Looks like there are other benefits to busting up FARC leadership, since that raid may well be where we got the intel to bust up this worldwide arms network:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1981446/posts
[quoted from NY Times article]:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/world/europe/07dealer.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
BANGKOK — One of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, suspected of supplying weapons to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and of pouring huge arms shipments into Africa’s civil wars with his own private air fleet, was arrested by Thai authorities in a hotel here Thursday. His capture was prompted by a tipoff from the United States in connection with the procurement of weapons for the Colombian FARC rebels.
The Justice Department said that federal prosecutors in New York would unseal criminal charges against the arms dealer, Viktor Bout, 41, and one of his associates later Thursday, charging them with conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Such a step would mean that American prosecutors think it likely Mr. Bout will be brought to the United States to stand trial.
Mr. Bout, who is wanted by the police in many countries, is a former Soviet Air Force officer. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he built a network of air cargo companies in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the United States, according to the United States Treasury,.
United Nations reports and other investigations have concluded that Mr. Bout may have run the world’s largest arms-smuggling network. Peter Hain, a former British minister for Europe, who investigated the arms-for-diamonds trade, has called him “Africa’s chief merchant of death.”
Good catch! I just saw that story breaking. There’s gotta be a connection.
I wonder if this string of events has anything to do with President Bush’s demeanor these days...I’ve noticed that he has seemed much more relaxed these past few weeks. ;-)
The Bout situation is a strange one, from what I’ve read on The Counterterrorism Blog it almost seems as if he is or has been hooked up with the CIA, as we seem to have somehwat of a hands-off relationship with him.
Weird.
SWEET, YET AGAIN!
Maybe you saw this?
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/03/viktor_bout_arrested.php
“Bout aircraft flew hundreds of flights, as a sub-contractor, for the U.S military and its principal contractors such as KBR, Fedex and others.”