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Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

IGUALA Mexico (Reuters) - The body of a Roman Catholic priest from Uganda who went missing in southwestern Mexico has been found in a mass grave as authorities search for the remains of 43 missing trainee teachers feared massacred, the local diocese said on Friday.The remains of the priest, identified as John Ssenyondo, were dug up about a week ago and identified by the recovered skull as well as dental records. He had been missing since May, the state attorney general's office said."It was found in a mass grave with six other bodies," said a spokesperson for the diocese of...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates has denied a request from the Department of Justice to delay the release of a list of Operation Fast and Furious documents being protected under President Obama's assertion of executive privilege. The list, better known as a Vaughn index, was requested through a June 2012 FOIA filing by government watchdog Judicial Watch. When DOJ didn't respond to the FOIA request in the time required by law, Judicial Watch sued in September 2012, seeking all documents DOJ and the White House are withholding from Congress under executive privilege claims. President Obama made the assertion...

A U.S. District judge ruled on Wednesday that the Department of Justice must turn over a privilege log of documents withheld by the agency on Operation Fast and Furious. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Justice Department must provide the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with a list of documents — but not the documents themselves — withheld on the gunrunning operation.

A new congressional report from the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management ties Middle East terror organizations to Mexican drug cartels. The report, released Thursday, is titled “A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border.” It found that the “Southwest border has now become the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration into the United States.” It specifically cites a “growing influence” from Iranian and Hezbollah terror forces in Latin America. “The presence of Hezbollah in Latin America is partially explained by the large Lebanese diaspora in South America,” the report reads....

SNIPPET: "Actually, two have been convicted by a jury for using their nightclubs to launder the proceeds of drug and weapons deals, one was acquitted of money laundering but has pled guilty to a drug trafficking charge, and one of those convicted of money laundering has now been charged with tax evasion. And that's not to mention the failure to pay state liquor taxes and fees, the unsolved murder of a one-time business partner, and various immigration-related issues. Money was transferred in to a relative and known Hizballah operative in Lebanon, and there are strong ties to the Lebanese expat...

"We need answers on this. Not defensive BS. Real answers." In email exchanges with subordinates in February and March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder and the department's second-highest official expressed growing concern that something might have gone wrong in a federal gun-smuggling probe called Operation Fast and Furious. Two of Holder's emails and one by Deputy Attorney General James Cole were among documents the Justice Department showed Tuesday to Republican and Democratic staffers of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee in an effort to ward off a criminal contempt vote against the attorney general. The full contents of the...

In Acapulco, meanwhile, federal police said they caught a young woman and a young man as they were getting out of a car near a shopping mall with an ice chest that contained a decapitated head and other human remains. Police had followed them because the car matched the description in a kidnapping report. Inside the vehicle, police said, they found another head inside another ice chest. Police officers discovered the bound bodies of the victims in a car near Acapulco two hours after the arrest. Federal police said 19-year-old Damaris Gomez leads a group of killers working for “the...

They called it “…the perfect storm of idiocy.” The Gunwalker scandal encompassed the resources of multiple Federal agencies including Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, the DEA, CIA, FBI, DHS and the ATF; it was the most profoundly misguided law enforcement effort in our nation’s history...but it's only half the story. Before the scandal was finally exposed two Americans lay dead. US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry killed in a fire-fight with a drug cartel rip-crew and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata who died in an ambush deep in Mexican cartel territory. The scandal is they both died in...

Media: Just days before the U.S.-Colombia free trade pact heads for a vote, the Washington Post publishes a story claiming Colombia's miracle is a sham. This is a smear unworthy of the name "journalism." Topping the front page in its Sunday edition with "A case of aid gone bad in Colombia," the Post attempted to rewrite history by claiming the U.S.'s $8 billion Plan Colombia military program that broke the back of its drug cartels was really ... a waste. Pay no attention to the safety, security and economic growth that have made Colombia such an attractive partner for a...

Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization has become increasingly reliant on organized crime, including cocaine smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan's federal court. The charges filed against three alleged al-Qaeda associates by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan is the latest chilling evidence of a convergence between terrorism and organized crime. Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were snatched in Ghana on Wednesday by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting and shipped to New York, where they arrived on Friday to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and providing material support...

Chicago Tour Bus Used To Move Pot, Cash NationwideBy TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press Writer Oct 6, 2009 6:31 pm US/Central CHICAGO (AP) - The purple tour bus rumbled toward Arizona. On board were 15 passengers, all promised $1,000 and a hotel stay. Stuffed into the luggage compartments, in four black duffel bags, was $1.4 million. Trailing the bus were Wisconsin Department of Justice agents, heading straight into a case that reads like a crime novel. A Detroit drug lord named Adarus Mazio Black was using the tour bus to smuggle his cash and dope across the country and was so...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is planning to move several hundred Border Patrol agents away from the U.S.-Mexico border and will not secure a single additional mile of the U.S. border in fiscal 2010, according to the department's annual performance report. The document -- "Department of Homeland Security Annual Performance Report: Fiscal Years 2008-2010" -- was originally published by the Bush administration on Jan. 15 and was updated by the Obama administration on May 7. Excluding the border between Alaska and Canada, the combined length of the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada is about 6,000 miles (with almost...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Last month, our Fox News' "War Stories" team was in Colombia, covering the tough fight against a narco-insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. This month, we're in Afghanistan, covering another narco-insurgency, the Taliban. In Colombia, cocaine fuels and funds the terror. Here in Afghanistan, it's opium. Despite extraordinary differences in culture, climate and terrain, there are dramatic parallels in the two campaigns. More importantly, lessons learned in the Andean basin are being applied here in the shadows of the Hindu Kush. Both countries have isolated agricultural populations vulnerable to coercion by insurgents financed by...

Two of the District's top law enforcement officials are warning that dozens of federal prisoners with ties to Colombian rebel groups and international drug rings are a threat to security at the D.C. Jail and pose a risk of escape into the surrounding neighborhood. The concerns have led city officials to ask the federal government for more money to provide security for the increasing numbers of prisoners, who are being held at the District's corrections campus in Southeast. Devon Brown, director of the D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC), outlined concerns about such prisoners in a U.S. District Court filing last...

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Last month, a hit squad sent by a Mexican drug cartel brazenly broke into the homes of nine police officers in a ranching town in northern Mexico. They kidnapped the officers, piled them into a convoy of SUVs and sped off into the night. After being summoned by local authorities, troops from Ciudad Juarez, 80 miles to the north, located the convoy and fought a running gun battle with the kidnappers. When the smoke cleared, 21 people were dead, including six policemen who had been tortured and murdered before the soldiers could save them. Even in Mexico, where a spiraling...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53293 Gates: U.S. Military Could Help Mexico Fight Drug Cartels By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 2, 2009 – The United States could increase its military support to help Mexico fight drug cartels that pose an increasingly alarming security risk, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday. “I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past,” Gates said during an NBC “Meet the Press” interview. “Some of the old biases against cooperation between our militaries and so on,...

MEXICO CITY — The street peddler's face darkened when asked how the Mexican government should deal with the rash of kidnappings and drug slayings terrorizing the nation. "They should catch the perpetrators and kill them," said Luis Bote, 21, as he served steaming tacos from a basket on his bicycle. "Only if the criminals are afraid will these crimes ever stop." Bote isn't alone. Such calls to reinstate the death penalty are gaining ground in Mexico amid an unprecedented surge in violent crime. Most of the violence is tied to the warring narcotics gangs, who killed a record 5,500 people...