Free Republic

SNIPPET - quote: Dissemination *_is_* collection I always get a kick out of people who tell me I give away intelligence for free. What I do is watch how information moves. Keep in mind that the subject covered on this site are pretty darn esoteric by most standards. What kind of people, for example, even know who Oussama Salhab is? Answers include: Oussama Salhab, his family, friends, associates in and out of Hizballah, people he does business with, spies of various nations, etc. Yep. The barn is free, and so is the food.

When Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez gave a speech condemning the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro, she was accompanied by two men who can make or break the regime’s future. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino command Venezuela’s police and military, the forces that kept Maduro in power for more than a decade with deadly crackdowns on dissent. Trump said Rodríguez is the de facto leader of Venezuela. She is someone who despite her anti-U.S. rhetoric has privately assured Washington that she will do its bidding with Maduro facing prison, Trump said on Saturday. But Cabello and...

Here's yet another reason why we can't have open borders. Over the weekend, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) finally responded to information that a nightclub called "The Alamo," which was located in an industrial area in Summerville, S.C., may require the agency's attention. Summerville is located in Charleston County and sits about 25 miles northwest of the city of Charleston. The club had no license to operate or sell alcohol, and as far back as November, people filed noise complaints or reported fighting going on in the parking lot. [snip] As it turns out, the nightclub was run...

In May 2011, discussions began secretly in Mexico between a known Los Zetas associate and Quds Force operative Manssor Arbabsiar. The discussion would lead to planning a C-4 detonation at a Washington, D.C. restaurant frequented by Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. The Quds Force operative did not know that he was being recorded in a DEA operation. Over the course of a few months, several clandestine meetings in Mexico planned strikes against the Israeli Embassy in Washington, plus and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina. New opium trafficking lanes between the Middle East and Mexico were also charted. In July...

Over the course of a week, law enforcement in Roma, Texas, documented two armed human smuggling incidents. One is particularly raising eyebrows among authorities. Most of Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, is now under the control of Los Zetas aka Cartel Del Noreste (CDN). This is leading to a shift in smuggling tactics. The first incident of concern took place on September 26, when a camera captured migrants crossing the border illegally. The image identified a red, four-door GMC truck. As law enforcement responded, the driver sped away until a bailout was performed. A search of the vehicle led to the seizure...

Mexican military forces killed a total of 16 gunmen from a faction of Los Zetas in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas... The shootout took place on Friday early morning in the Los Fresnos neighborhood when members of the Mexican army were patrolling the streets of Nuevo Laredo. The soldiers encountered a convoy of SUVs filled with cartel gunmen in military-style uniforms, Breitbart Texas initially reported... The deceased gunmen are believed to be members of a paramilitary group known as Hell’s Troops or Tropa del Infierno. The group is part of the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas....

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican gunmen have kidnapped a U.S. security consultant who negotiated the release of dozens of kidnap victims in Latin America. Gunmen abducted Felix Batista outside a restaurant last Wednesday in the relatively safe northern industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, Mexican authorities and his employer, security consultancy ASI Global, said on Monday. Batista, a Miami-based Cuban American credited with negotiating the release of victims abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched after he stepped outside the restaurant, answering a call on his cellular phone, Mexican media said. The U.S. embassy in Mexico City said it was...

A verified and convicted terrorist who attacked a U.S. Consulate with a grenade and automatic rifle fire has taken over the ruthless Los Zetas cartel, a group headquartered at the Texas border in the Nuevo Laredo-Laredo metropolitan border area. Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, sits immediately across the border from Laredo, Texas, and is the only urban location along the entire U.S.-Mexico Border that does not have any fencing or constructed security barrier of any kind. The convicted terrorist, Hector Raul Luna Luna, is known as “El Tory” and was convicted in the 2008 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey,...

"Betrayed." Victor Avila is a survivor. Soft-spoken but iron-willed, he dedicated his life to law enforcement and to his country. Yet, the feds are now fighting tooth and nail to bury the full truth about the 2011 ambush by Los Zetas drug cartel thugs in Mexico that left him gravely wounded and his partner, special agent Jaime Zapata, dead. This week, two of the Mexican gangsters convicted in the horror on Highway 57 between Mexico City and Monterrey were sentenced to double life terms in prison. "HSI Special Agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila were in Mexico to protect and...

An alleged member of one of the most violent Mexican drug cartels was found in an American sanctuary city and turned over to Mexican officials on Tuesday. Coahuila state police officers traveled to the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo where they took custody of Juan Rafael “El Cubano” Arredondo Oviedo. U.S. authorities arrested Arredondo, a “foot soldier” in the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel, at an immigration court in Chicago, Illinois, a sanctuary city, where he sought to be a protected as a witness from the Los Zetas cartel who he said is going to kill him.

For a few years, a wide-spread effort by the Mexican military to arrest or kill cartel leaders, most notably Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, seemed to be making progress. But as Cartels began to fight for the territory of military-weakened rivals, the homicide rate once again exploded. Now, a disturbing video shows the extreme length that participants in the emerging all-out gang war will go to retain or take power. The graphic video shows two Los Zetas gunmen insulting rival gangs behind a shirtless, kneeling man. The gunmen claim that their victim is part of a rival gang who was sent...

Full title: Confirmed: Obama DOJ Failure to Arrest Known Straw Purchasers Led to Murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico According to a new inspector general report an illegal gun trafficking program similar to Operation Fast and Furious, which took place under President Obama's Department of Justice, led to the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in 2011. First, the background: On February 15, 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents Victor Avila and Jaime Zapata were returning to Mexico City from Matehuala, Mexico when their armored SUV came under attack near the town of Santa Maria del Rio,...

A video leaked to Breitbart Texas by Mexican law enforcement shows a man being interrogated by cartel gunmen moments before his execution. The video revealed a dire warning about upcoming violence in this border city. The violence comes as two rival factions of the Los Zetas Cartel, the Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) and the Vieja Escuela Z (Old School Z)/Grupo Bravo have been at war for more than seven months. During their struggle, the Tamaulipas capital of Ciudad Victoria has been ground Zero for daily executions, regular beheadings, shootouts, drive by shootings and other acts of violence that have spread...

(Too long title: Mexican Drug Cartel Slaughters Three Hundred People, They Take The Victims, Murder Them And Burn Their Bodies To Nothing But Chard Pieces Of Human Flesh) In the El Limón Rance, which lies in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in the town of Tlalixcoyan, almost three thousand fragments of human corpses were discovered, leading investigators to believe that around three hundred bodies were buried on this very spot. The three thousand human remains were found after three days of investigation by forensic experts. The investigation was launched after locals began to make reports on the bodies to authorities....

A shooting incident last month that forced a U.S. border patrol helicopter to make an emergency landing near Laredo, Texas, was the work of Mexican drug traffickers, and analysts say the attack highlights growing narcotics trafficking across porous U.S. borders. According to U.S. officials familiar with an investigation of the June 5 incident, members of the Los Zetas drug cartel were crossing back into Mexico from the United States when they were spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) helicopter along the Rio Grande River near Laredo. The traffickers had finished delivering a shipment of drugs and were...

With recent waves of Central Americans seeking to reach the U.S., human smuggling along the Texas border has, at least for the moment, become more lucrative than smuggling illicit drugs for criminal organizations such as the Gulf and Zetas cartels, according to two U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. agents tracking the money flow as part of the anti-smuggling Operation Coyote say that in just over six months, human smuggling has generated nearly $50 million, mostly in the area around the Mexican border city of Reynosa. The revenue has helped sustain the Gulf cartel during a bloody internal split, the officials said....

Authorities have confirmed that one gunman has been wounded and that five kidnapping victims have been rescued following a Wednesday afternoon shootout in a busy downtown Reynosa shopping district. Mexico's Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) confirmed that a shootout took place in the "peatonal" or "pedestrian shopping area" of downtown Reynosa on Wednesday afternoon. SEDENA officials reported that soldiers were in the area when they came under fire from an unknown number of men. Reynosa residents reported the gunfire on the social media network Twitter. SEDENA officials reported that shootout ended with one gunman being wounded and five alleged kidnapping...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

The city of Matamoros is under a virtual state of siege following two days of shootouts blockades and panic related to yet another ongoing struggle within the Gulf Cartel. The shootouts began early Sunday morning and spread throughout the day leaving at least 13 gunmen dead, which state officials confirmed, however that figure appears to be relatively low because of the intensity of the shootouts. On Monday afternoon, Mayor Leticia Salazar issued a statement warning the public to stay indoors because of the expected outburst of violence. “At this point based on the information provided by federal authorities we are...

MEXICO CITY - Thirteen people were killed in shootouts on Sunday around the northeastern Mexican city of Matamoros in one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in an area ravaged by drug gangs. Three gunfights took place around the city opposite Brownsville, Texas, two of which were exchanges between gunmen and Mexico's armed forces, according to a statement from the state government of Tamaulipas. Eight men died in the fighting with Mexican Marines after four men and one woman were killed in an earlier clash between unidentified armed groups, the state government said.