financial backing, logistic
and/or other support to terrorists.
The US policy of bringing maximum pressure to bear on
state sponsors of terrorism and encouraging other
countries to do likewise has paid significant dividends.
There has been a marked decline in state-sponsored
terrorism in recent years. A broad range of bilateral and
multilateral sanctions serves to discourage state
sponsors of terrorism from continuing their support for
international acts of terrorism, but continued pressure is
essential.
Although there is no evidence to indicate that Cuba
sponsored any international terrorist acts in 1997. As
of 2001, it has continued to provide sanctuary to
terrorists from several different active terrorist
organizations. Castro also maintains strong links
to terrorists and to the other states that sponsor
international terrorism.
(See More Below)
NEWS HEADLINES
SPECIAL REPORT
CUBA AND THE TERROR COALITION:
The Emergence of the Terrorist International
by Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat
Center for the Study of a National Option
(with research support from Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell)
It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the "Supreme Leader" and the
"Comandante" together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May of this year. The
statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in
light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to news reports, during the visit
Iranian "Supreme Leader Khamenei" assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat
the US hand in hand," to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely
weak today," and that "we [in Cuba] are today eye-witness to their weakness, as their
close neighbors." At Tehran University, Castro also stated to the thunderous applause
of students and faculty that " The imperialist king [USA] will finally fall," (AFP, May
10th).
Immediately afterwards the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and
Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States."
(IPS, May 10th)
Some have argued that Cuba's well-documented sponsorship and instigation of
international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War
context. However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
a) The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
b) The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with
terrorist states so as to create an 'anti-Western'i international front, and
c) The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and
espionage against Americans.
There has been a recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an 'anti-Western'
front with terrorist states in the Middle Eastern region.
As recently as July 1999 Domingo Muchaustegui, a former Cuban government
official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government,
wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq
and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome.
Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any
cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical
and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between
Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?" (University of
Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).
In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya, and Iran.
Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "...people must be informed and
awakened, they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West." On July
26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution
by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, now a high
ranking Iranian official.
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the US.
Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the USSR's
bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro
regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book Biohazard, Alibek quotes
his former boss, General Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an
active bacteriological arms program. Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen
stated in May 1998 that: "Cuba's current scientific facilities could support an
offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development
stage." In October 2000 Cuban vice president Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice
minister of Health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development
plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical
objectives of the installation, since Iran already produces 97% of the medicines
its population consumes.
It is feasible to both establish the links of the bin Laden network with the
Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro
regime. Both Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring
down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.
In its indictment of bin Laden the Justice Department stated that the Al-Qaeda
terrorist organization under his command sought to "...put aside its differences
with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated
terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy,
the United States and
its allies..."
The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "...also forged alliances with the
National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of
Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah." In February 1998 Osama bin
Laden announced the creation of an "international front" against the United
States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program 'Frontline,' bin
Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to
be considered." A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of
conspiring to murder US citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations,
spying on members of the US Congress and providing classified information on
Miami International Airport.
But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link.
In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported that: "A young Afghan
who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in
northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq,
Iran, Cuba and North Korea. As America prepares to build a global coalition for
a definitive assault on international terrorism it must come to grips with the fact
that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not
dismiss Cuba's insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western
alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist
organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to
share it with other terrorist states directly linked to US enemies.
Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century,"
would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and Fascist alliance with Japan the
day before Pearl Harbor. An enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does
not hide his hatred for us.
Cuban 'Education'
Cuban 'Journalism'
Cuba's Young Pioneers
Cuban 'Psychiatry'
Cuban Weapons of
Mass Destruction
'An Innocent Victory'
( Ithaca Journal:
06/01/00 )
Cuban-Chinese
On the bottom is a link to China supplies weapons to Cuba, you will want to read it.
This is the search that I used, LOL, your own words.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Could+Bin+Laden+and+Castro+Be+Working+Together%3F&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet&start=10&sa=N
Weapons of Mass destruction
2002 report.........
"Let us not forget that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Castro
sent a letter to Soviet Premier Kruschev asking him to launch
a surprise nuclear attack against the United States."
CASTRO DEVELOPS DEADLY BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
by Hal Feeney - 2002
These days a small country led by a malevolent dictator can do a
lot of damage. Aided by both Russia and Communist China, Fidel
Castro is developing sophisticated biological weapons on a large
scale and using communications technology for espionage and
interference with U.S. Air Traffic Control.
Not much information has been released by the U.S.
Government, and none by our asteemed media regarding
Castro's production of biological weapons 90 miles from our
shores -- perhaps so as not to interfere with the current proffers
to Castro of "good" relationships.
However, in May 1998 Secretary of Defense William Cohen
testified in Congress that Cuba possesses advanced
biotechnology and is capable of mass-producing agents for
biological warfare.
Former Deputy Chief of the ex-Soviet Union's biological warfare
program. Colonel Ken Alibek, documented recently to the CIA
that, concealed in Cuba's medical research complex, Castro is
carrying out a sophisticated program for high-capacity production
of germ warfare agents during the last few years. Dr. Alibek tells
us that Castro's program started in 1981 when former Soviet
Premier Brezhnev visited Cuba and arranged to help Castro with
the technology.
Recently the FBI arrested 12 Castro agents caught spying in the
United States, including military installations. Since Castro has
no real need for military data, it is quite likely that he is selling
that type of information to the Chinese, North Koreans or
perhaps Saddam Hussein. It is strangely hypocritical to rush
half-way around the world, to spend so many lives and billions of
dollars on a seemingly needless war with Iraq.
FIDEL CASTRO DEADLY SECRET
Five Bio-Chem Warfare Labs
by Martin Arostegui
Vol 14, No 26 July 20, 1998
From Insight Magazine (Washington Times)
Throughout the island, according to documents smuggled out of
Cuba and made available to Insight by Alvaro Prendes, a former
Cuban air force colonel who now is the Miami-based spokesman
for the Union of Liberated Soldiers and Officers, a pro-democracy
movement within Cuba's security services, point to continuing
Cuban support for international terrorism and drug trafficking.
They tell Insight that, according to CIA documents, Russian
specialists still operate the electronic listening station at Lourdes
on the northeast tip of Cuba which taps into U.S.
communications. During the Persian Gulf War, this station
forwarded strategic information to Iraq. Castro initiated his
chemical-weapons program in 1981 when Soviet technicians built
a plant to produce tricothecen, the main component of "yellow
rain," in an underground tunnel complex at Quimonor in
Matanzas province. The program was expanded some years later
with the construction of another chemical-weapons facility in
Pinar del Rio, where Cuban and Soviet technicians began
experimenting with mixtures of germs and toxins to produce
anthrax.
Castro's Cuba is one of the few countries in the world, who
refuses to condemn international terrorism. Here is an excerpt
from: THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Patterns of Global
Terrorism 2000 - Europe Overview
Combating terrorism, including arresting numerous ETA members
and raiding logistics and support cells. France regularly delivered
detained ETA terrorists, including several senior leaders, into
Spanish custody. Spain also secured a pledge from Mexico to
deny safe-haven to ETA members. Spain welcomed the
condemnation of ETA in November by all Ibero-American
presidents -- except Cuba's Fidel Castro, whose refusal seriously
harmed bilateral relations. (also see below)
What is America doing to protect its Southern border from this
terrorist only 90 miles from its shores? Let us not forget that
during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Castro sent a letter to Soviet
Premier Kruschev asking him to launch a surprise nuclear attack
against the United States!
Insight Magazine
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LA NUEVA CUBA
CASTRO'S CONNECTIONS
By Paul Crespo*
Editor's Note:
This article first appeared in American Legion
magazine
April 2002
Sunday, May 12, 2002
NewsMax.com
La Nueva Cuba
May 25, 2002
The U.S. government's detaining of Taliban
and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo naval
base in Cuba is supremely ironic given Fidel
Castro's long-standing support for global
terrorism.
As we continue our worldwide battle against
terrorists, this sly but significant terror
monger on our very own doorstep should not
be overlooked. Castro is a bankrupt dictator
with a decades-long history of support for
violent, anti-American terror groups,
obsessive hatred of the U.S., sophisticated
spy rings operating on our soil and a
potentially deadly biowarfare capability.
While he has not been directly linked to the
attacks of Sept. 11, considerable
circumstantial evidence ties Castro to an
international terror network that extends from
Afghanistan to the Middle East and South
America.
According to an Associated Press report, an
Afghan al-Qaeda defector reported seeing
Cubans training in camps in the Kunar
province of Afghanistan.
On Sept. 15, the government of the Cayman
Islands publicly reported that Afghan nationals
detained there in the wake of the recent
attacks reportedly transited through Cuba
carrying fake passports and suspiciously large
sums of cash, in the amount of $2 million. Two
other people, detained post-9-11 in Panama
for their possible financial connection to the
bin Laden network, were reportedly en route
to Cuba.
One story receiving widespread coverage in
the mainstream press was the scandal
involving accused Castro spy Ana Belen
Montes.
The Washington Post explained that the FBI
quickly arrested Montes (the senior Cuba
analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency) on Sept. 21 (after only a few short
months of surveillance) because they believed
she could pass American war plans to Castro's
intelligence service, the Directorate of General
Intelligence (DGI), which might in turn provide
them to bin Laden supporters.
Following the Sept. 11 attack, Montes
allegedly transmitted classified information to
her DGI spymasters through Cuba's mission
to the United Nations. Castro meanwhile
reportedly ordered a military alert in Cuba
and called up the reserves. Intelligence
specialists believe that Castro may have had
reasons to fear possible U.S. retaliation.
Montes is the highest-ranking American ever
accused of spying for Castro. An influential
analyst with high-level access across the
entire U.S. intelligence community, she also
had considerable input into recent Defense
Department reports minimizing the threat
from Castro's Cuba.
Cuba's agents operating in the U.S. also
include a military spy ring code-named the
"Wasp" network, uncovered in Miami. Though
the spy ring was dismissed by Castro
apologists as incompetent and irrelevant,
evidence uncovered during the trial proves
these descriptions were wrong.
The FBI has stated this ring was directly
involved in orchestrating the deliberate 1996
shoot-down of two small civilian aircraft
piloted by the Brothers to the Rescue group
over the Florida Straits (murdering three
Americans). The FBI also charges the DGI with
conducting espionage against U.S. military
and civil aviation through a network of some
300 agents operating across the continent.
Quoting federal law enforcement officials,
Insight magazine reported that "Information
which Atta's al Qaeda cells readily possessed
on flight schools, airport security and airline
flight patterns only could have been obtained
through an intelligence infrastructure already
in place." This Cuban spy ring certainly fits
that bill.
Questionable Company
The Cuban intelligence service is one of the
most effective in the world. According to one
Pentagon source, "only a highly sophisticated
espionage network," such as Cuba's, could
have cracked the code of Air Force One in
what was originally believed to have been a
breach of security that caused U.S. Secret
Service officials to fly the president out of
sight on the morning of Sept. 11.
Additionally, Martin Arostegui reported in
Insight that al-Qaeda ringleader Mohamed
Atta, who organized the Sept. 11 attacks and
crashed a hijacked airliner into the World
Trade Center, may have met secretly with
Cuban undercover agents shortly after his
arrival in the United States last year. Atta's
contacts may have also included high-level
officials of Cuba's biological warfare program.
They allegedly spoke with Atta at a Miami
motel.
Arostegui said federal investigators suspect
that one of Atta's Cuban contacts may have
been a top defense ministry officer with
personal ties to Castro. The man is thought to
have entered the United States under cover
of assignment to a Cuban-government
delegation visiting the U.S. during the Elian
saga. The Czech government has confirmed
that Atta similarly had met with Iraqi
intelligence officers in Prague (though this has
since been contested).
A Russian defector has stated that Castro
supplied critical intelligence on U.S. military
activities to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf
War – information gained through his
Soviet-built, Russian-financed signals
intelligence facility in Lourdes, capable of
eavesdropping on phone calls in Washington,
and from spies in the U.S.
Until recently, the Russians paid Castro more
than $200 million a year in much-needed hard
currency for access to Lourdes. In a surprise
move, though, Russian President Vladimir
Putin suddenly withdrew his support and
1,500 advisers from Cuba in the wake of the
attacks on Washington and New York.
Some analysts speculate that he feared
Castro may have been using the Lourdes
facility to collect intelligence later funneled to
bin Laden, Iraq and other terror groups.
Castro enjoyed having the Russian advisers
there as a shield against a U.S. attack and
was furious at their removal.
Unfortunately, China has now seemingly
supplanted the Russians as Castro's primary
electronic espionage partner and has built a
new sophisticated signals intelligence complex
in Bejucal, Cuba, operating under the cover
of Radio China.
In addition to being used for espionage, these
installations are reportedly part of a robust
cyber-warfare capability Castro is developing.
The FCC has stated they are capable of
interfering with U.S. communications and air
traffic control. The Chinese at one point also
reportedly sent a message to New York air
traffic control replicating U.S. military fight
codes and falsely identifying themselves as
U.S. military transport planes – a chilling
foretaste of things to come.
Castro the Puppeteer
Castro's current links to transnational
terrorism are all the more plausible given his
long-standing, obsessive hatred of the U.S.
and track record of support for violent radical
extremists. Despite Castro's recent
protestations of innocence, he has been an
active terrorist sponsor since the 1940s –
and in many ways spawned the current global
terror network.
In 1958 Castro expressed his passionate belief
that he was destined to lead an anti-American
crusade. ''I am going to launch another much
longer and bigger war against them. I realize
now that this is going to be my true destiny,''
he wrote to his trusted aide Celia Sanchez.
True to his word, he dispatched Che Guevera
and his terrorist mercenaries to Africa, South
America and elsewhere in the '60s.
According to various sources, Castro's terror
effort mushroomed in the '70s and '80s. As
the spearhead of the Soviet Union's global
subversion campaign, he trained, equipped
and advised an alphabet soup of terror groups
and Latin American guerrillas such as the
FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua, Colombia's FARC and ELN and
Peru's Shining Path, as well as the European
Red Brigades, Carlos "The Jackal," the IRA,
the PLO and the Palestinian PLFP, among
others.
Thousands of terrorists reportedly graduated
from Cuba's training camps in Matanzas
and the Isle of Pines (otherwise known as the
Isle of Youth) and spread like a cancer
worldwide. Castro's military advisers trained
other terrorists in dozens of war-torn
countries and left a trail of blood over several
continents. Many of these groups also
conducted attacks in the U.S.
The Cuban dictator also directly supported
violent domestic U.S. terrorists such as the
radical Weathermen underground and the
Puerto Rican nationalist group Macheteros,
responsible for numerous bombings and
murders in the U.S. In 1979 and 1980,
Castro-sponsored Machetero terrorists
destroyed several U.S. Air National Guard jets
in Puerto Rico, worth over $45 million, and
later murdered two American sailors.
According to Cuban defector Jorge Masetti (a
former highly placed Cuban intelligence
officer), Castro also organized and partly
financed the 1983 Machetero robbery of a
Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut, later
providing safe haven for one of the terrorists
and receiving $4 million of the stolen $7
million via diplomatic pouch through Mexico.
Some argue that the aging Castro is now
more interested in the tourism trade than the
terror business. This is a dangerous delusion;
he is interested in both.
The Cuban dictator has never wavered in his
ideological "jihad" against America, even as he
has wooed Western investors. Following the
Sept. 11 attacks, Castro followed the lead of
hard-line Muslim leaders by blaming "this
tragedy" on "the terrorist policies of the
United States."
In recent months he has been organizing a
new "anti-Western" alliance of rogue states
(now including Chavez's Venezuela). As
recently as May 2001 Castro toured Syria,
Libya and Iran to garner support for this
effort. On May 10 in Tehran, the Iranian Press
Service reported Fidel Castro stating, "Iran
and Cuba, together, can bring America to its
knees."
Castro's aggressive, overt terror effort
continued as long as the Soviet Union
provided him cover and protection. After the
fall of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s,
however, Castro exchanged his open and
active involvement in terrorism for a more
subtle and easily disguised role as a
mentor-facilitator, intelligence provider and
safe harbor.
While Castro may no longer be running active
terror training camps in Cuba, he is still
intimately connected to the international
terror network he helped create, acting as a
critical nexus for many disparate terror
groups and rogue states. Cuba is currently
one of seven nations (along with Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Libya, North Korea and Sudan) on the
U.S. State Department list of terrorist states.
Despite a campaign in some quarters to
remove Cuba from this list, Castro's status is
very well deserved. In 2000, the State
Department reported that Cuba continued to
provide safe haven to several terrorists and
U.S. fugitives. Even since the September
attacks Castro was discovered hosting
terrorist groups such as the IRA, who are
training the Marxist guerrillas – the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) – responsible for a savage terror and
urban bombing campaign in Colombia.
There are also reportedly a small number of
Cubans currently providing support and
advice to the FARC (though their exact role is
unconfirmed), and Colombian military
intelligence has intercepted guerrilla radio
communications in which senior FARC military
commanders talk about forming an
"anti-imperialist front" to launch terrorist
attacks against targets in the United States.
Biological Warfare
Increasingly worrisome, too, is Castro's
potential chemical and biological weapons
development and proliferation. Castro has
long been suspected of hiding a
biological-chemical weapons program within
his sophisticated, Soviet-created
biotechnology industry.
In May 1998, Secretary of Defense William
Cohen testified before Congress that Cuba
possesses advanced biotechnology and is
capable of mass-producing agents for
biological warfare. High-level Cuban defectors
as well as Col. Ken Alibek, former deputy chief
of the ex-Soviet Union's biological warfare
program and author of "Biohazard," support
that assessment; others have described his
secret labs in detail.
Castro may also be exporting this capability to
his rogue friends. The Miami Herald reported
that senior Cuban officials inaugurated a new
"biotech" research plant near Tehran in
October 2000, despite reports that the
Iranians already produce almost all their
pharmaceutical needs domestically.
Castro may have exported biological and
chemical weapons to other regions as well,
specifically to the FARC in Colombia. A FARC
bomb that burned out the lungs of an entire
police garrison in the Colombian town of San
Adolfo last September reportedly contained
chlorine-based poison gas. Some analysts
believe the Cuban military may be helping
FARC develop this chemical warfare capability.
Significantly, Cuban troops are believed to
have used chemical weapons against
anti-communist guerrillas in Angola and South
African troops in the 1980s. Exchanges
between bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and
Cuban intelligence could thus also involve the
provision of chemical weapons and
"weaponized" biological strains produced by
Cuba's secret biochemical warfare facilities.
(Note: Since this article was initially published,
U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
John Bolton has publicy confirmed that the
U.S. suspects Cuba of having a "limited
offensive biological weapons capabilty" and
may be involved in bioweapons proliferation to
rogue states.)
Castro's long-standing connections to
terrorist groups are undeniable. Numerous
indirect links to bin Laden and other terror
groups are highly suspicious. His continued
anti-American fervor, close intelligence ties to
rogue states and terrorists, and potential
biowarfare capability make him a dangerous
neighbor.
What Should the U.S. Do?
At minimum, America must warn Castro that
we will not tolerate Cuba being used as a
haven for international terrorists. The United
States would also be wise to inform China that
we will no longer allow Cuba to be used as an
intelligence collection or subversion site
against the U.S.
China must be urged to follow the Russian
example and withdraw its advisers and
technicians immediately. Additionally, the
United States should demand that Castro shut
down these facilities and allow for independent
inspection and verification.
We should also insist on inspecting all
suspected chemical/biological research –
better stated as warfare – sites on the island.
Finally, prudence dictates that rather than
consider removing Castro from the State
Department terrorist list, we should redouble
and refocus our intelligence efforts to verify
and confirm the details of Cuban complicity
with international terrorist groups.
Castro is clearly a player in this global terror
network. We need to discover quickly just
how deeply he is involved and respond
accordingly.
***
*Paul Crespo recently worked as an
international political risk and security
consultant with the Ackerman Group in
Miami. A former Marine Corps special
operations and intelligence officer, he
served in the Far East and Europe and
with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He
was also posted as a Defense and Naval
Attaché at U.S. embassies in the Balkans,
the Persian Gulf and Latin America.
He graduated from the Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service and
has master's degrees from both London
and Cambridge Universities in the U.K.
He is a member of the Council on
Emerging National Security Affairs
(CENSA).
E-mail Mr. Crespo at
pcrespo@WashingtonPartners.net.
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