Regards, Ivan
Posted on 11/24/2002 6:27:29 AM PST by MadIvan
Intelligence reports link the IRA with cash-rich guerrillas and a newly resurgent ETA, writes Jim Cusack
THE IRA could have received between €20m and €30m from the massively wealthy FARC guerrilla group (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for training programmes in mortars, armour-piercing and explosives manufacture.
European security agencies are also looking closely at intelligence reports from Spain that the same type of IRA mortar training was given to the Basque terrorist group, ETA.
The IRA training programme in Colombia, according to senior security sources, ran between 1997 and the summer of 2001.
At least 30 IRA members worked inside FARC-controlled areas of Colombia as part of the training programme. Massive amounts of cash US intelligence sources say as much as US $2m per training programme were involved and there could have been up to 14 programmes, suggesting a total payment of up to US$28m.
Senior sources believe the connection between FARC and the IRA was developed through the Basque terrorist group, ETA. The IRA has had close and continuing links with ETA for decades.
The sources say that the IRA has also been supplying mortar technology to ETA in recent times.
A photograph of an IRA 'Mark 10' mortar was recently discovered by Spanish police, suggesting that ETA has begun to manufacture the devices but has not yet used them.
ETA restarted its terrorist campaign last year after a period of ceasefire and has carried out several assassinations. There are concerns with the discovery of the mortar pictures that it intends stepping up its campaign.
FARC controls a large portion of the cocaine manufacturing trade in Colombia and is massively cash-wealthy.
Western intelligence agencies had begun noticing the FARC-IRA connection by 1999, when striking resemblances between mortars used in Colombia and the IRA's 'barrack-buster' bombs were remarked on in some intelligence and armaments publications.
One of the leading publications in the defence area, Jane's Intelligence Review, ran a detailed article about an apparent IRA-FARC technology exchange in May last year.
The IRA presence in Colombia appears to have been tolerated as it was taking place towards the end of a peace process in the country where the government was attempting a settlement with FARC and had ceded a large part of the interior to FARC control. It was in this area that the training took place.
However, the process began to collapse around 1999. FARC stepped up its war against the government with hundreds of attacks and kidnappings of many prominent figures.
The collapse of the process was triggered by a massive terror campaign against FARC's political wing, in which an estimated 4,000 of its elected local officials were assassinated by right-wing groups.
The process disintegrated at the start of last year and all-out conflict began again.
The IRA-designed mortars were used with greater frequency throughout last year, and this year they were used with devastating effect in a number of attacks.
Earlier this year, 115 people were killed in a FARC attack on a rural town using mortars identical to the IRA's Mark 18 device. The Mark 18 missile consists of two gas cylinders welded together and carrying a payload of home-made explosive.
The mortar is devastating in its effect and killed almost all the civilians who were seeking refuge in the church in Bellavista.
Last May, multiple-launch mortars, also originally devised by the IRA, were used to attack the presidential palace in Bogota during the inauguration of President Uribe. Twenty-one people were killed in this attack.
The supply of technical information and training to FARC was criticised during the summer by the US Congress House International Relations Committee, which issued a report saying that FARC had made a "quantum leap" in the proficiency of its terrorist tactics.
The report was issued by the chairman of a House committee investigating links between international terrorist groups, Henry J Hyde of Illinois, who said the IRA's suspected involvement with FARC had threatened democracy in that country and US personnel in Colombia.
Regards, Ivan
Had we done otherwise, a good many Americans would have been unhappy. I think awareness of what the IRA really is, is only now starting to be shown in America.
Regards, Ivan
The IRA and the Paramilitaries on the Protestant side are not fighting for any particular political cause - they are mobsters dividing up territory. We should treat them as such. I believe the people in the Republic feel the same, but I'll defer to the lovely Happygal.
Regards, Ivan
WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "CHAVEZ TIED TO COLUMBIA REBELS" by Mike Ceaser (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Several of the officers, who recently declared themselves in disobedience and demanded Mr. Chavez's resignation, say the government also has opposed their efforts to combat guerrillas active on Venezuelan territory. Also, the Colombian newsmagazine Cambio reported recently that the Vene-zuelan military had sold and at times even given planeloads of arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. government." (112502)
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