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logo Three Decades Since the Panama Bombing: The Hezbollah Connection and Ali Zaki’s Extradition José Gustavo Arocha José Gustavo Arocha April 20, 2026 SFS Home Research Three Decades Since the Panama Bombing: The Hezbollah Connection and Ali Zaki’s Extradition Share EXPERT Three Decades Since the Panama Bombing: The Hezbollah Connection and Ali Zaki’s Extradition José Gustavo Arocha Senior Fellow Meet our expert KEY POINTS On April 20, 2026, Ali Zaki Hage Jalil arrived in Panama after Venezuela approved his extradition in connection with the 1994 bombing of Alas Chiricanas Flight 901, marking the most significant breakthrough in the case in...

The New York Times Sept. 4 feature on Tim Kaine1, shows that his year in Honduras introduced him not to Jesus Christ, but to Karl Marx. The story doesn't say that, exactly, but connect the dots with a little history, and an alarming picture emerges of Kaine's adventures with radicals and revolutionaries in 1980s Latin America. The Times notes that in Honduras: “Mr. Kaine embraced an interpretation of the gospel, known as liberation theology...” This wasn't mainstream “Catholic thought” at the time. It was a radical, Marxist-based ideology at odds with the Church, the pope, and the United States, but...

DAKAR, Oct 25 (AFP) - Senegal said it would restore diplomatic ties with China, becoming the latest west African country to ditch relations with Taiwan in favor of mighty Beijing. A government statement, released after a Beijing trip by Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, hailed the "important decision to renew diplomatic relations with China" and said both countries would soon exchange ambassadors. A joint statement published in the Chinese capital and reported by the state news agency Xinhua said the re-establishment of ties after the hiatus "conformed to the interests and aspirations of the two countries." China had severed its...

Mansour Osanlou, the leader of Tehran's municipal bus service union, was reportedly assaulted by an inmate in an Iranian prison, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The trade unionist was not injured in the attack, which occurred at Gohardasht prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, on February 22. Osanlou was arrested in July 2007 after being abducted on the street by security forces. He is serving a five-year prison term for what authorities say was acting against "national security." He had been detained several times between 2005-2007. Canadian-based labor activist Mehdi Kouhestaninejad told RFE/RL that Osanlou has been persecuted in prison by...

The Mexican law student was surprised by how easy it was to get into Iran two years ago. By merely asking questions about Islam at a party, he managed to pique the interest of Iran’s top diplomat in Mexico. Months later, he had a plane ticket and a scholarship to a mysterious school in Iran as a guest of the Islamic Republic. Next came the start of classes and a second surprise: There were dozens of others just like him.

Friday, Sept. 30th concluded the 3-day military manoeuvres conducted by the Basij and Revolutionary Guards in the town of Marivaan (Province of Kurdistan). These maneuvers took place around Zaribaar Lake where bunkers from the 8-year-old Iran/Iraq war still stand. For days leading up to the beginning of the maneuvers, squadron leaders and regime's authorities in Marivaan had bragged about the 20,000 strong Basiji presence in the "war games", however in spite of all the pressure to compel civil servants, high school students and the general public to participate, only 1400 people showed up. This was an indication of yet another...

According to Iranian reports, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed together with his bodyguard during an Israeli airstrike on the country, while under house arrest. Serving as Iran's sixth president between 2005 and 2013, Ahmadinejad is remembered as one of the Islamic Republic's most extreme and antisemitic voices. He was open about his aspiration to destroy Israel. In 2009, his controversial reelection set off the largest protests in post-revolution Iran's history until that point. The regime under his lead responded with a bloodbath, killing dozens and sending hundreds to prison.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a polarizing hardliner who became the face of Tehran’s nuclear defiance and incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric — was reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes during Saturday’s strikes inside Iran. A report by the Israeli media outlet Ma’ariv stated that Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time and was killed in a targeted strike on his home. Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s sixth president from 2005 to 2013, rising from relative obscurity as mayor of Tehran to defeat establishment figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a surprise 2005 runoff. Critics at home and abroad described him as a...

​ ​​​​Forsake The Troops started off as Citizens Against the Troops, an organization founded in the Summer of 2004. We currently have fifteen members in our organization, spanning all across this country. Our founder, and leader's name is Scott Vogel, who currently resides in Southern New Jersey. Other members have their bios available as well. To view those, click here. Our position is that as it stands currently, the compensation, benefit, and retirement packages that our active duty and retired military personnel get is outrageous, and undeserved. The American taxpayer is supporting the military enlistee, when said person made the...

The wife of a prominent lawyer was one of six killed in a horror private jet crash on a snowy airport runway. Tara Arnold, 46, wife of personal injury attorney Kurt Arnold, died along with several of her friends on a girls' trip to Paris. The Bombardier Challenger 650 business jet went down during takeoff from Bangor International Airport in Maine about 7.45pm on Sunday. Dramatic footage showed the burning wreckage of the plane upside-down on the runway. Flight data showed it veered right during takeoff and flipped at 175mph. The FAA earlier on Monday incorrectly said there were eight...

Top News Story Ukraine 'Sold Nuclear-Capable Missiles to Iran' 2.2.2005 A senior lawmaker alleges that Ukraine sold nuclear-capable cruise missiles to Iran and China in violation of international non-proliferation treaties and is demanding the new government launch a full investigation. The allegations were made in a letter by lawmaker Hrihory Omelchenko and addressed to President Viktor Yushchenko, a reformist who took office last week. Yushchenko, who takes over from Leonid Kuchma, has promised a thorough investigation of corruption and misdeeds that allegedly flourished during his predecessor’s 10 years as president. Kuchma allegedly sanctioned the sale of sophisticated radar systems...

As U.S. gunships patrol closely to Caracas, Venezuela's narcodictator, Nicolas Maduro, is seeing few efforts to help him from his big-gun friends, such as Russia, China, and Iran.His little-gun friends, though, e.g., Cuba, are where his real problems are. They're out to kill him.According to Axios (emphasis added):Oil-rich Venezuela has long been an opponent of the U.S. and has helped prop up Cuba's dictatorship, which furnishes security that helped install Maduro in 2013 and keep him in power. Venezuela also is an ally of Iran, China and Russia.Part of the challenge of persuading Maduro to leave, U.S. officials say, is...

Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Islamist gunman who hunted down three Jewish children and a rabbi after murdering three French paratroopers in Toulouse last month, didn't act alone. In his journey from the slums of Toulouse, to the local mosques, to the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan that he described to French police, to filming his murder of the terrified children in order to post video clips on the web, Mr. Merah was following a path marked out years earlier by the coldblooded jihadist theoretician Abu Musab al-Suri. What is perhaps more disturbing, Mr. al-Suri was recently set free...

WASHINGTON - Miami's Jesús Soto supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's vision of ''participatory democracy.'' Valerie Pusch of Chicago backs Chávez because of his policies on behalf of the poor. And they say so loudly, as heads of their local Bolivarian Circles -- among the dozen or so U.S. copies of the groups Chávez has set up throughout his country to mobilize Venezuelans on behalf of his socialist ``revolution.'' Even as Chávez attacks President Bush as his sworn nemesis, his government is running a strong campaign to curry favor with U.S. citizens through leftist grass-roots groups, paid lobbyists and public relations...

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A fundamentalist Muslim who is listed by the U.S. State Department as a suspected al-Qaida collaborator was named Saturday as the new leader of an Islamic militia that has seized control of Somalia's capital. The militia, which changed its name Saturday from the Islamic Courts Union to the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, said in a statement it had appointed Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys as its new leader. The Bush administration says Aweys was an associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s. The Islamic militia seized control of the capital Mogadishu and much of southern...

Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein had big plans — so big that children in the United Kingdom would have read about them in their history books and memorized their names, whether they would have been lionized as heroes or excoriated as villains. To their everlasting disappointment, however, their rendezvous with destiny never happened. Their big plans ended up being disrupted before they had a chance to carry out what has been called “the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history.” Sky News reported Tuesday that Saadaoui, 38, and Hussein, 52, have just been found guilty of plotting a jihad massacre with...

Washington, D.C. Street gangs have existed in the United States since the 1800s. But in the last few years, street gangs have grown more violent, more numerous and more widespread, from the big cities to rural areas. Many gang members are illegal immigrants, mostly from Latin America. An adolescent may hunger for a sense of power. Especially if that youngster has few things in life: no money, little education, a broken family and no cultural attachments to his community. Analysts say teenagers may find power and fear through a street gang, and that is why gangs are growing so rapidly...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus. Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France. Unlike West Nile virus, where nine out of 10 people are going to be totally asymptomatic, or may have a mild headache or a stiff neck, if you get Chikungunya you're going to be sick....

The Honduran Congress amended the Constitution of the Central American nation to ban all abortions despite pressure from the United Nations and abortions groups to block the added protections for the unborn. The Congress amended the Constitution to explicitly ban abortion last week. The amendment prohibits “the termination of life of the unborn by the mother or a third party under any circumstance” and expanded the protections for the unborn already enshrined in Article 67 of the Honduran Constitution. The Constitution previously recognized the humanity of the child in the womb, stating that the unborn “is to be considered born...

Latin America: Odd, that as "popular" as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is said to be, he's so detested by Venezuelans that he can no longer go to baseball games without being booed by the whole stadium.