Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Terrorists Financially Supported by Welfare

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Deceased ISIS Terrorist Was On Maine’s Welfare Rolls

DailyCaller: Adnan Fazeli lived in Freeport, Maine with his wife and children. An Iranian refugee, he worked several jobs between 2009 and 2013, before boarding a plane to Turkey without his family.

 Photo: Circa

He never returned. Documents released earlier this month show he became an ISIS fighter and was killed by Lebanese forces in January 2015. And during his four years, he and his family used federal and state welfare programs that The Boston Herald reports allowed him the time to self-radicalize over the Internet.

Maine Governor Paul LePage reacted strongly to the news. “I’m having [the Maine Department of Health and Human Services] look at our welfare rolls closer,” he said last week. “All the other states should look at the eligibility, too.”

According to LePage, the federal government is at fault for letting Fazeli in the country. “If people need to eat, I’ll feed them. But I want to keep Americans safe,” LePage said. “This is very embarrassing to the state of Maine, and I point the finger at the president and say, ‘How did this happen?’ If the federal government doesn’t do their job we don’t know what we’re getting.”

LePage’s comments drew criticism from Maine’s branch of the ACLU. The group’s executive director, Alison Beyea, accused him of violating federal laws requiring the privacy of welfare recipients after the Herald reported a LePage administration source disclosed the receipts.

“The LePage administration reportedly exposed a family’s private information in order to further its anti-welfare agenda. Who knows whom the next target will be – the elderly, people with disabilities,” said Beyea. “No one should have to worry about their personal lives being leaked to the press anytime the administration wants to score political points. But if it happened to one family, it could happen to any of us.”

A LePage spokesperson says that the governor’s office did not disclose the information to the newspaper. “The reporters [at the Boston Herald] already had the information when the governor spoke with them,” said the spokesperson.

Steve Robinson, the Executive Director of the Howie Carr show who previously worked at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, told TheDC, “This so-called ‘Freeport Man’ should not have been in the country. Cursory vetting would have flagged him as a risk.”

“Maine’s sanctuary policies and easy-money welfare system allowed him to spend his free time watching Anwar Al-Awlaki propaganda videos rather than working,” continued Robinson, who said that “LePage has been extraordinarily successful reforming Maine’s welfare system despite stubborn opposition from left-wingers in Augusta. The reforms he has implemented are helping Mainers move from welfare to work and reducing fraud throughout the system.”

The Portland Press Herald reported that 105 welfare fraud cases were sent to the state Attorney General’s office. A total of 36 convictions came from those cases, all against U.S. citizens, and restitution totaling $467,300 was ordered, according to a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office.

The Herald also examined Maine state records and found that “there were 35 non-citizen families out of a total of 4,854 families receiving TANF benefits, and 361 non-citizen families out of a total of 100,648 families receiving food stamps.”

Fazeli is not the first suspected or proven terrorist to have used government welfare funds. At Conservative Review, Ben Johnson highlighted several prominent examples, including the Tsarnaev brothers who committed the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

“The most conspicuous example are the Tsarnaev brothers,” writes Johnson, “who collectively received in excess of $100,000 in welfare payments from food stamps and Section 8 housing. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a onetime Golden Gloves boxer, remained on food stamps until his family income — earned primarily by his wife — exceeded the amount Massachusetts allows for food stamp beneficiaries.”

Johnson also highlighted recently convicted terrorist supporter Anjem Choudary, who in Britain received “£8,000 pounds more on public assistance than soldiers fighting the Taliban,” according to Johnson. Likewise, 9/11 conspirator Zacarious Moussaoui received welfare in Britain.

According to recordings released in 2013, Choudary preached that jihadists should work as little as possible, and “take money from the kuffar [non-believers]” so they can be “be busy with jihad and things like that.”

A nephew of Fazeli says the deceased terrorist’s wife and children, as well as Fazeli’s extended family, were unaware of his radicalization. The family was taken off of welfare rolls after Fazeli left the country.

In Europe also:

Terrorist Suspects in Europe Got Welfare Benefits While Plotting Attacks

SofRep: Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks.

At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate.

The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all, according to people familiar with the case. At the time, he was manager and part-owner of a bar, which Belgian officials say should have made him ineligible.

Many of the participants in a disrupted Belgian terror plot also had been on the dole, according to the judge who sentenced more than a dozen people in the so-called Verviers cell last month. Police thwarted the plot early last year, finding explosives, weapons and police uniforms after a shootout that killed two people.

The revelations raise a difficult conundrum for Europe.

Read More- The Wall Street Journal

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Anjem Choudary sentenced to prison

‘Claim jobseeker’s allowance and plan holy war’: Hate preacher pocketing £25,000 a year in benefits calls on fanatics to live off the state

  • Anjem Choudary called benefits ‘Jihadseeker’s allowance’
  • The extremist told followers they must hate democracy and freedom
  • Also listed bizarre sharia laws, including ‘not riding cats and sheep’
  • Later said he had been ‘joking’ and his words were misconstrued
  • He called Osama bin Laden his ‘hero’    Full story here from DailyMail

 

 

 

Abu Zabaydah Wants out of Gitmo

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And for the first time, he is getting a hearing. So who is he? 61 remain now and 20 are approved for transfer…where is undetermined.

 Photo: Newsweek

Primer:

“Bodies Will Pile Up in Sacks”

On November 30, 1999, Jordanian intelligence intercepted a telephone call

between Abu Zubaydah, a longtime ally of Bin Ladin, and Khadr Abu Hoshar,

a Palestinian extremist.Abu Zubaydah said, “The time for training is over.”

One of the 16, Raed Hijazi, had been born in California to Palestinian parents; after spending his childhood in the Middle East, he had returned to northern California, taken refuge in extremist Islamist beliefs, and then made his way to Abu Zubaydah’s Khaldan camp in Afghanistan,where he learned the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare. He and his younger brother had been recruited by Abu Hoshar into a loosely knit plot to attack Jewish and American targets in Jordan. More here.

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LWJ: The US government has released an unclassified profile of the jihadist known as Abu Zubaydah, who is held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Abu Zubaydah’s case is currently being evaluated by the Periodic Review Board (PRB), which was established in 2011 “to review whether continued detention of particular individuals held at Guantanamo remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

Abu Zubaydah has been at the center of controversy for years. He was one of the first detainees subjected to the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, in 2002.

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Some argue that he was not really a senior al Qaeda operative at the time of his capture and that his importance was exaggerated by the US intelligence community during the Bush administration. One version of Abu Zubaydah’s story, citing excerpts from his diary and other fragmentary evidence, holds that he never swore bayat (oath of allegiance) to Osama bin Laden and was merely an independent jihadist facilitator.

The US government’s unclassified summary tells a different story, citing several key pieces of evidence that tie Abu Zubaydah to al Qaeda’s senior leaders and the terror group’s global operations. Abu Zubaydah allegedly “played a key role in al Qaeda’s communications,” “closely interacted” with Osama bin Laden’s “second-in-command,” enlisted al Qaeda operatives in planned attacks against Israel, worked with 9/11 planner Khalid Shaykh Mohammed in 2002, and may have had foreknowledge of al Qaeda’s three most successful attacks between August 1998 and September 2001. The PRB summary also notes that he has been convicted in absentia in Jordan for his well-known role in the so-called millennium terror plots.

Abu Zubaydah “possibly had some advanced knowledge of the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the USS Cole bombing in 2000,” according to the government’s PRB summary. He was also “generally aware of the impending 9/11 attacks and possibly coordinated the training at Khaldan camp of two of the hijackers.”

The 1998 US Embassy Bombings and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 were al Qaeda’s two most effective operations prior to 9/11. It is doubtful that a truly independent actor could have had “some knowledge” of these plots, as well as be “generally aware” of the 9/11 attacks beforehand, given al Qaeda’s penchant for secrecy and compartmentalized planning.

In addition, the two future 9/11 hijackers were not the only al Qaeda operatives thought to have trained at Khaldan camp, which Abu Zubaydah helped oversee.

According to declassified and leaked files prepared by Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), as well as other reports, numerous al Qaeda operatives trained at Khaldan. Trainees at Khaldan included: Ramzi Yousef (the nephew of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed and also the chief bomb maker for the 1993 World Trade Center attack, as well as the point man for a plot to bring down airliners in 1995), Mohamed al-‘Owhali (convicted for his role in the 1998 US Embassy Bombings), Zacarias Moussaoui (who was slated to take part in the 9/11 hijackings, or a follow-on al Qaeda plot, prior to his arrest in Aug. 2001), and Richard Reid (al Qaeda’s would-be shoe bomber in December 2001), among others. Abu Zubaydah would later argue before a tribunal at Guantanamo that he taught “defensive jihad,” as opposed to “offensive jihad,” and was not hostile to the US and its partners. The dossiers of Khaldan’s graduates, as well as many other facts, undermine this argument.

According to the summary presented to the PRB, Abu Zubaydah “played a key role in al Qaeda’s communications with supporters and operatives abroad and closely interacted with al Qaeda’s second-in-command at the time, Abu Hafs al Masri.”

The 9/11 Commission described Abu Hafs al Masri, who was killed in an American airstrike in late 2001, as bin Laden’s “chief of operations” prior to 9/11. Bin Laden and Abu Hafs “occupied undisputed leadership positions atop al Qaeda’s organizational structure.” The 9/11 Commission continued: “Within this structure, al Qaeda’s worldwide terrorist operations relied heavily on the ideas and work of enterprising and strong-willed field commanders who enjoyed considerable autonomy.” Therefore, a senior jihadist could be part of al Qaeda’s organization and still maintain “considerable autonomy” – a detail worth remembering when evaluating Abu Zubaydah’s dossier.

The 9/11 Commission cited the career of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM), the chief organizer of the 9/11 hijackings, as an example of how al Qaeda’s hierarchy worked. Although KSM didn’t swear bayat to bin Laden (or so KSM claimed after being captured), he still planned the 9/11 attacks under the watchful eye al Qaeda’s most senior officials. Unlike Abu Zubaydah, no one seriously disputes KSM’s al Qaeda role. According to multiple reports, Abu Zubaydah divulged during his first days in US custody that one of KSM’s aliases was “Mukhtar.” Zubaydah also told FBI officials that KSM played a key role in the 9/11 hijackings. Again, we are left to wonder how someone supposedly outside of al Qaeda’s orbit could have known such important details concerning the secretive group’s inner workings.

In fact, according to the PRB summary and other files, Abu Zubaydah worked directly with KSM.

“Following 9/11,” the PRB summary reads, “[Abu Zubaydah] took a more active role in attack preparations, sending operatives to al Qaeda senior member Khalid Shaykh Muhammad…to discuss the feasibility of exploding a radiological device in the United States, and supporting remote-controlled bomb attacks against US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan.”

The first part of the sentence refers to Abu Zubaydah’s involvement with Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohamed. They conceived a far-fetched plan to use a dirty bomb inside the US. KSM allegedly thought that their idea was foolish and so he directed one or both of them to consider setting fire to high rise buildings using natural gas instead. Zubaydah reportedly revealed details about Padilla and Mohamed while in US custody. Padilla was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 and eventually convicted on terrorism charges. Mohamed was detained in Pakistan and then held elsewhere before being sent to Guantanamo. Mohamed was transferred to the UK in 2009.

It is telling that Abu Zubaydah was able to seamlessly pass Padilla and Mohamed on to KSM, who was attempting to strike the US again just months after the 9/11 hijackings.

The second part of the sentence above from the PRB’s summary (“supporting remote-controlled bomb attacks” in Afghanistan) is a reference to Abu Zubaydah’s “Martyrs Brigade.” According to leaked JTF-GTMO files, the “Martyrs Brigade” was jointly created by Abu Zubaydah and Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, a top al Qaeda military commander who answered directly to Osama bin Laden. Known al Qaeda members joined the team, which was planning to travel back to Afghanistan to fight US and Coalition forces.

The PRB file notes that Abu Zubaydah “most actively plotted attacks against Israel, enlisting operatives from various militant groups, including al Qaeda, to conduct operations in Israel and against Israeli interests abroad.”

A brief biography released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2006 contained additional allegations regarding his anti-Israeli plotting. According to that biography, Abu Zubaydah had “enlisted” the help of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who would go on to establish al Qaeda in Iraq, to find “a smuggling route into Israel for moving persons and materials.” Abu Zubaydah had previously helped Zarqawi and dozens of others escape from Afghanistan into Iran in late 2001. Abu Zubaydah raised $50,000 from Saudi donors for his planned attacks in Israel. The money was passed to senior al Qaeda leadership, according to the ODNI’s biography, and may have even been repurposed for the 9/11 plot.

The millennium plots

Abu Zubaydah’s role in various planned terrorist attacks in late 1999 and early 2000 is well known. Khaldan’s graduates were directly responsible for some of the plots.

Abu Zubaydah “was convicted in absentia by the Jordanian Government for his role in planning attacks against Israeli, Jordanian, and Western targets during the Millennium time frame in Jordan,” the newly released PRB file reads.

The 9/11 Commission discussed the millennium plots in Jordan at length in its final report. Jordanian authorities unraveled the plans beginning on Nov. 30, 1999, when they intercepted a telephone call from Abu Zubaydah to an operative known as Abu Hoshar.

“The time for training is over,” Abu Zubaydah said.

The Jordanians suspected, according to the 9/11 Commission, “that this was a signal for Abu Hoshar to commence a terrorist operation.” Jordanian police then arrested 16 jihadists, including Abu Hoshar and his comrade Raed Hijazi. [See LWJ report, Jordan rearrests millennium bombings plotter.]

By late 1998, Abu Hoshar and Hijazi had begun planning to attack multiple sites frequented by Western tourists. “Hijazi and Abu Hoshar cased the intended targets and sent reports to Abu Zubaydah, who approved their plan,” according to the 9/11 Commission. Hijazi stockpiled the ingredients necessary to make the bombs their plan required.

Hijazi and Abu Hoshar contacted another alleged al Qaeda operative, Khalid Deek, in early 1999. They acquired a copy of the Encyclopedia of Jihad, a terrorist manual authored by Deek. The 9/11 Commission reported what happened next. In June 1999, “with help from Deek, Abu Hoshar arranged with Abu Zubaydah for Hijazi and three others to go to Afghanistan for added training in explosives.”

Then, in late November 1999, “Hijazi reportedly swore before Abu Zubaydah the bayat [oath of allegiance] to Bin Laden, committing himself to do anything Bin Laden ordered.”

How could Abu Zubaydah accept Hijazi’s blood oath to Osama bin Laden if he wasn’t really part of al Qaeda? This is one of many details that doesn’t make sense if Abu Zubaydah remained apart from al Qaeda.

Another one of the plots extended all the way into the US.

Ahmed Ressam, who was trained at the Khaldan camp, traveled from Canada to the US in late 1999 with the intent to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Ressam was arrested on Dec. 14, 1999 after customs officials discovered that his vehicle contained hidden explosives.

Ressam would later explain Abu Zubaydah’s role to the FBI. Ressam’s testimony was included in the Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) delivered to President George W. Bush.

“The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US,” the PDB read. “Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack the Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation.” Ressam added that Bin Laden “was aware of the Los Angeles operation” and Abu Zubaydah “was planning his own US attack” as early as 1998.

An extensive dossier

The unclassified PRB file deals with just some of the known or suspected details of Abu Zubaydah’s career. There is much additional evidence tying him to al Qaeda’s global enterprise. At a minimum, however, the file indicates that the officials representing the US government in the PRB process continue to view Abu Zubaydah as well-placed figure in al Qaeda’s network. This is true whether Abu Zubaydah swore his allegiance to Osama bin Laden or not, as the intelligence shows that he consistently worked with al Qaeda’s most senior operatives.

Note: The spelling of al Qaeda has been made consistent throughout this article and therefore differs from how it is spelled in some of the US government’s files.

Ben Rhodes, WH NSC Advisor an Employee of Iran Lobby?

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Primer:

A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship fired three warning shots at an Iranian ship that sailed within 200 yards in the Northern Persian Gulf Wednesday after one of four close calls this week involving U.S. and Iranian vessels, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.

The USS Squall fired the shots, according to the official.

On Tuesday, four Iranian small boats “harassed” the USS Nitze, sailing near the guided missile destroyer in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. Navy official told Fox News.

and….

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned government officials not to trust the U.S. after alleged shortcomings in the nuclear deal’s implementation.

Khamenei criticized America’s “misconduct” in implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) during a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet on August 24. Khamenei warned, “This experience teaches us that one cannot trust the promises of any administration in America.” As in his past criticisms of the nuclear deal, Khamenei fell short of calling for Iran to abandon the accord, however. More here.

Benjamin “Ben” Rhodes is President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting. From the beginning of his career, Rhodes has made a mark in policy, international relations, and writing. He worked as an assistant to Lee Hamilton at the Wilson Center, and then went on to the Iraq Study Group Report and the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. He then went on to become President Obama’s foreign policy advisor during the 2008 Presidential Elections. He has worked with President Obama’s negotiating team for the JCPOA agreement and his outreach to the Iranian people, such as the President’s Nowruz Message in 2012.

Rhodes is a speaker at this conference.

NIAC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

NIAC’s annual three-day Leadership Conference is the event of the year for supporters of peace and renewed friendship between the peoples of Iran and the United States. Participants will cultivate new leadership and advocacy skills, learn from some of America’s most influential thought leaders, interact with elected officials, and network with prominent Iranian American entrepreneurs and grassroots leaders.

Sponsors

NIAC’s Sixth Annual Leadership Conference is brought to you by:

The Empire State Building a New Taliban Home?

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Remember when Obama released the top 5 Taliban commanders from Gitmo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl? Qatar became their new home where they were allowed to move freely.

Sure the headline is a stretch…or is it?

As recently as last year, Qatar was hosting peace talks with the Taliban while today, the Taliban holds more territory in Afghanistan than any other time in history. As a reminder, it was and is the Taliban that protects al Qaeda factions going back to the attacks on America on 9/11.

 

One more fact: How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists

The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists

So, American icons such as the Empire State Building is in the ownership of a terror state? Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are rolling in their graves with disgust.

 <– His son graduated from West Point and Obama was there the same weekend that the Gitmo prisoner swap happened with Bergdahl.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — VOA: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has made an iconic purchase in America — a stake in the company that owns New York’s Empire State Building.

The $622-million purchase by the Qatar Investment Authority comes as the Doha fund increases its investments in the U.S. as the small country on the Arabian Peninsula tries to cope with low global oil and gas prices.

The Empire State Realty Trust Inc., which manages the 102-story, 1,454-foot (443-meter) -tall building, announced the Qatari purchase late Tuesday, saying the fund would gain a 9.9-percent stake in the company. The trust owns a total of 14 office properties and six retail properties around the New York area.

The Qatar Investment Authority did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The pointed top of the Art Deco-style Empire State Building, once the tallest structure in the world, still stands out in New York’s famed skyline. It remains a major tourist attraction and has been the centerpiece of major American films from “King Kong” to “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Tiny Qatar, an OPEC member, is a strong regional ally for Washington and hosts American bombers and the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command at its vast al-Udeid air base. Aircraft and personnel there are involved in the ongoing U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and has been on a building boom, mirroring on a smaller scale the one that gripped the United Arab Emirates’ city-state of Dubai. However, its government coffers have been hard hit by the drop of global oil prices, which have fallen from over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to around $50 now.

The nation’s investment authority, estimated to be worth some $335 billion by the Las Vegas-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, has been increasingly eyeing opportunities in the U.S. Last September, it announced plans to open an office in New York and committed to investing $35 billion in the U.S. over the next five years.

Related reading: Qatar Investment Authority allocates $2bn to Russian fund

The fund’s existing American holdings include a more than 10-percent stake in New York-based luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. It sold its share of the American film studio Miramax to Qatar-based media group beIN in March for an undisclosed sum.

Government-backed Qatar Airways, meanwhile, has been rapidly expanding its operations in the U.S., provoking a backlash from American carriers.

Also among the Qatari fund’s interests in America is a 44-percent stake in the $8.6 billion redevelopment project in New York known as Manhattan West, which includes remodeling the building that’s now home to the global headquarters of The Associated Press. The AP announced in August 2015 it planned to move from that building to another near the World Trade Center.

The Clinton’s History with Iran and Cuba and Latin America

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Posted earlier on this site, Iran’s Cuba and Latin American Tours and Trouble Ahead forced a deeper examination of the Iran, Cuba and Latin America relationship. As Iran is now at least $1.7 billion dollars richer, larger questions develop on Iran’s global expansion. Being in our hemisphere and right in the backyard of America some chilling conditions emerge.

Reported in 2010, Cuba has expressed support for Iran’s nuclear program and has defended Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology in the face of UN sanctions. Cuban President Raul Castro also serves as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, which released a statement in July 2008 declaring that its member states “welcomed the continuing cooperation being extended by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the IAEA” and “reaffirmed that states’ choices and decisions, including those of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected.”[1]

In late November 2009, the IAEA passed a rebuke of Iran for building a second enrichment plan in secret.[2] Cuba, along with Venezuela and Malaysia, opposed the resolution.[3] The resolution by the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors calls on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and immediately freeze the construction of its Fordo nuclear facility, located near Qom.[4]  Cuba and Iran cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally through the Non-Aligned Movement. In a June 2008 memorandum of understanding, Iranian President Ahmadinejad explained that the two countries expressed their continued support for “each other on the international scene.” [17]  In September 2008, Iran began funding medical students from the Solomon Islands to study in Cuba, including airfare and computers for medical students unable to finance their own way to Havana to study.[18]  More here.

Related reading: It’s time to start worrying about what Russia’s been up to in Latin America

There is a long and nefarious history between the United States and Cuba but we don’t have to go back much further than the Clinton administration. Seems with enough money to the Clinton’s or to the Democrat National Committee, lots of things can be overlooked.

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THREAT TO THE HOMELAND

Iran’s Extending Influence in the Western Hemisphere

Iran not only continues to expand its presence in and bilateral relationships with countries like Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but it also maintains a network of intelligence agents specifically tasked with sponsoring and executing terrorist attacks in the western hemisphere. True, the unclassified annex to a recent State Department report on Iranian activity in the western hemisphere downplayed Iran’s activities in the region; this material, however, appeared in an introductory section of the annex that listed the author’s self-described “assumptions.” While one assumption noted that “Iranian interest in Latin America is of concern,” another stated that as a result of U.S. and allied efforts “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” More here from the Washington Institute.

Back in 1996, seems the Clintons were doing then what they are doing today, hanging with criminals that donate.

WASHINGTON DESK – The Justice Department released on Wednesday photographs showing a convicted Miami cocaine trafficer who is seen standing next to and posing with vice president Al Gore. The two were attending a party in Florida last December.

Apparently, Cabrera was asked to make a large donation to the Clinton-Gore campaign in exchange for perks like hob-nobbing with Al Gore and the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jorge Cabrera’s cash contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign were so generous, that Cabrera was also invited to the White House and gained entrance there without any FBI & Secret Service security clearance.

CNN reported Wednesday that Cabrera’s attorney, Stephen Bronis, said $20,000(given to the Clinton-Gore campaign) was not intended to buy protection for drug smuggling.

‘He had a lobster and stone crab fishery in the Keys and felt that contribution might promote that future course,’ Bronis said.

The Clinton-Gore campaign only returned the $20,000 last week after the full story had reached ABC News, and the Clinton administration had been asked for comment by the media.

Cabrera was arrested in January during a Miami drug bust of nearly three tons of cocaine. Cabrera was arrested and pleaded guilty to one drug count. He was also imprisoned in the 1980s on narcotics charges.

A report that the picture of Cabrera and Gore had been impounded by the Justice Department prompted an angry reaction from Republicans, including Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Republicans sent letters to Attorney General Janet Reno and the directors of the FBI and the Secret Service seeking information about Cabrera and the campaign contribution.

Livingston asked the federal agencies for a complete accounting of the facts relating to the story within three days: whether Cabrera had dined at the White House, details of his relationship with Clinton and Gore and, if he did dine with them, how he passed FBI & Secret Service scrutiny to gain access to them.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Miami was contacted by reporters. Justice said it would not provide photographs of Cabrera and Gore in Florida and at the White House when reporters requested them on Monday. The Justice Department attempted to claim that Cabrera’s story is coverd by the Privacy Act law in turning down the media request for information on the arrest for cocaine possession of tons of the illegat drug and dealing.

Jant Reno put out information that the photo of Cabrera with Gore and Clinton could not be released without the consent of Cabrera. Later, the Justice Department did release the photographs after Cabrera submitted written authorization.

The delay by the Justice Department appeared to be an effort to distance itself from accusations that are mounting from the American public that the Justice Department is receiving guidance from the Clinton White House and the vice president’s office on the timing of Janet Reno’s investigation.

Justice says it is looking into the breach of National Security by Cabrera’s ready access to secured areas of the White House and its grounds when he entered as an invited quest of president Clinton for dinner and photo-ops.

Then much more recently, like February of 2016, Hillary was busy nurturing the pro-Iran lobby including a fund-raiser.

Clinton will participate in a Menlo Park fundraiser on Sunday hosted by Twitter executive Omid Kordestani and his wife Gisel Hiscock, as well as National Iranian American Council (NIAC) board member Lily Sarafan and Noosheen Hashemi, who serves on the board of the pro-Iran advocacy group Ploughshares, a major funder of pro-Iran efforts.

NIAC, an advocacy group formed by Iranian-Americans to work against the pro-Israel community, has long been accused of lobbying on Iran’s behalf against sanctions and other measures that could harm the Islamic Republic’s interest.

Ploughshares, which partners with NIAC, is joining the White House in efforts to pressure the Jewish community and others to back the recently implemented Iran nuclear agreement, the Free Beacon reported.

The organization has also spent millions to influence coverage of Iran and protect the Obama administration’s diplomatic relations with Iran.

NIAC has emerged a key pro-Iran player in the United States, working with the White House and liberal groups to spin the deal as a positive for U.S. national security.

The group is currently leading the charge to block recent counter-terrorism legislation that would require individuals who have travelled to Iran to obtain a visa before entering the United States. More from FreeBeacon.

Alright so we have established historical relationships with Cuba and Iran and the Clintons. Is there more that we should know? Yes.

  1. Cuban spies in America
  2. The DEA did it’s job but Bill Clinton remained loyal to the Castro brothers
  3. Hillary’s personal global spy, Sidney Blumenthal collaborated on Hezbollah’s new office in Cuba.
  4. In 2011, Hillary’s State Department sent their old friend Bill Richardson to Cuba to bring back an American, Alan Gross, who was an embedded spy working for USAID.
  5. In 2009, Obama and Hillary began the normalization process with Cuba.
  6. Bill Clinton’s old buddy Strobe Talbott collaborated on Cuba with Hillary’s State Department.
  7. Hillary announced that Iran would be invited to an upcoming  multinational conference on Afghanistan
  8. Documents reveal Bill Clinton’s secret contact with Iran
  9. Sid Blumenthal, Jake Sullivan and Hillary on Iran and Israel