Anyone Paying Attention to Syria?

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

Turkey a route for arms going to al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria: UN report

ISIL militants (Rear) stand next to an ISIL flag atop a hill near Kobane as seen from the Turkish-Syrian border, with Turkish troops in foreground, in the southeastern town of Suruç, Şanlıurfa province. AFP Photo / Aris Messinis

Turkey is being used as one of the primary routes for weapons smuggling to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Nusra, according to a United Nations report.

“Most [arms] supplies have either been seized from the armed forces of Iraq or (to a lesser extent) the Syrian Arab Republic, or have been smuggled to ISIL and [al-Nusra], primarily by routes that run through Turkey,” said a report penned by the U.N. al-Qaida Sanctions Committee.

Turkey has been pressured by Western countries to beef up its measures at borders, which have been claimed to be a primary route for jihadists’ oil and weapons smuggling as well as foreign jihadists’ joining the war in Syria.

Turkey, for its part, denies the accusations of negligence in its border policies and insists that it is maintaining a close and firm watch on its borders.

It does not end there:

Syria turns to harsh recruitment measures to boost army ranks

BEIRUT — The Syrian regime has intensified efforts to reverse substantial manpower losses to its military with large-scale mobilizations of reservists as well as sweeping arrest campaigns and new regulations to stop desertions and draft-dodging.

The measures have been imposed in recent months because of soaring casualties among forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as apparent increases in desertions and evasions of compulsory military service, analysts say. Some speculate that the moves also could be part of stepped-up military efforts to win more ground from rebels in anticipation of possible peace talks, which Russia has attempted to restart to end nearly four years of conflict.

But the government’s measures have added to already simmering anger among its support base over battlefield deaths. The anger may be triggering a backlash that in turn could undermine Assad’s war aims, Syrians and analysts say.

“These things have obviously angered core constituents, and they show just how desperate the regime is to come up with warm bodies to fill the ranks of the Syrian Arab Army,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow and Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In October, the government boosted activations of reserve forces. Tens of thousands of reservists have been called up, and soldiers and militiamen have erected scores of checkpoints and increased raids on cafes and homes to apprehend those who refuse to comply. Similar measures target those who avoid regular military service, a compulsory 18-month period for men 18 and older.

In recent weeks, the regime also began stepping up threats to dismiss and fine state employees who fail to fulfill military obligations, according to Syrian news websites and activists. New restrictions imposed this fall, they say, have made it all but impossible for men in their 20s to leave the country.

Since the start of the uprising in 2011, authorities have used arrests and intimidation to halt desertions, defections and evasion of military service – but not to the extent seen recently, Syrians and analysts say. Men who are dragooned into the army appear to be deserting in larger numbers, they say, and the government’s crackdown is driving many of these men as well as more of the many draft-evaders into hiding or abroad.

“I can’t go back. All these things would make it certain that I’d be forced into the military,” said Mustafa, 25, a Syrian from Damascus who fled to Lebanon in September because of the new measures. Citing safety concerns, he asked that only his first name be used.

Joseph, a 34-year-old Christian from Damascus, learned two weeks ago that his name was on a list of thousands of people who would soon be activated for reserve duty. Having completed his compulsory military service in 2009, he wants to flee Syria.

“Of course I don’t want to return to the military,” Joseph said by telephone from the capital. He also requested that only his first name be used.

A report issued this month by the Institute for the Study of War says the number of soldiers in the Syrian military has fallen by more than half since the start of the conflict, from roughly 325,000 to 150,000, because of casualties, defections and desertions. Combat fatalities alone have surpassed 44,000, according to the report, which used data from Syrian activists, monitoring groups and media reports.

Christopher Kozak, a Syria analyst at the institute who wrote the report, said in an email that reservist mobilizations and efforts to stop desertions appear to be partly related to the departure in recent months of pro-regime militiamen. Scores of these largely Shiite fighters, who come from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, left for Iraq in the summer to counter an offensive by the Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group.

Iranian fighters in particular have been crucial in helping the Syrian government restructure its forces. One such effort was the founding of the National Defense Force, a militia composed of paid volunteers. The foreign fighters helped Assad’s military win back strategic territory from rebels.

Kozak wrote that these supplemental militias “are no longer sufficient to meet the regime’s projected needs – spurring the regime to reinvigorate its conscription efforts” in the military.

Imad Salamey, a politics professor at the Lebanese American University, said that efforts to boost numbers in the military are partly driven by concern that Assad’s allies, Iran and Russia, appear increasingly interested in a negotiated settlement to the Syrian civil war. In recent weeks, Russia, with Iranian backing, has engaged in diplomatic efforts to restart the Geneva peace talks that collapsed in February.

“There is rising urgency in these countries for a settlement to the conflict and the regime senses this, so it’s trying to win as much ground as possible to strengthen its negotiating position,” he said.

Yezid Sayigh, a Syria expert and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said economic crises in Iran and Russia because of falling oil prices could affect their support for the Assad government, which until now has prevented its collapse. “The question for me really is whether Iran and Russia are going to push the regime harder to engage in diplomatic efforts,” he said.

He added that a worsening problem for the government is anger among its supporters over mounting casualties. Rare protests over the issue have been held by the minority Alawite population, the backbone of the military.

Other minority groups, such as Syria’s Druze community, also show signs of dissent. In their villages in southern Syria, most Druze families have refused to allow their sons to join the military. In an incident this month, Druze villagers kidnapped government intelligence officers in an attempt to free a man apprehended for refusing to serve in the military.

“The people are turning on the regime here because they don’t want their children to die in this war. They don’t see the point of this war,” said Qusay, 22, a resident of the mostly Druze city of Suwayda and an engineering student at Damascus University who asked that only his first name be used.

“If the regime tries to push us to serve, there will be a fight.”

Nazi Underground is Seeing Daylight

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

The Nazi’s had a well defined underground system in several countries for a complete infrastructure including foreign workers.

In 1944 the SS picked 300 workers from other camps, including Buchenwald 75 miles away, to hack out vast underground chambers. Out of reach of allied bombers, production equipment was lowered into the mine. Deep underground, the Polish, French and Russian workers – some Jewish – assembled parts for Germany’s war industry.

“We worked in three shifts, 6am-2pm, 2-10pm and 10pm-6am,” Geoffroy de Clercq, a French resistance fighter who arrived in Wansleben in March 1944, and survived the war, told the Guardian. “We slept above ground in bunks. Underground we didn’t suffer from the cold. The temperature was constant – about 24C (75F). Read more here.

But just a few weeks ago, yet another underground location was found and quite by accident in Austria.

Filmmaker says he uncovered Nazis’ ‘biggest secret weapons facility’ underground near concentration camp

An Austrian filmmaker believes he has discovered a huge Nazi “secret weapons facility” in an underground complex near the remains of the Mathausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria, where thousands of Jews were killed.

“This was a giant industrial complex and most likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich,” documentary filmmaker Andreas Sulzer told the Sunday Times. The underground complex is connected to the B8 Bergkristall underground factory, where Germans produced the first jet fighters, the Messerschmitt Me 262.

Though the full scope of what occurred inside those reported chambers in the Austrian town of St. Georgen remains unclear and Sulzer’s conclusions are speculative, some analysts are already trumpeting the findings. The “filmmaker opened an important door that one has to go through,” Samuel Laster, editor of a Vienna newspaper, told the Jeursalem Post.

It was that facility where Nazi leadership possibly “aspired to create a combination of missiles and weapons of mass destruction,” historian Rainer Karlsch, who has long researched Hitler’s pursuit of an atomic bomb and worked with Sulzer on the project, told the Sunday Times. “They wanted to equip [a V-2] missile, or more advanced rockets, with poison gas, radioactive material or nuclear warheads.”

The reported findings, if corroborated by further inquiry, could add fresh fodder to an ongoing debate over the Third Reich’s ultimately failed attempt to secure an atomic weapon. The project, begun in the late 1930s, was called the “Uranium Society” or the “Uranium Club” by German scientists. It was inspired by a report by a pair of German chemists named Fritz Strassmann and Otto Hahn who detailed the mechanisms of nuclear fission.

Sulzer’s quest to discover what he called the Third Reich’s “biggest secret weapons facility” began years ago with the discovery of an off-hand remark buried in a letter written by a German scientist named Viktor Schauberger. Schauberger, Sulzer told the Sunday Times, “was involved, under the strictest secrecy, in research projects for the SS in St. Georgen. … In his letters he talks about splitting the atom,” Sulzer said. He added in an interview with the Sunday Times: “He warned colleagues in letters that he was involved in ‘atom-smashing.”

Sulzer then uncovered additional evidence suggesting the Nazis had perhaps conducted highly secretive weapon experiments in the same location, maybe even atomic experiments. In February of this year, after tests revealed unusually high radiation levels, drilling started near a vast network of tunnels constructed by concentration camp prisoners. The search for secret laboratories sought to answer a question that consumed the community: Did Hitler try to build an atomic bomb there?

“We just want to know whether a potential hazard exists,” the mayor of Perg in northern Austria told the Sunday Times. “We want hard facts.”

Then last week, the news broke in the German press. After heavy equipment cut through large granite plates Nazi troops used to seal an entrance shaft at the site, the team, using radar, found catacombs that coursed through an underground facility of roughly 75 acres.

It was already known that, as World War II raged, thousands of prisoners in the camp were used to construct massive underground facilities in St. Georgen that would be safe from the Allied bombing campaigns. In those facilities, workers produced rockets and fighter jets.

But perhaps other production was also quietly occurring. The head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who had lots of biological weapon schemes, was a regular visitor to the St. Georgen. It was also frequented, according to the filmmaker, by the man who directed Hitler’s missile programs, Hans Kammler. What’s more, Sulzerunearthed blueprints that he said showed additional, undiscovered chambers underground.

Then the biggest clue emerged. He found testimony by a top American operative who kept tabs on Nazi scientists who said there was a major complex hidden underground near St. Georgen. “We found these very, very interesting documents that point out that there was a very secret project going on in St. Georgen,” Sulzer told Russia Today earlier this year. “It could also be associated with atomic research.”

But there was a problem: Austrian authorities had pumped the tunnels full of concrete at a cost of millions of euros. And now, just as Sulzer’s team, which is funded by German state television network ZDF, may be close to discovering what happened there, local Austrian authorities stopped further excavation, requesting additional permits. Sulzer, however, told the Sunday Times he thinks they’ll start up work again in the coming weeks.

“Prisoners from concentration camps across Europe were handpicked for their special skills — physicists, chemists or other experts — to work on this monstrous project,” the filmmaker said. “And we owe it to the victims to finally open the site and reveal the truth.”

The State of Palestine, Yes, No Maybe

Posted on December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

Update: As of 5:00 PM, EST

UN REJECTS PALESTINIAN RESOLUTION TO DEMAND ISRAEL WITHDRAW FROM WEST BANK, EAST JERUSALEM

A revised text in the resolution for Palestinian statehood has been presented to the United Nations. There are some interesting demands such that some global leaders are not in support including the United States and Britain. Sadly through all the years of debate over statehood, very few look at history and borders. The debate is a false one when it is understood where “Palestine” was/is.

The draft resolution by the Palestinians calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem within three years and revised to include language declaring East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state was presented to the UN Security Council late Monday.
The draft resolution affirms the urgent need to achieve “a just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution” to the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict within 12 months and sets a December 31, 2017 deadline for Israel’s occupation to end.

State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki, when asked today if the United States would support a proposed United Nations resolution that would set terms of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, said that “it is not something that we would support.”

The Times of Israel reports:

Washington has seen the text of a draft resolution circulating in the UN Security Council and “it is not something that we would support,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

“We wouldn’t support any action that would prejudge the outcome of the negotiations and that would set a specific deadline for the withdrawal of forces,” Psaki said.

Psaki’s answer indicates that the United States would veto the resolution if it came before the Security Council.

Psaki’s comments came shortly after Senators Chuck Schumer (D – N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R – S.C.) called on the administration “to make clear that the United States will veto any United Nations resolution … to bypass direct negotiations and impose peace terms on Israel through the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies,” earlier today.

(Reuters) – Britain joined the United States on Tuesday, declaring that it cannot support a new Palestinian draft proposal calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017.

Jordan on Tuesday circulated to the U.N. Security Council a draft resolution prepared by the Palestinians, who said they want it put to a vote before Thursday. Washington said it could not support the draft because it was not constructive and failed to address Israel’s security needs.

British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant was asked by reporters whether his delegation could support the Palestinian draft.

“Well no,” he said. “There’s some difficulties with the text, particularly language on time scales, new language on refugees. So I think we would have some difficulties.”

Investigating U.S. Based Islamic Charities

Posted on December 29, 2014December 29, 2014 by Denise Simon

The most famous case was the Holyland Foundation Trial where millions of dollars from the United States found the pockets of global terrorists. Not much came of this in total due in part to Eric Holder. It is imperative that readers trace money and people domestically as it still goes on. Here is a link to use as a launch pad for continues whistleblowing.

Meanwhile, it appears that the UK is beginning to do some good work in investigating charities and it is likely the same thing occurs in America. These people and charities in America have tax exempt status from the IRS.

Charity Commission: British charities investigated for terror risks

William Shawcross, the chair of the Charity Commission, warns that money donated by the British public may already have been sent to Islamic State fighters, as the watchdog opens cases on 86 aid groups at risk from extremists

By Tim Ross, Robert Mendick, and Andrew Gilligan

The government’s charity watchdog has launched a series of formal investigations into British aid organisations, amid concerns that they are at risk of being hijacked by terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

The head of the Charity Commission told The Telegraph he fears that groups distributing money and supplies donated by the public in Britain could be exploited by Islamists to smuggle cash, equipment and fighters to terrorists on the front line.

The regulator has begun scrutinising 86 British charities which it believes could be at risk from extremism, including 37 working to help victims of the Syria crisis, according to new figures released today.

It has launched full-scale investigations into four charities operating in the region, including the group that employed the murdered hostage Alan Henning when he was kidnapped, and another organisation allegedly infiltrated by a suicide bomber.

The number of terrorism-related cases that the regulator is examining has almost doubled since February, amid growing concerns that charities working in the region are potential targets for the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil, also known as Islamic State, and Isis).

William Shawcross, the chair of the Commission, said there was “a risk” that money donated by the British public had already been sent to Isil fighters, who have beheaded two British hostages, among many other victims, and are holding a third.

“It is absolutely terrifying to see these young British men going out to be trained in Syria and coming back here,” Mr Shawcross said.

“Most of them are not going out under the auspices of charities but, when that happens, it is absolutely our duty to come down on it.

“Even if extremist and terrorist abuse is rare, which it is, when it happens it does huge damage to public trust in charities. That’s why I take it very seriously.”

The warning comes at a critical time for global efforts to stem the flow of money to terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

The Telegraph’s Stop the Funding of Terror campaign, which has won wide support in Parliament, the military and overseas, is calling for action to cut off terrorist finance.

The Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales, has worked with the government of Qatar as well as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, among others, to strengthen their systems for regulating charitable groups.

However, despite these efforts, funded by British taxpayers, America warned earlier this month that Qatar and Kuwait remain “permissive” regimes in which terrorist financiers are able to operate.

Analysts fear that millions of dollars in so-called charitable donations raised inside Qatar and Kuwait have been used to buy weapons and supplies for jihadists in Iraq and Syria. In other developments this weekend:

:: The brother of David Haines, the British hostage executed by his captors, has made an impassioned plea to Gulf States to strangle the funding to terror groups operating in Syria and Iraq. Michael Haines told The Telegraph: “We have to attack their finances. We need to fight them on every front that we can find. We have to destroy them.”

:: It has emerged that the cousin of Qatar’s foreign minister has been convicted of funding international terrorism. Abdulaziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah was found guilty in absentia by a Lebanese court for channelling financial support to al-Qaeda.

:: Lord Lamont, the former chancellor, praised the Telegraph in Parliament for “highlighting the movement of funds to terrorist groups in the Middle East” as he pressed ministers to raise the issue with Gulf rulers.

:: Foreign Office Minister Baroness Anelay promised that Britain was having “robust” talks with Qatar and other Gulf states as she called for “much greater progress” to stop terror financing. The minister revealed that Isil gets most of its money from selling oil, extortion, and hostage ransoms, as well as from foreign donations.

:: The government is facing new questions over the “extraordinary” inconsistencies in British action against terrorist financiers, after it emerged that terrorists whose assets have been frozen under Treasury sanctions may not be banned from travelling to the UK. Stephen Barclay, a Conservative MP, called on his own party leadership to “spell out” why Britain has a different sanctions regime against Qatari terror financiers from America, the UK’s closest intelligence ally.

Last Wednesday, David Cameron raised concerns that the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar had failed to act against rich Qatar-based fundraisers and “charities” that have sent millions of dollars to jihadists fighting in Iraq and Syria.

During a private, one-to-one discussion with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, the Prime Minister urged the Gulf ruler to accelerate efforts to tackle terrorist financiers operating within the country.

Sources said the issue was also raised during a formal lunch in Number 10, which was also attended by Mr Cameron’s chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, his national security adviser Sir Kim Darroch, and the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.

In Britain, the Charity Commission had already taken action against charities linked to extremists, with the most serious cases going to court as part of terrorism prosecutions.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Shawcross said the regulator was stepping up its assault on the abuse of charitable funds by terrorists, as well as other kinds of malpractice including fraud, mismanagement, and mistreatment of vulnerable adults and children.

An extra £8 million has been given to the watchdog, along with planned new powers, to enhance its ability to tackle abuse of charities by Islamists and others, he said.

However, he warned that it was “often very difficult” to ensure that aid and money sent to war zones to help the victims of violence does not end up in the wrong hands.

“Of course there is a risk [that funds raised here in Britain have been transported to Isil jihadists in Iraq and Syria].

“If we find any evidence of it happening through charities we will pursue it robustly in conjunction with the police and other law enforcement agencies.”

He said he was particularly concerned about the large number of small, new charities that have been set up to raise money to help victims of the Syrian crisis, while “aid convoys” delivering supplies to the region were especially vulnerable.

“I think there are 500 British charities that say they operate in Syria in one form or another and 200 of them have been registered since the conflict there began. Some of them are inexperienced and obviously more vulnerable to exploitation than bigger more established charities, the household names.”

Mr Shawcross said the regulator was concerned that “there may not be adequate controls as to where the goods and supplies were being delivered” from the aid convoys. He insisted that “most Muslim charities are run by good people”, many of whom are “more horrified than anybody else by abuse of charities by Islamists”.

Mr Shawcross insisted that “most Muslim charities are run by good people”, many of whom are “more horrified than anybody else by abuse of charities by Islamists”.

“Charities can be abused, people working along the Syrian border can be abused, for Islamist or extremist purposes, there is no question about that – sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly,” he said.

New figures from the Commission show there are 86 case files currently open in which officials are reviewing the operations of charities, at least in part because there are fears that they operate in countries – or for particular causes – which could be targeted by extremists or terrorists.

The regulator’s figures showed that 37 of these 86 charities under scrutiny were working in Syria, by raising money in Britain, sending humanitarian supplies, or participating directly in aid convoys to the worst hit areas.

This workload has increased significantly since February, when the Commission was working on 48 extremism-related cases, about 10 of which involved charities that focused on Syria.

Full “statutory inquiries“ – the Commission’s most serious kind of formal investigation – have begun into four British charities operating in Syria, including the Al-Fatiha Global organisation, which the beheaded hostage Alan Henning was working with when he was kidnapped.

The others are Children in Deen, Aid Convoy and Syria Aid. All four investigations are still “live”, while dozens of other charities are being monitored or scrutinised by the Commission because they are operating in Syria or raising funds for the region in Britain.

Mr Henning was driving an ambulance on behalf of Rochdale Aid 4 Syria, which raised money on behalf of Al-Fatiha Global. He was part of a convoy of 20 vehicles making the 4,000-mile journey to Idlib in north-west Syria when he was kidnapped on Boxing Day last year.

The Charity Commission launched its investigation after one of Al-Fatiha’s leaders was photographed with his arms around two hooded fighters carrying machine guns. A trustee of the charity has challenged the commission’s decision to launch the inquiry.

The investigation into Children in Deen began in April after it emerged that a participant in the Birmingham charity’s aid convoy last year, Abdul Waheed Majeed, had allegedly become Britain’s first suicide bomber in Syria.

Majeed, 41, killed dozens of civilians when he drove a truck full of explosives into the wall of Aleppo prison, enabling hundreds of prisoners to escape.

Last year, the Commission began formal inquiries into Aid Convoy, and Syria Aid, over concerns about the way their funds were being used once inside Syria.

The watchdog issued a formal warning against aid convoys to Syria and urged members of the public to donate to the larger aid agencies and major international charities to minimise the risk that their money will be stolen by extremists.

Masood Ajaib, a trustee of Children in Deen, condemned the actions of Majeed and completely dissociated himself and the charity from any links to violence. He said the commission’s investigation had already hit fundraising and made its operations more difficult.

“We had nothing to do with this and do not support violence,” he said. “All we want to do is help the women and children affected by the biggest humanitarian disaster we have seen for generations.”

Obama and Castro, Let My People Go

Posted on December 19, 2014December 19, 2014 by Denise Simon

There is much more to the matter of normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. At the core of the issue is Guantanamo. In order for Barack Obama to fulfill his first pledge to close Gitmo, several tracks have been in play. You can bet terminating the lease of Guantanamo is at hand.

The lease was a two part lease, here and here, signed in 1903 whereby the United States would monitor ship traffic in and out of the regional waters of the Panama Canal. It is a rather simple lease and can be terminated. The lawyers, the interagency types have examined reasons to void the lease given several subsequent activities that occurred at Gitmo most recently being a detention center for enemy combatants. Lawyers have summarized this is a breach of the spirit of the lease which was part of the Cuban-America Treaty.

Barack Obama has not dismissed a visit to Havanna nor has he dismissed inviting a Castro to America. What is worse, Obama hinted at placing a diplomatic post, an embassy in Havanna, when we should have one in Jerusalem. Moving forward, there is the matter of human rights violations in Cuba and they are many.

As a result of the stunning announcement by Barack Obama this week to normalize relations and to swap prisoners, another major issue is at hand, JoAnne Chesimard. There are hundreds of prisoners and political activists from America who sought refuge in Cuba yet JoAnne will set the standard.

As U.S.-Cuba tension thaws, the fate of a fugitive is in question

Assata Shakur, formerly JoAnne Chesimard and the step-aunt of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur, was convicted of killing a New Jersey State trooper on May 2, 1973. Now 67, Shakur escaped from a New Jersey prison in made-for-the-movies fashion in 1979 and found her way to Cuba, where she was eventually granted asylum under Fidel Castro in 1984.

News that the two countries have agreed to restore relations after 50 years have many U.S. officials hoping Shakur will be extradited back to the U.S. to carry out the remainder of her life sentence. After all, Cuba on Wednesday released American contractor Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years. Officials there have also agreed to free an intelligence agent who spied for the U.S. and was held on the island for almost two decades. And the U.S., in turn, freed three Cuban intelligence agents convicted of espionage and being held in the U.S.

If Cuba really wants to warm relations, the thinking goes, they should extradite Shakur, a member of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army, who last year was named a Most Wanted Terrorist by the FBI — the first woman ever to make the list.

Acting New Jersey Attorney General John Hoffman told msnbc in a statement that with America’s decision to ease relations with Cuba, “We remain ever hopeful in our resolve to bring Joanne Chesimard to justice. We will be working closely with federal authorities as we explore ways to apprehend her and return her to her rightful place in a New Jersey prison.” And New Jersey State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes said he views “any changes in relations with Cuba as an opportunity to bring her back to the United States.”

Shakur’s conviction has been questioned, with several activists and lawyers dismissing the validity of the verdict, arguing that race may have unfairly been a factor. The National Lawyers Guild, which represented Shakur, is urging American authorities to respect her political asylum status in Cuba.

“The National Lawyers Guild calls on New Jersey law enforcement to respect the political asylum status of Assata Shakur in accordance with international law, especially in light of yesterday’s announcement of plans for renewed US-Cuba relations. Under the pretense of ‘counter-terrorism,’ the US has for the last 40 years persecuted Ms. Shakur for her political views and activism, while she inspired generations in the fight for racial justice,” NLG President Azadeh Shahshahani told msnbc.

What we do know is Shakur — who was in a car with two other activists, Zayd Shakur (unrelated to Assata) and Sundiata Acoli — was arrested during a routine traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. The stop resulted in a gunfight, and Zayd Shakur and police officer Werner Foerster were both killed. Another police officer and Assata Shakur were both wounded.

Shakur, who was born in Jamaica, Queens, was convicted of first degree murder in 1977 along with seven other felonies in connection to the shootout. Two years later, she managed to escape the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey when three members of the Black Liberation Army drew their guns during a visit, took two guards as hostages and seized control of a prison van. Shakur surfaced in Cuba about five years later.

While much isn’t known about Shakur’s life in Cuba, she has continued to speak out on global injustice, including in her 1987 autobiography. She also wrote an open letter to Pope John Paul II during his trip to Cuba in 1998, which said “I am not the first, nor the last person to be victimized by the New Jersey system of ‘justice.’ The New Jersey State Police are infamous for their racism and brutality.” She gave an interview, in which she claimed her innocence, to NBC reporter Ralph Penza that same year.

The White House referred requests for comment on the matter back National Security Council. Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told msnbc, “We will continue to press for the return of U.S. fugitives in Cuba to pursue justice for the victims of their crimes in our engagement with the Cuban government.” There are approximately 80 fugitives in Cuba who are wanted by the U.S.

Meehan’s statement came after several New Jersey lawmakers and officials called for Shakur’s return and as bounty for her capture stands at $2 million. Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen said in a statement that the White House and State Department needs to work “much harder to bring this murderer ‘home’ to New Jersey where she can face justice and serve out her sentence.”

Critics argue medical evidence showed Shakur was shot with her hands in the air and that she would have been unable to fire a weapon. And according to the NLG, the proceedings were filled with constitutional violations: All 15 jurors were white and five of them had personal connections to state troopers. The group also insists that a state Assembly member spoke to jury members at the hotel where they were sequestered and encouraged them to convict Shakur.

Whether or not Cuba decides to extradite Shakur, of course, remains to be seen. The country has had an extradition treaty with the U.S. since 1904, but it hasn’t really been enforced during the Castro reign. There’s also a clause in the treaty that says a fugitive criminal shall not be surrendered if the “offense in respect of which his surrender is demanded be of a political character,” which could apply to the Shakur case, said Douglas McNabb, an international criminal defense lawyer who specializes in extradition.

But “any state can do anything they want, even if there is an extradition treaty,” said McNabb. “From a policy standpoint, Cuba is going to have to make a decision.”

Stephen Vladeck, an expert on national security law at American University College of Law, echoed that sentiment, saying “So much of extradition law Is just politics. The real question is whether the Cuban government decides it’s in its interest to cooperate with New Jersey through the Justice Department.”

The chance that Shakur would actually be extradited doesn’t look good, said Vladeck, noting “it sends a terrible message to anyone that would seek asylum in Cuba.”

But Bob Anello, a New York lawyer who deal with extradition cases, said “it certainly will be easier than when we weren’t talking to Cuba, although it may not be the first order of priority.” He predicted, “You will see both countries trying to do things to foster better relations.”