http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&9D4794F0E220F53CC22572E0004B8BEA
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Note: The following text is a quote:
http://osint.internet-haganah.com/archives/001150.html
Terrorist financing the old-fashioned way...
...by bank robbery.
Gunmen Hit Bank in North Lebanon
Beirut, 19 May 07, 15:47 - Four masked gunmen robbed around 120.000 dollars from the Mediterranean Bank branch in the northern town of Amioun Saturday, police reported. A Police communiqué said the four, who have not been identified, escapade in a beige-colored car to an unknown destination.
However, a security source told Naharnet the gunmen’s escape car has been identified as one of the vehicles used by the Syrian-sponsored Fatah-Islam terrorist group in north Lebanon’s Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.
The source who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that members of the Group had robbed two banks in the northern town of Tripoli and the southern coastal village of Gaziyeh earlier this year to finance terrorist attacks in Lebanon.
Police had arrested a number of Fatah-Islam members in connection with the twin bus bombings in the town of Ein Alaq on Feb. 13 which killed and wounded at least 20 people.
The police communiqué said a man hunt was underway for the four gunmen who robbed the Bank in Amioun.
Posted on 20 May 2007 @ 16:13 GMT
http://osint.internet-haganah.com/archives/001153.html
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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA052007.01A.SIA_Main_PartOne.359e190.html
“Breaching America: War refugees or threats?”
Web Posted: 05/20/2007 12:51 AM CDT
Todd Bensman
San Antonio Express-News
First part of a four-part series
DAMASCUS, Syria
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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/nation/stories/MYSA052007.01A.SIA_Main_PartOne_Jump1.8761b17c.html
“Breaching America: Continued, part 2”
Web Posted: 05/20/2007 12:01 AM CDT
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Homeland Security and a former assistant director of the FBI, said the nation’s vulnerability from this human traffic is unassailable — even if not a single terrorist has ever been caught.
“This isn’t a partisan issue,” McCraw said. “If the good guys can come, you know, then so can the bad guys. We are at risk.”
Though most who cross America’s borders are economic migrants, the government has labeled some terrorists. Their ranks include:
Mahmoud Kourani, convicted in Detroit as a leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Using a visa obtained by bribing a Mexican official in Beirut, the Lebanese national sneaked over the Mexican border in 2001 in the trunk of a car.
Nabel Al-Marahb, a reputed al-Qaida operative who was No. 27 on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list in the months after 9-11, crossed the Canadian border in the sleeper cab of a long-haul truck.
Express-News Special Report
Interactives: Audio slide shows and graphics
COMING UP
Monday: The Latin Connection
Guatemala, where U.S. counterterrorism clashes with smuggling, is an easy bridge to America. Iraq war refugee Aamr Bahnan Boles was happy to be on the same continent as the United States.
Tuesday: Stuck in the Middle
Wedged between a skittish United States and the bridges to America traversed by migrants from Islamic countries, Mexico seeks to stop illicit northbound traffic. Aamr Bahnan Boles was undeterred.
Wednesday: ‘I’ve made it to America’
When Iraq war refugee Aamr Bahnan Boles crossed the Rio Grande, authorities assumed the worst about him. In the current climate of uncertainty and fear, they had little choice. For Boles, it was literally a test of faith.
Farida Goolam Mahammed, a South African woman captured in 2004 as she carried into the McAllen airport cash and clothes still wet from the Rio Grande. Though the government characterized her merely as a border jumper, U.S. sources now say she was a smuggler who ferried people with terrorist connections. One report credits her arrest with spurring a major international terror investigation that stopped an al-Qaida attack on New York.
The government has accused other border jumpers of connections to outlawed terrorist organizations, some that help al-Qaida, including reputed members of the deadly Tamil Tigers caught in California after crossing the Mexican border in 2005 on their way to Canada.
One U.S.-bound Pakistani apparently captured in Mexico drew such suspicion that he ended up in front of a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
“They are not all economic migrants,” said attorney Janice Kephart, who served as legal counsel for the 9-11 Commission and co-wrote its final staff report. “I do get frustrated when people who live in Washington or Illinois say we don’t have any evidence that terrorists are coming across. But there is evidence.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehension numbers, agents along both borders have caught more than 5,700 special-interest immigrants since 2001. But as many as 20,000 to 60,000 others are presumed to have slipped through, based on rule-of-thumb estimates typically used by homeland security agencies.”
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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/nation/stories/MYSA052007.01A.SIA_Main_PartOne_Jump2.8766bac8.html
“Breaching America: Continued, part 3”
Web Posted: 05/20/2007 12:00 AM CDT