Free Republic

In what is hopefully a significant blow to drug trafficking operations, the Costa Rican Coast Guard intercepted a semi-submersible vessel yesterday, seizing approximately two tons of cocaine. The operation, which took place 148 kilometers off our southern Pacific coast, demonstrated the unwavering commitment of our nation’s authorities in the fight against narcotics trade. Acting on intelligence provided by U.S. patrol aircraft, our Coast Guard swiftly located and intercepted the vessel. In a dramatic turn of events, the three suspects aboard – two Colombians and one Ecuadorian – attempted to sink their craft to destroy evidence. However, our skilled officers thwarted...

Drug traffickers are spending $1 million a pop to build boats that look like submarines and can carry 4 tons of cocaine for 2,000 miles without refueling. Nicknamed "narco subs," they're made to sneak loads up from South America to Mexico, where the drugs are offloaded and taken overland into the United States. "It is a semi-submersible coffin," said Jay Bergman, Andean regional director for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "You batten down the hatches and you are doing everything to not be detected sailing in the middle of the ocean." At least 13 of the craft have been stopped and...

Speculation Focuses on N.Korean Semi-Submersibles As more evidence surfaces about the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan on Friday, speculation is increasingly focusing on a possible attack from one of the North Korean semi-submersibles reportedly operated by crack teams and capable of carrying two torpedoes or mines. Semi-submersible vessels weigh less than 300 tons and are smaller than submarines. The waters where the Cheonan sank are only 20 m to 30 m deep and difficult for North Korea's mainstay 1,800 ton Romeo class submarines to negotiate. North Korea allegedly uses the semi-submersibles when transporting spies on infiltration missions into South...

Bogota (AP) - It's a game played out regularly on the high seas off Colombia's Pacific coast: A U.S. Navy helicopter spots a vessel the size of a humpback whale gliding just beneath the water's surface. A Coast Guard ship dispatches an armed team to board the small, submarine-like craft in search of cocaine. Crew members wave and jump into the sea to be rescued, but not before they open flood valves and send the fiberglass hulk and its cargo into the deep. Colombia has yet to make a single arrest in such scuttlings because the evidence sinks with the...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

The waters in the Caribbean and around Latin America for a long time have provided a path for illicit drugs to flow into the United States, but the U.S. Navy has increased its patrols in the region now looking for something else – Hezbollah terrorists, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. The Navy, in trolling for mini-submarines sometimes used to transport drugs, has discovered that some of them apparently are being operated by Hezbollah. The mini-subs are small semi-submersibles, made of fiberglass and capable of carrying up to four people plus a payload. They are popular with...