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Hezbollah’s Billion-Dollar Criminal Enterprise , Obama Ignored

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The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

Politico: An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House’s desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.

Part I

A global threat emerges

How Hezbollah turned to trafficking cocaine and laundering money through used cars to finance its expansion.

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.

December 15, 2011

Hezbollah is linked to a $483,142,568 laundering scheme

The money, allegedly laundered through the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two exchange houses, involved approximately 30 U.S. car buyers.

Read the document

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David AsherDavid AsherVeteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise., who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

The untold story of Project Cassandra illustrates the immense difficulty in mapping and countering illicit networks in an age where global terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime have merged, but also the extent to which competing agendas among government agencies — and shifting priorities at the highest levels — can set back years of progress.

And while the pursuit may be shadowed in secrecy, from Latin American luxury hotels to car parks in Africa to the banks and battlefields of the Middle East, the impact is not: In this case, multi-ton loads of cocaine entering the United States, and hundreds of millions of dollars going to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization with vast reach.

Obama had entered office in 2009 promising to improve relations with Iran as part of a broader rapprochement with the Muslim world. On the campaign trail, he had asserted repeatedly that the Bush administration’s policy of pressuring Iran to stop its illicit nuclear program wasn’t working, and that he would reach out to Tehran to reduce tensions.

The man who would become Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and then CIA director, John BrennanJohn BrennanObama’s White House counterterrorism adviser, who became CIA director in 2013., went further. He recommended in a policy paper that “the next president has the opportunity to set a new course for relations between the two countries” through not only a direct dialogue, but “greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system.”

By May 2010, Brennan, then assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, confirmed in a speech that the administration was looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a political party with representatives in the Lebanese Parliament and Cabinet, according to a Reuters report.

“There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing,” Brennan said. “And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”

In practice, the administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah in the Middle East, combined with its desire for a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.

Lebanese arms dealer Ali FayadAli Fayad(aka Fayyad). Ukraine-based arms merchant suspected of being a Hezbollah operative moving large amounts of weapons to Syria. , a suspected top Hezbollah operative whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, was arrested in Prague in the spring of 2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying aggressively against it.

Fayad, who had been indicted in U.S. courts on charges of planning the murders of U.S. government employees, attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to acquire, transfer and use anti-aircraft missiles, was ultimately sent to Beirut. He is now believed by U.S. officials to be back in business, and helping to arm militants in Syria and elsewhere with Russian heavy weapons.

March 26, 2014

Indictment of Ali Fayad

The indictment alleges Fayad, along with his co-conspirators, agreed to provide the FARC with weapons to kill U.S. and Colombian officials.

Read the document

Project Cassandra members say administration officials also blocked or undermined their efforts to go after other top Hezbollah operatives including one nicknamed the ‘GhostThe GhostOne of the most mysterious alleged associates of Safieddine, secretly indicted by the U.S., linked to multi-ton U.S.-bound cocaine loads and weapons shipments to Middle East.,” allowing them to remain active despite being under sealed U.S. indictment for years. People familiar with his case say the Ghost has been one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers, including to the U.S., as well as a major supplier of conventional and chemical weapons for use by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his people.

And when Project Cassandra agents and other investigators sought repeatedly to investigate and prosecute Abdallah SafieddineAbdallah SafieddineHezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran who allegedly oversaw the group’s “Business Affairs Component” involved in international drug trafficking., Hezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran, whom they considered the linchpin of Hezbollah’s criminal network, the Justice Department refused, according to four former officials with direct knowledge of the cases.

The administration also rejected repeated efforts by Project Cassandra members to charge Hezbollah’s military wing as an ongoing criminal enterprise under a federal Mafia-style racketeering statute, task force members say. And they allege that administration officials declined to designate Hezbollah a “significant transnational criminal organization” and blocked other strategic initiatives that would have given the task force additional legal tools, money and manpower to fight it.

Former Obama administration officials declined to comment on individual cases, but noted that the State Department condemned the Czech decision not to hand over Fayad. Several of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were guided by broader policy objectives, including de-escalating the conflict with Iran, curbing its nuclear weapons program and freeing at least four American prisoners held by Tehran, and that some law enforcement efforts were undoubtedly constrained by those concerns.

But the former officials denied that they derailed any actions against Hezbollah or its Iranian allies for political reasons.

“There has been a consistent pattern of actions taken against Hezbollah, both through tough sanctions and law enforcement actions before and after the Iran deal,” said Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman who worked at both the White House and Justice Department in the administration.

Lewis, speaking for the Obama administration, provided a list of eight arrests and prosecutions as proof. He made special note of a February 2016 operation in which European authorities arrested an undisclosed number of alleged members of a special Hezbollah business affairs unit that the DEA says oversees its drug trafficking and other criminal money-making enterprises.

Project Cassandra officials, however, noted that the European arrests occurred after the negotiations with Iran were over, and said the task force initiated the multinational partnerships on its own, after years of seeing their cases shot down by the Justice and State departments and other U.S. agencies.

The Justice Department, they pointed out, never filed corresponding U.S. criminal charges against the suspects arrested in Europe, including one prominent Lebanese businessman formally designated by the Treasury Department for using his “direct ties to Hezbollah commercial and terrorist elements” to launder bulk shipments of illicit cash for the organization throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

A former senior national security official of the Obama administration, who played a role in the Iran nuclear negotiations, suggested that Project Cassandra members were merely speculating that their cases were being blocked for political reasons. Other factors, including a lack of evidence or concerns about interfering with intelligence operations could have been in play.

“What if the CIA or the Mossad had an intelligence operation ongoing inside Hezbollah and they were trying to pursue someone . . . against whom we had impeccable [intelligence] collection and the DEA is not going to know that?” the official said. “I get the feeling people who don’t know what’s going on in the broader universe are grasping at straws.”

The official added: “The world is a lot more complicated than viewed through the narrow lens of drug trafficking. So you’re not going to let CIA rule the roost, but you’re also certainly not going to let DEA do it either. Your approach to anything as complicated as Hezbollah is going to have to involve the interagency [process], because the State Department has a piece of the pie, the intelligence community does, Treasury does, DOD does.”

Nonetheless, other sources independent of Project Cassandra confirmed many of the allegations in interviews with POLITICO, and in some cases, in public comments.

One Obama-era Treasury official, Katherine Bauer, in little-noticed written testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

February 16, 2017

Katherine Bauer testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Former Treasury official criticizes the Obama administration.

Read the document

As a result, some Hezbollah operatives were not pursued via arrests, indictments, or Treasury designations that would have blocked their access to U.S. financial markets, according to Bauer, a career Treasury official, who served briefly in its Office of Terrorist Financing as a senior policy adviser for Iran before leaving in late 2015. And other “Hezbollah facilitators” arrested in France, Colombia, Lithuania have not been extradited — or indicted — in the U.S., she wrote.

Bauer, in an interview, declined to elaborate on her testimony.

AsherDavid AsherVeteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise., for one, said Obama administration officials expressed concerns to him about alienating Tehran before, during and after the Iran nuclear deal negotiations. This was, he said, part of an effort to “defang, defund and undermine the investigations that were involving Iran and Hezbollah,” he said.

“The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away,” Asher said. “So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations — even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission — it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”

With much fanfare, Obama announced the final agreement on implementation of the Iran deal on Jan. 17, 2016, in which Tehran promised to shelve efforts to build a nuclear weapons program in exchange for being released from crippling international economic sanctions.

Within months, task force officials said, Project Cassandra was all but dead. Some of its most senior officials, including Jack KellyJohn “Jack” KellyDEA agent overseeing Hezbollah cases at Special Operations Division, who named task force Project Cassandra after clashes with other U.S. agencies about Hezbollah drug-terror links., the veteran DEA supervisory agent who created and led the task force, were transferred to other assignments. And Asher himself left the task force long before that, after the Defense Department said his contract would not be renewed.

As a result, the U.S. government lost insight into not only drug trafficking and other criminal activity worldwide, but also into Hezbollah’s illicit conspiracies with top officials in the Iranian, Syrian, Venezuelan and Russian governments — all the way up to presidents Nicolas Maduro, Assad and Putin, according to former task force members and other current and former U.S. officials.

The derailment of Project Cassandra also has undermined U.S. efforts to determine how much cocaine from the various Hezbollah-affiliated networks is coming into the United States, especially from Venezuela, where dozens of top civilian and military officials have been under investigation for more than a decade. Recently, the Trump administration designated the country’s vice president, a close ally of Hezbollah and of Lebanese-Syrian descent, as a global narcotics kingpin.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah — in league with Iran — continues to undermine U.S. interests in Iraq, Syria and throughout wide swaths of Latin America and Africa, including providing weapons and training to anti-American Shiite militias. And Safieddine, the Ghost and other associates continue to play central roles in the trafficking of drugs and weapons, current and former U.S. officials believe.

“They were a paramilitary organization with strategic importance in the Middle East, and we watched them become an international criminal conglomerate generating billions of dollars for the world’s most dangerous activities, including chemical and nuclear weapons programs and armies that believe America is their sworn enemy,” said Kelly, the supervisory DEA agent and lead coordinator of its Hezbollah cases.

“If they are violating U.S. statutes,” he asked, “why can’t we bring them to justice?”

May, 31, 2017

Indictment of Samer El Debek

From roughly 2008 to 2015, Debek allegedly received military training from training in surveillance, explosives and firearms.

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Kelly and Asher are among the officials involved in Project Cassandra who have been quietly contacted by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, who said a special POLITICO report April 24 on Barack Obama’s hidden Iran deal concessions raised urgent questions about the need to resurrect key law enforcement programs to counter Iran.

That won’t be easy, according to former Project Cassandra members, even with President Donald Trump’s recent vow to crack down on Iran and Hezbollah. They said they tried to keep the project on life support, in hopes that it would be revived by the next administration, but the loss of key personnel, budget cuts and dropped investigations are only a few of many challenges made worse by the passage of nearly a year since Trump took office.

“You can’t let these things disintegrate,” said Kelly. “Sources evaporate. Who knows if we can find all of the people willing to testify?”

Derek MaltzDerek MaltzSenior DEA official who as head of Special Operations Division lobbied for support for Project Cassandra and its investigations., who oversaw Project Cassandra as the head of the DEA’s Special Operations Division for nine years ending in July 2014, put it this way: “Certainly there are targets that people feel that could have been indicted and weren’t. There is certainly an argument to be made that if tomorrow all the agencies were ordered to come together and sit in a room and put all the evidence on the table against all these bad guys, that there could be a hell of a lot of indictments.”

But Maltz said the damage wrought by years of political interference will be hard to repair.

“There’s no doubt in my mind now that the focus was this Iran deal and our initiative was kind of like a fly in the soup,” Maltz said. “We were the train that went off the tracks.”

Project Cassandra had its origins in a series of investigations launched in the years after the 9/11 attacks which all led, via their own twisted paths, to Hezbollah as a suspected global criminal enterprise.

Operation TitanOperation TitanA joint investigation with Colombian authorities into a global money-laundering and drug-trafficking alliance between Latin American traffickers and Lebanese operatives., in which the DEA worked with Colombian authorities to explore a global alliance between Lebanese money launderers and Colombian drug trafficking conglomerates, was one. Operation Perseus, targeting Venezuelan syndicates, was another. At the same time, DEA agents in West Africa were investigating the suspicious flow of thousands of used cars from U.S. dealerships to car parks in Benin.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.S. military was probing the role of Iran in outfitting Shiite militias with high-tech improvised explosive devices known as Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, that had already killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers.

All of these paths eventually converged on Hezbollah.

This wasn’t entirely a surprise, agents say. For decades, Hezbollah — in close cooperation with Iranian intelligence and Revolutionary Guard — had worked with supporters in Lebanese communities around the world to create a web of businesses that were long suspected of being fronts for black-market trading. Along the same routes that carried frozen chicken and consumer electronics, these businesses moved weapons, laundered money and even procured parts for Iran’s illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

As they pursued their investigations, the DEA agents found that Hezbollah was redoubling all of these efforts, working urgently to raise cash, and lots of it, to rebuild its south Lebanon stronghold after a 2006 war with Israel had reduced it to rubble.

Dating back to its inception in the early 1980s, Hezbollah, which translates to “Party of God,” had also engaged in “narcoterrorism,” collecting a tariff from drug dealers and other black-market suppliers who operated in territory it controlled in Lebanon and elsewhere. Now, based on the DEA’s extensive network of informants, undercover operatives and wiretaps, it looked like Hezbollah had shifted tactics, and gotten directly involved in the global cocaine trade, according to interviews and documents, including a confidential DEA assessment.

“It was like they flipped a switch,” Kelly told POLITICO. “All of a sudden, they reversed the flow of all of the black-market activity they had been taxing for years, and took control of the operation.”

Operating like an organized crime family, Hezbollah operatives would identify businesses that might be profitable and useful as covers for cocaine trafficking and buy financial stakes in them, Kelly and others said. “And if the business was successful and suited their current needs,” Kelly said, “they went from partial owners to majority owners to full partnership or takeover.”

Hezbollah even created a special financial unit that, translated into English, means “Business Affairs Component,” to oversee the sprawling criminal operation, and it was run by the world’s most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, a notoriously vicious Hezbollah military commander named Imad MughniyehImad MughniyehA Hezbollah mastermind who oversaw its international operations and, the DEA says, its drug trafficking, as head of its military wing, the Islamic Jihad Organization., according to DEA interviews and documents.

Mughniyeh had for decades been the public face of terrorism for Americans, orchestrating the infamous attack that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983 in their barracks in Lebanon, and dozens more Americans in attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that year and an annex the year after. When President Ronald Reagan responded to the attacks by withdrawing peacekeeping troops from Lebanon, Hezbollah claimed a major victory and vaulted to the forefront of the Islamist resistance movement against the West.

Over the next 25 years, Iran’s financial and military support for Hezbollah enabled it to amass an army with tens of thousands of foot soldiers, more heavy armaments than most nation-states and approximately 120,000 rockets and ballistic missiles that could strike Israel and U.S. interests in the region with devastating precision.

Hezbollah became an expert in soft power, as well. It provided food, medical care and other social services for starving refugees in war-torn Lebanon, winning credibility on the ground. It then evolved further into a powerful political party, casting itself as the defender of poor, mostly Shiite Lebanese against Christian and Sunni Muslim elites. But even as Hezbollah was moving into the mainstream of Lebanese politics, Mughniyeh was overseeing a secret expansion of its terrorist wing, the Islamic Jihad Organization. Working with Iranian intelligence agents, Islamic Jihad continued to attack Western, Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, and to conduct surveillance on others — including in the United States — in preparation for future attacks.

Hezbollah mostly left the United States alone, in what was clearly a strategic decision to avoid U.S. retaliation. But by 2008, the Bush administration came to believe that Islamic Jihad was the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world, capable of launching instantaneous attacks, possibly with chemical, biological or low-grade nuclear weapons, that would dwarf those on 9/11.

By funding terrorism and military operations through global drug trafficking and organized crime, Mughniyeh’s business affairs unit within Islamic Jihad had become the embodiment of the kind of threat the United States was struggling to address in the post-9/11 world.

The DEA believed that it was the logical U.S. national security agency to lead the interagency effort to go after Mughniyeh’s drug trafficking networks. But within the multipronged U.S. national security apparatus, this was both a questionable and problematic assertion.

Established by President Richard Nixon in 1973 to bring together the various anti-drug programs under the Department of Justice, the DEA was among the youngest of the U.S. national security agencies.

And while the DEA had quickly proven itself adept at working on the global stage — especially in partnerships with drug-infested countries desperate for U.S. help like Colombia — few people within the U.S. government thought of it as a legitimate counterterrorism force.

In the final years of the Bush administration, though, the DEA had won the support of top officials for taking down two major international arms dealers, a Syrian named Monzer al-Kassar and the Russian “Lord of War,” Viktor BoutViktor Anatolyevich BoutVladimir Putin’s arms dealer, known as the “Lord of War.” Convicted of conspiracy to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to Colombian narcoterrorists.. And thanks to supportive Republicans in Congress, it had become the beneficiary of a new federal law that empowered its globe-trotting cadre of assault-weapon-toting Special Operations agents.

The statute allowed DEA agents to operate virtually anywhere, without permission required from other U.S. agencies. All they needed to do was connect drug suspects to terrorism, and they could arrest them, haul them back to the United States and flip them in an effort to penetrate “the highest levels of the world’s most significant and notorious criminal organizations,” as then-Special Operations chief MaltzDerek MaltzSenior DEA official who as head of Special Operations Division lobbied for support for Project Cassandra and its investigations. told Congress in November 2011.

As they crunched the massive amounts of intel streaming into the DEA’s Counter Narco-Terrorism Operations Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the agents on Operation TitanOperation TitanA joint investigation with Colombian authorities into a global money-laundering and drug-trafficking alliance between Latin American traffickers and Lebanese operatives., Perseus and the other cases began to connect the dots and map the contours of one overarching criminal enterprise.

Part II

Everywhere and Nowhere

From its headquarters in the Middle East, Hezbollah extends its criminal reach to Latin America, Africa and the United States.

On Feb. 12, 2008, CIA and Israeli intelligence detonated a bomb in MughniyehImad MughniyehA Hezbollah mastermind who oversaw its international operations and, the DEA says, its drug trafficking, as head of its military wing, the Islamic Jihad Organization.’s car as he was leaving a celebration of the 29th anniversary of the Iranian revolution in Damascus, Syria. He was killed instantly. It was a major blow to Hezbollah, but soon after, wiretapped phone lines and other U.S. evidence showed that his criminal operation was busier than ever, and overseen by two trusted associates, according to interviews with former Project Cassandra officials and DEA documents.

One was financier Adham TabajaAdham TabajaLebanese businessman, alleged co-leader of Hezbollah Business Affairs Component and key figure directly tying Hezbollah’s commercial and terrorist activities.. The other, the interviews and documents reveal, was Safieddine, the key link between Hezbollah — which was run by his cousin, Hassan Nasrallah and his own brother Hashem — and Iran, Hezbollah’s state sponsor, which saw the group as its strategic ally in defending Shiite Muslims in the largely Sunni Muslim states that surrounded it.

Investigators were also homing in on several dozen key players underneath them who acted as “superfacilitators” for the various criminal operations benefitting Hezbollah, Iran and, at times, their allies in Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and Russia.

But it was Safieddine, a low-key, bespectacled man with a diplomatic bearing, who was their key point of connection from his base in Tehran, investigators believed.

The Colombia and Venezuela investigations linked him to numerous international drug smuggling and money laundering networks, and especially to one of the biggest the DEA had ever seen, led by Medellin-based Lebanese businessman Ayman JoumaaAyman Saied JoumaaAccused drug kingpin and financier whose vast network allegedly smuggled tons of cocaine into the U.S. with Mexico’s Zetas cartel and laundered money..

JoumaaAyman Saied JoumaaAccused drug kingpin and financier whose vast network allegedly smuggled tons of cocaine into the U.S. with Mexico’s Zetas cartel and laundered money.’s network rang alarm bells in Washington when agents discovered he was working with Mexico’s brutal Los Zetas cartel to move multi-ton loads of cocaine directly into the United States, and washing $200 million a month in criminal proceeds with the help of 300 or so used car dealerships. The network would funnel huge amounts of money to the dealerships to purchase used cars, which would then be shipped to Benin, on Africa’s west coast.

Arctic Ocean

U.S.

Mexico

Drugs from Colombia and Venezuela shipped to U.S. via Mexico

Freshly laundered money is returned to U.S. to buy used cars

Pro-Hezbollah money, houses and banks, Beirut Drugs flow to Europe, Benin

Used cars bought in U.S., shipped to West Africa for resale

Used car proceeds couriered to Lebanon Indian Ocean

Drugs are sent from Colombia and Venezuela to Europe via West Africa Antarctica

As the task force investigators intensified their focus on Safieddine, they were contacted out of the blue by AsherDavid AsherVeteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise., the Defense Department official, who was at Special Operations Command tracking the money used to provide ragtag Iraqi Shiite militias with sophisticated weapons for use against U.S. troops, including the new and lethal IED known as the “Explosively Formed Penetrator.” The armor-piercing charges were so powerful that they were ripping M1 Abrams tanks in half.

“Nobody had seen weapons like these,” Asher told POLITICO. “They could blow the side off a building.”

Asher’s curiosity had been piqued by evidence linking the IED network to phone numbers intercepted in the Colombia investigation. Before long, he traced the unusual alliance to a number allegedly used by Safieddine in Iran.

“I had no clue who he was,” Asher recalled. “But this guy was sending money into Iraq, to kill American soldiers.”

“I had no clue who he was. But this guy was sending money into Iraq, to kill American soldiers.”

— David Asher on Abdallah Safieddine.

Thanks to that chance connection, the Pentagon’s then-head of counternarcotics, William Wechsler, lent Asher and a few other Defense Department experts in tracking illicit money to the DEA to see what they might find.

It was a fruitful partnership. Asher was accustomed to toiling in the financial shadows. During his 20-plus years of U.S. government work, his core expertise was in exposing money laundering and schemes to avoid financial sanctions by rogue nation states, terrorist groups, organized-crime cartels and weapons proliferation networks.

Usually, his work was strictly classified. For Project Cassandra, however, he got special dispensation from the Pentagon to build networks of unclassified information so it could be used in criminal prosecutions.

Asher and his team quickly integrated cutting-edge financial intelligence tools into the various DEA investigations. With the U.S. military’s help, agents translated thousands of hours of intercepted phone conversations from Colombia in Arabic that no one had considered relevant until the Hezbollah links appeared.

When the translations were complete, investigators said, they painted a picture of SafieddineAbdallah SafieddineHezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran who allegedly oversaw the group’s “Business Affairs Component” involved in international drug trafficking. as a human hub of a criminal enterprise with spokes emanating from Tehran outward into Latin America, Africa, Europe and the United States via hundreds of legitimate businesses and front companies.

Safieddine did not respond to requests for comment through various intermediaries including Hezbollah’s media arm. A Hezbollah official, however, denied that the organization was involved in drug dealing.

“Sheik Nasrallah has confirmed lots of times that it is not permitted religiously for Hezbollah members to be trafficking drugs,” the official said. “It is something that is preventable, in that we in Islam have things like halal [permitted] and haram [prohibited]. For us, this is haram. So in no way is it possible to be done.”

The accusation that Hezbollah is involved in drug trafficking, the representative said, “is part of the campaign to distort the image of Hezbollah as a resistance movement against the Israelis. Of course, it is possible to have Lebanese people involved in drugs, but it is not possible for them to be members of Hezbollah. This is absolutely not possible.”

Asked about Safieddine’s role in the organization, the official said, “We don’t usually expose the roles everyone plays because it is a jihadi organization. So it is a little bit secret.”

Safieddine’s cousin Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, has publicly rejected the idea that Hezbollah needs to raise money at all, through drugs or any other criminal activity, because Iran provides whatever funds it needs.

Safieddine himself, however, suggested otherwise in 2005, when he defiantly refuted the Bush administration’s accusations that Iran and Syria supplied Hezbollah with weapons. Those countries provided “political and moral” support only, he told Agence France-Presse. “We don’t need to arm ourselves from Tehran. Why bring weapons from Iran via Syria when we can procure them anywhere in the world?”

“We don’t need to arm ourselves from Tehran. Why bring weapons from Iran via Syria when we can procure them anywhere in the world?”

— Abdallah Safieddine to Agence France-Presse in 2005.

Safieddine may have been right. Agents found evidence that weapons were flowing to Hezbollah from many channels, including networks that trafficked in both drugs and weapons. And using the same trafficking networks that hummed with drugs, cash and commercial products, agents concluded, Safieddine was overseeing Hezbollah efforts to help Iran procure parts and technology for its clandestine nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“Hezbollah operates like the Gambino crime family on steroids, and he is its John Gotti,” said Kelly, referring to the infamous “Teflon Don” crime boss who for decades eluded justice. “Whatever Iran needs, Safieddine is in charge of getting it for them.”

“Hezbollah operates like the Gambino crime family on steroids, and he is its John Gotti.”

— Jack Kelly on Abdallah Safieddine.

The Bush administration had made disrupting the networks through which Iran obtained parts for its weapons of mass destruction programs a top priority, with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Juan Zarate personally overseeing an interagency effort to map out the procurement channels. A former Justice Department prosecutor, Zarate understood the value of international law enforcement operations, and put DEA’s Special Operations Division at the center of it.

But even then, other agencies were chafing at the DEA’s role.

A Series of Roadblocks

Much of the early turbulence stemmed from an escalating turf battle between federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies over which ones had primacy in the global war on terrorism, especially over a so-called hybrid target like Hezbollah, which was both a criminal enterprise and a national security threat.

The “cops” from the FBI and DEA wanted to build criminal cases, throw Hezbollah operatives in prison and get them to turn on each other. That stoked resentment among the “spooks” at the CIA and National Security Agency, who for 25 years had gathered intelligence, sometimes through the painstaking process of having agents infiltrate Hezbollah, and then occasionally launching assassinations and cyberattacks to block imminent threats.

Further complicating the picture was the role of the State Department, which often wanted to quash both law-enforcement actions and covert operations due to the political backlash they created. Hezbollah, after all, was a leading political force in Lebanon and a provider of human services, with a sincere grass-roots following that wasn’t necessarily aware of its unsavory actions. Nowhere was the tension between law enforcement and diplomacy more acute than in dealings with Hezbollah, which was fast becoming a key part of the Lebanese government.

Distrust among U.S. agencies exploded after two incidents brought the cops-spooks divide into clear relief.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, a DEA agent’s cover was blown just as he was about to become a Colombian cartel’s main cocaine supplier to the Middle East — and to Hezbollah operatives.

A year later, under Obama, the State Department blocked an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force from luring a key eyewitness from Beirut to Philadelphia so he could be arrested and turned against SafieddineAbdallah SafieddineHezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran who allegedly oversaw the group’s “Business Affairs Component” involved in international drug trafficking. and other Hezbollah operatives in a scheme to procure 1,200 Colt M4 military-grade assault rifles.

In both cases, law enforcement agents suspected that Middle East-based spies in the CIA had torpedoed their investigations to protect their politically sensitive and complicated relationship with Hezbollah.

The CIA declined to comment on the allegation that it intentionally blew the cover of a DEA agent or any other aspect of its relationship with Project Cassandra. The Obama State Department and Justice Department also declined to comment in response to detailed requests about their dealings with Hezbollah.

But the tensions between those agencies and the DEA were no secret. Some current and former diplomats and CIA officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, portrayed DEA Special Operations agents as undisciplined and overly aggressive cowboys with little regard for the larger geopolitical picture. “They’d come in hot to places like Beirut, want to slap handcuffs on people and disrupt operations we’d been cultivating for years,” one former CIA case officer said.

“They’d come in hot to places like Beirut, want to slap handcuffs on people and disrupt operations we’d been cultivating for years.”

— Former CIA case officer on how the DEA operated.

KellyJohn “Jack” KellyDEA agent overseeing Hezbollah cases at Special Operations Division, who named task force Project Cassandra after clashes with other U.S. agencies about Hezbollah drug-terror links. and other agents embraced their swashbuckling reputation, claiming that more aggressive tactics were needed because the CIA had long turned a blind eye to Hezbollah’s criminal networks, and even cultivated informants within them, in a misguided and myopic focus on preventing terrorist attacks.

The unyielding posture of Kelly, AsherDavid AsherVeteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise. and their team also rankled some of their fellow law-enforcement agents within the FBI, the Justice Department and even the DEA itself. The more Kelly and Asher insisted that everyone else was missing the drug-crime-terror nexus, the more others accused them — and their team out at Chantilly — of inflating those connections to expand the task force’s portfolio, get more funding and establish its importance.

After a few years of working together on the Hezbollah cases, Kelly and Asher had become a familiar sight in the never-ending circuit of meetings and briefings in what is known as the “interagency process,” a euphemism for the U.S. national security community’s efforts to bring all elements of power to bear on a particular problem.

From outward appearances, the two made an unusual pair.

Kelly, now 51, was a streetwise agent from small-town New Jersey who cut his teeth investigating the Mafia and drug kingpins. He spent his infrequent downtime lifting weights, watching college football and chilling in cargo shorts.

Asher, 49, speaks fluent Japanese, earned his Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford University and has the pallor of a senior government official who has spent the past three decades in policy meetings, classified military war rooms and diplomatic summits.

Both were described by supporters and detractors alike as having a similarly formidable combination of investigative and analytical skills, and the self-confidence to match it. At times, and especially on Project Cassandra, their intensity worked to the detriment of their careers.

“It got to the point where a lot of people didn’t want to have meetings with them,” said one FBI terrorism task force supervisor who worked often with the two. “They refused to accept no for an answer. And they were often given no for an answer. Even though they were usually right.”

Proof of Iranian Missiles Launched by Houthis in Yemen

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Primer:

Reuters reported in 2016:

U.S. Navy ships in the Arabian Sea intercepted and seized an arms shipment from Iran likely bound for Houthi fighters in Yemen, the military said in a statement on Monday.

The weapons seized last week by the warships Sirocco and Gravely were hidden on a small dhow and included 1,500 AK-47 rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, according to the Navy statement.

The weapons were seized on March 28 and are now in U.S. custody. The boat, which the Navy described as stateless, and its crew were allowed to leave once the weapons were taken.

“This seizure is the latest in a string of illicit weapons shipments assessed by the U.S. to have originated in Iran that were seized in the region by naval forces,” the military said in the statement.

It cited a Feb. 27 incident in which the Australian Navy intercepted a dhow in late February and confiscated nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 100 RPG launchers, and other weapons. On March 20, a French destroyer seized almost 2,000 AK-47s, dozens of Dragunov sniper rifles, nine antitank missiles, and other equipment.

Houthi forces seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014, stoking concern in Saudi Arabia that Iran was exploiting turmoil in the region and extending its influence to the Saudi border. The Houthis, whose home territory is in northern Yemen, practice Shi‘ite Islam, the majority faith in Iran.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday that Iran’s support for the Houthis is an example of its “destabilizing activities” in the region, and that the weapons shipment could be raised at the United Nations Security Council.

“We obviously are concerned about this development, because offering up support to the rebels in Yemen is something that is not at all consistent with U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Earnest said.

U.S. officials have said in the past that Iran’s direct involvement with the Houthis is limited, but that Iranian military personnel were training and equipping Houthi units.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been fighting to restore Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power since last year, including via air strikes on Sanaa.

U.N.-sponsored peace talks are scheduled to start in Kuwait on April 18.

The two sides have confirmed a truce starting at midnight on April 10 ahead of the peace talks, scheduled to follow a week later.

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WATCH: Amb. Haley Says U.N. Report Shows that Iran is “Arsonist” in Middle East

Contrary to assertions made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that his nation is “[putting] out fires” in the Middle East in an op-ed published earlier this week, a recent United Nations report shows that Iran is the “arsonist” in the region, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said at a press conference on Thursday.

Citing President Donald Trump’s October speech in which he outlined a strategy for confronting all threats posed by Iran, Haley said, “We’re also taking a hard look at Iran’s ballistic missile program, its arms exports, and its support for terrorists, proxy fighters, and dictators.” She added that the administration was prompted to do so because since the nuclear deal the “Iranian regime’s behavior is growing worse.”

Haley described a recently-released report from the United Nations Secretary General detailing Iran’s compliance “or noncompliance” with UN Security Council resolution 2231, which implements the nuclear deal, as describing “violation after violation of weapons transfers and ballistic missile activity” by Iran.

“The United States and our partners,” Haley said, “went to great lengths to support the UN investigations into Iranian violations by declassifying evidence so that the world could better be informed of the extent of Iran’s malign activities.” She spoke of a warehouse full of recovered weapons from attacks and thanked Secretary of Defense James Mattis for making them available.

Haley pointed to the remains of a missile that had been “used to attack an international civilian airport in a G-20 country,” referring to last months attempted attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport.

“Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London, or Berlin,” Haley said, adding, “That’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what Iran is actively supporting.”

She then explained that the missile — a short-range ballistic missile — had no stabilizer fins but had nine valves, which are “are essentially Iranian missile fingerprints.”

Haley spoke of other weapons that had been recovered and called on the international community to “join us in a united front resisting this global threat.”

This past August Reuters reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had stepped up its arms smuggling to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. One source told the news agency, “No activity goes ahead in the Gulf without the IRGC being involved. This activity involves a huge amount of money as well as transferring equipment to Iranian-backed groups in their fight against their enemies.”

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*** John Kerry knew it…

Missile Threat

Houthi forces, after raiding Yemeni government military bases over the past few years, have acquired a stockpile of possibly more than 60 missiles and rockets.[1] Short-range tactical ballistic missiles, including the Soviet Scud-B and C, North Korean Hwasong 5 and 6, the Soviet Tochka – as well as rockets – continue to be launched from Yemen(link) into Saudi Arabia – a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.[2] Houthi forces also appear to have taken Soviet SA-2 SAM missiles and re-worked them as effective anti-ground targets, dubbing the new missile “Qaher-1.”[3] Recently, reports indicate that Houthis have acquired Iranian Zelzal-3 missiles which they have begun firing into Saudi Arabia.[4]

Yemeni security forces purchased many of these missiles in the 1990s and early 2000s from North Korea before Houthi rebels seized them in the past few years.[5] As such the proliferation threat comes not from official Yemeni security forces, but from Houthi insurgents and their alleged sponsors – Iran and Hezbollah – who have seized power amid the chaos of Yemen’s plunge into civil war. Secretary of State John Kerry has come forward with intelligence indicating Iranian support for Houthi forces, but both Houthi officials and Tehran dispute this.[6] The exact capabilities of Houthi insurgents are mostly unknown, yet, the proliferation of ballistic missiles to non-state actors operating in Yemen is widely evident, and continues to pose a threat.

Current Developments

Saudi missile defense systems in conjunction with preventative coalition air strikes against missile stockpiles have proved effective at negating the Houthi missile threat: Saudi Patriot Pac-2 and Pac-3 missile placements have shot down incoming Yemeni missiles with a nearly 100% success rate.[7] However, despite the success of Saudi Arabian missile defense systems, ballistic missiles continue to proliferate to dangerous actors in Yemen and remain a threat to Saudi Arabia and the surrounding region.

In October 2016, Houthi rebels launched numerous anti-ship cruise missiles at vessels operating off the coast of Yemen. Targeted in the attacks were ships operated by the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Houthis, armed with anti-ship cruise missiles, first fired at a transport vessel operated by the UAE. The vessel was severely damaged in the attack, and damage to the ship indicated that the Houthis used a Chinese-made C-802 anti-ship cruise missile.

A week later, the USS Mason (DDG-87), a U.S. Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyer, was attacked with a salvo of anti-ship cruise missiles fired by the Houthis. Using Standard Missile-2 and Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile interceptors, the USS Mason was able to defuse the incoming attack. The USS Mason was attacked again several times that month, each time using defense measures to thwart Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles.

History

Houthis – officially “Ansar Allah” – are a Yemeni rebel group adherent to Zaidism: a branch of Shia Islam shared by 30-40% of the Yemeni population. Zaidi Imams ruled Yemen for 1,000 years until the 1962 revolution.[8] The new Yemeni government excluded Zaidi regions from the economic and political development southern Yemen experienced.[9] In the past few years, the Houthis have stormed to power in north and west Yemen, pushing out government forces and prompting a war with the Saudi Arabian-led coalition.

In the early 1990s, marginalization, Wahhabi influence, endemic poverty, corruption and Saudi Arabian interference all stoked opposition movements in north Yemen. Here, the al-Houthi family – for whom the movement is named – began a “Zaidi revival” in Saada in northern Yemen. Aided by Iran and the recently formed Hezbollah the Houthi movement grew rapidly.[10]

Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the al-Houthi followers began radicalizing, threatening government control. Tensions exploded in 2004 into an armed insurgency as the militant arm of the Houthi movement – led by Hussein al-Houthi – clashed with government “Islah” forces led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Although Hussein was killed shortly after by government forces his family led a continuous series of insurgencies against Saleh’s government over the next 6 years.[11]

Emboldened by the success of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, Houthi rebels participated in widespread pro-democracy protests and rebellion against President Saleh in 2011. During this offensive they began taking control of Yemeni military bases and their missile arsenals. In 2012 Saleh vacated the presidency, passing it to his Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The National Dialogue Conference (NDC) created to establish democracy after the 2011 revolution promised representation for the Houthis, but Hadi/GCC-drafted deal essentially ignored this, instead gerrymandering the country to eliminate Houthi power.[12]

Since 2014, Houthi forces allied with a returned Saleh and his supporters who splintered from the military, stormed through Yemen, and took control of the capital and much of western and northern Yemen. They have established a rival government to administer their territories, and pushed Hadi’s forces to refuge in the South, while Hadi himself fled to Saudi Arabia. Since mid-2015, in the face of blockades and strikes from the Saudi coalition – combined with ISIS attacks – that have killed over 2,200 children and pushed millions to starvation, Houthi support has swelled to approximately 100,000 fighters and the group continues its missile and rocket campaigns against Saudi coalition forces.[13]

References, click here.

Trump at War with Islam due to his Position on Jerusalem?

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So, after the declaration by President Trump announcing that Jerusalem is the historical capitol of Israel, protests continue against the West. Truth be told, at least three previous presidents all made the same declarations. A peace deal with the Palestinians is a fool’s errand.

We are to believe that President Trump is not sensitive to the disputes, history and territory? C’mon really?

*** Check out this judge’s decision as a primer:

Gothenburg, December 12 – A magistrate in this Scandinavian city has ruled that the perpetrators of two Molotov cocktail attacks against Jewish houses of worship in the last three days may not be prosecuted under criminal law, as they were exercising their legal right to freedom of expression.

Judge Lars Ferwerds ordered fourteen men detained Saturday and Monday for the firebomb attack be released immediately and the charges against them dropped this morning, and criticized the police for infringing on the men’s rights. The group had participated in assaults on synagogues to protest US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The attack forced dozens of Jews inside one of the the buildings to seek shelter in the basement as they awaited rescue.

“Shame on the police for limiting freedom of expression,” pronounced the judge. “European civilization has advanced to the point where vehement disagreement is now treated as a legitimate position, not to be repressed.”

Lawyers for the defendants praised the judge’s decision. “It has long been recognized that Muslim anger may not be restrained by law enforcement,” stated a pleased Dimi Svensen, who represents four of those arrested. “This is especially the case when the anger is directed merely at Jews. The Court was correct in admonishing the police that the antisemitism is even more venerable and sacrosanct than all other notions in European legal tradition.”

***

On Saturday, December 9, masked men threw firebombs at a synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden. The attack took place shortly after 10:00 pm, at a time when about thirty children and teenagers were attending a party at the Jewish Center adjoining the main building. When the assault began, the guards rushed them into the cellar, and finally allowed them to go home at about 11:30 pm. (Guards, of course, are a fixture at European synagogues these days.) A mother of one of the girls at the party received a text message from her daughter saying that she was scared and that there was a smell of gasoline. More here.

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So, a previous policyholder with the term of GW Bush and Barack Obama, Farah Pandith, takes the position that under Trump, America is at war with Islam.

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Pandith was the first person to hold the position of Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the US State Department under Secretary Clinton. Perhaps she is cool with that judge’s decision huh?

But hold on….check out what Saudi Arabia just did…

TEHRAN (FNA)– Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman has laid increasing pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to give up his quest for the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and for making Quds the capital of a Palestinian state, an Arab media outlet disclosed.

“Bin Salman has told Mahmoud Abbas to forget about the Quds case and the refugees’ right to return to their country and start a bid to establish a state in Gaza,” the Arabic-language al-Arabi al-Jadid news website reported on Tuesday, adding that the de facto ruler has promised “Abbas huge financial aid in return”.

To get rid of the difficult conditions prevailing over the meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Abbas has asked bin Salman to present his offer in written so that he could put it under discussion at a meeting of the central committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), added the report.

Earlier, Reuters had also reported that bin Salman had proposed $100bln to Abbas if he agreed with the recent US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital.

The US president last Wednesday defied global warnings, and said Washington formally recognizes Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel, and will begin the process of moving its embassy to the occupied city, breaking with decades of American policy despite widespread international opposition.

In anticipation of Trump’s move, 151 members of the UN General Assembly voted last week to adopt a rare resolution that denounced Israel as the “occupying power” of Jerusalem al-Quds, a city that is holy to Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike.

The city has seen heightened tensions since 2015, when the Israeli military introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site.

Over 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli soldiers ever since.

Israel lays claim to the entirety of al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital while Palestinians want its Eastern part as the capital of a future state for themselves.

Palestinian leaders have warned that the potential relocation would fuel strong reaction in the region and deliver a death blow to any prospect of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump’s move which overturns decades of US foreign policy has triggered a fresh wave of unrest in the Middle East.

*** Then going over to the Palestinian capitol of Ramallah, there was a poll taken. Can you guess the results?

The American step increases Abbas’ weakness, raises further suspicion concerning the role of regional powers, and increases calls for armed action:

More than 90% view the US recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel as a threat to Palestinian interests and the largest percentage demands a strong response that includes a return to an armed intifada. Moreover, the overwhelming majority does not trust Trump’s peace intentions, nor trust the major Arab allies of the US, and 70% demand Abbas’ resignation, and a majority demands the resignation of the reconciliation government if it does not immediately lift the PA sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip.

7-10 December 2017

This poll has been conducted in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Ramallah

These are the results of the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center

for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

between 7-10 December 2017. The poll was conducted one day after the

announcement by President Trump that he is recognizing Jerusalem as the

capital of Israel and during a period in which limited clashes occurred

between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers throughout the West Bank

and the Gaza Strip. By then, the Palestinian Authority has already publicly

condemned the US measure and announced cessation of peace-related contacts

with Washington. On the domestic front, reconciliation efforts continued to

produce slow progress and a meeting held in Cairo declared that elections

will take place before the end of 2018. This press release addresses these

issues and covers other matters such as general conditions in the

Palestinian territories and certain aspects of the peace process. Total size

of the sample is 1270 adults interviewed face to face in 127 randomly

selected locations. Margin of error is 3%.

Former Argentina President Kirchner, Arrested for Treason

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NYT’s: One morning last week, Argentines woke up to a political earthquake: A judge had charged a former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with “treason against the homeland,” punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Her crime? Nothing less than covering up Iran’s role in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the Americas before Sept. 11.

On July 18, 1994, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, an operative of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center, known as AMIA. More than 300 Argentines were wounded; 85 were murdered. It remains the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.

From 2004 until 2015, our friend, the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, tirelessly pursued the truth behind this crime. He knew from his investigation that the attack was an Iranian-planned operation. And he determined that Ms. Kirchner was behind a cover-up designed to whitewash Iran’s role.

What drove Ms. Kirchner? Argentina faced deep economic problems at the time, and the financial benefits of closer relations with Iran might have tempted her. Her government also had populist ties to Iran and the Bolivarian bloc of nations led by Venezuela. Whatever the reason, never has Ms. Kirchner been formally charged in the crime. Until now.

When the federal judge Claudio Bonadio handed down the 491-page indictment against Ms. Kirchner; her foreign minister, Hector Timerman; her handpicked intelligence chief; her top legal adviser; two pro-Iran activists; and 10 others, he didn’t mince words. He called the attack on the Jewish community center an “act of war” by Iran and accused Ms. Kirchner of covering up the role of senior Iranian leaders and their Hezbollah proxies in exchange for a trade deal.

If only Alberto Nisman were alive to see justice finally being pursued.

Three years ago, Mr. Nisman was set to testify to the country’s Congress on Ms. Kirchner’s role in the cover up. The day before his testimony, on Jan. 18, 2015, he was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires, with a bullet in his head. This, despite the fact that he had a 10-man security detail paid to protect him.

Within hours, Ms. Kirchner announced that Mr. Nisman had committed suicide. In the days that followed, she strangely claimed his death was part of a lovers’ spat. Finally, she changed her story once more: His death may have been the result of rogue intelligence operatives.

When we heard the news of Mr. Nisman’s death and of Ms. Kirchner’s suspected cover-up, we were horrified, but not entirely shocked. Anyone who had followed Mr. Nisman’s pursuit of this case knew that he was assuming grave risks by taking on both a terrorist state and his own government. Through a decade of investigation, Mr. Nisman received death threats against not only him but his children as well. One email he told us about had a picture of bloodied and brutalized bodies lying on the ground, with a note saying this would be the fate of his young daughters if he did not cease his investigation.

None of it stopped him. Fearless and resolute, Mr. Nisman and his team had determined that former Iranian and Hezbollah officials planned the AMIA attack. He was able to show definitively that the plan included no less than Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; its minister of intelligence; its foreign minister; the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the head of the corps’ elite Quds force; the Iranian cultural attaché in Argentina; and the third secretary at Iran’s Embassy in Buenos Aires, as well as the former head of Hezbollah’s external security. His investigation led Interpol to issue red notices — akin to international arrest warrants — against six of the perpetrators. Argentina itself issued arrest warrants for Mr. Rafsanjani and Ali Akbar Velayati, then foreign minister, which Iran predictably disregarded.

But Mr. Nisman did not stop there.

In May 2013, he released a 500-page indictment outlining how Iran had penetrated not just Argentina, but also Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad, Tobago and Suriname, and how it used mosques, social service organizations and its own embassies to radicalize and recruit terrorists. Mr. Nisman also shared information that helped American authorities determine that Mohsen Rabbani, the Iranian embassy cultural attaché and one of the AMIA bombing masterminds, helped four men, including his disciple, a Guyanese official named Abdul Kadir, plot to blow up the fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Mr. Kadir is serving a life sentence in the United States for the foiled plot, which could have led to the loss of countless lives.

In a normal democracy, investigating the murder of a man like Alberto Nisman would be a top priority. But Ms. Kirchner and her allies assured that justice for Mr. Nisman’s murder was stymied for years.

That changed three months ago, when, under Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, a fresh investigation by the Argentine national police found that Mr. Nisman had been drugged with Ketamine, a drug used to sedate animals, then brutally beaten before he was shot in the head.

The case against Ms. Kirchner is based on more than 40,000 legal wiretaps and other evidence, much of it collected by Mr. Nisman, which reveals a secret backchannel between her government and Iran. On Ms. Kirchner’s personal orders, she and her associates used the backchannel to negotiate a public memorandum of understanding that would purportedly have the two countries establish a “truth commission” to jointly identify the culprits of the bombing. Mr. Nisman believed it was designed to expunge the Interpol red notices against the plot’s perpetrators.

One thing is entirely clear: Ms. Kirchner and her allies went to great lengths to establish this backchannel. For example, in 2011, Mr. Timerman, Ms. Kirchner’s foreign minister, made a secret trip to Syria to iron out the plan with Ali Akbar Salehi, then Iran’s foreign minister. This trip was revealed earlier this year by a former Argentine ambassador to Syria in court testimony. Further implicating Ms. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman is a voice recording of him acknowledging Iran’s responsibility in the bombing.

Ramón Allan Bogado, who claims to be a one-time Argentine intelligence agent and is one of those recently indicted, testified last month that the backchannel included an arrangement for Argentina to provide Iran with nuclear technology, with front companies in Argentina and Uruguay to conduct the transactions. He alleged that officials at the highest levels of Argentina’s government were aware of the scheme. If true, this would be even worse than Mr. Nisman had uncovered and may provide a further explanation about why someone wanted him dead.

The judge in the case has asked the Argentine Congress, where Ms. Kirchner serves as a recently elected senator, to strip her of immunity so that she can be arrested and tried. But regardless of what happens to her, Argentina is on track to make amends for more than two decades of gross injustice. President Macri has abandoned Ms. Kirchner’s revisionist history of the 1994 bombing, and he supports an independent investigation that would finally identify who ordered Alberto Nisman’s death.

But President Macri has more challenges ahead. As Mr. Nisman documented, Iran and Hezbollah have penetrated Latin America, and still pose a grave threat to the security of Argentina, the region and the United States.

Trump Declares Jerusalem the Capitol of Israel

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Huge speech and decision. If the Palestinians can have their own capitol, why not Israel? In reality and presently the United States does have a consulate in Jerusalem already. Marine FAST teams (elite security forces) and increased security have already been ordered at most U.S. diplomatic operations in key locations around the world, expecting protests.

Additionally, did you know the Palestinians have an embassy in Washington DC?

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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 06, 2017

President Donald J. Trump’s Proclamation on Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel

“My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” – President Donald J. Trump

RECOGNIZING JERUSALEM: President Donald J. Trump is following through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and has instructed the State Department to begin to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

  • Today, December 6, 2017, President Trump recognized Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people, as the capital of the State of Israel.
    • In taking this action, President Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise of his and many previous Presidential candidates.
  • The Trump Administration is fully coordinated in supporting this historic action by the President, and has engaged broadly with both our Congressional and international partners on this issue.
    • President Trump’s action enjoys broad, bipartisan support in Congress, including as expressed in the Jerusalem Recognition Act of 1995.  This Act was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.
  • President Trump has instructed the State Department to develop a plan to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
  • Departments and Agencies have implemented a robust security plan to ensure the safety of our citizens and assets in the region.

STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognizes that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations. 

  • President Trump recognizes that the status of Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.
  • President Trump recognizes that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.
  • President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.

COMMITTED TO THE PEACE PROCESS: President Trump is committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

  • President Trump remains committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, and he is optimistic that peace can be achieved.
  • Delaying the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has not helped achieve peace over the past two decades.
  • President Trump is prepared to support a two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, if agreed to by the parties.

*** This proclamation will hurt the peace process? Really? 70 years with of talks and countless deals offered where they were ALL rejected by the Palestinian leadership? It is not clear however what the current talks include with regard to a peace deal, where full sovereignty of Israel is included or borders much less construction of housing of which all anti-Israel types call settlements.

*** How about this timeline that went back to President Truman?

The United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology

Compiled by Raymond H. Geselbracht from Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Westport, Connecticut, 1997) by Michael T. Benson

[ 1939 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 ]
 

May 17, 1939: British White Paper on Palestine

May 25, 1939: Senator Harry S. Truman inserts in the Congressional Record strong criticism of the British White Paper on Palestine, saying it is a dishonorable repudiation by Britain of her obligations.

August 24, 1945: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, writes to Secretary of State James Byrnes that the United States would lose its moral prestige in the Middle East if it supported Jewish aspirations in Palestine.

August 24, 1945: The report of the Intergovernment Committee on Refugees, called the Harrison Report, is presented to President Truman. The report is very critical of the treatment by Allied forces of refugees, particularly Jewish refugees, in Germany.

August 31, 1945: President Truman writes British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, citing the Harrison Report and urging Attlee to allow a reasonable number of Europe’s Jews to emigrate to Palestine.

October 22, 1945: Senators Robert Wagner of New York and Robert Taft of Ohio introduce a resolution expressing support for a Jewish state in Palestine.

November 13, 1945: The British government announces the formation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to investigate Britain’s handling of the Palestine situation. The committee begins work on January 4, 1946.

November 29, 1945: At a press conference, President Truman expresses opposition to the Taft-Wagner resolution. He says he wants to await and consider the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.

April 20, 1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry submits its report, which recommends that Britain immediately authorize the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine.

May 8, 1946: President Truman writes to Prime Minister Attlee, citing the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and expressing the hope that Britain would begin lifting the barriers to Jewish immigration to Palestine.

June 21, 1946: A Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum to the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee warns that if the United States uses armed force to support the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the Soviet Union might be able to increase its power and influence in the Middle East, and United States access to Middle East oil could be jeopardized.

September 24, 1946: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to the President to warn that the Soviet Union wishes to achieve complete economic, military and political domination in the Middle East. Toward this end, Clifford argues, they will encourage the emigration of Jews from Europe into Palestine and at the same time denounce British and American policies toward Palestine and inflame the Arabs against these policies.

October 4, 1946: On the eve of Yom Kippur, President Truman issues a statement indicating United States support for the creation of a “viable Jewish state.”

October 23, 1946: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, warns that the immigration of Jewish Communists into Palestine will increase Soviet influence there.

October 28, 1946: President Truman writes to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, informing the king that he believes “that a national home for the Jewish people should be established in Palestine.”

1947-48: The White House receives 48,600 telegrams, 790,575 cards, and 81,200 other pieces of mail on the subject of Palestine.

February 7, 1947: The British government announces that it will terminate its mandate for Palestine.

February 14, 1947: The British government announces that it will refer the problem of the future of Palestine to the United Nations.

April 2, 1947: The British Government submits to the General Assembly of the United Nations an account of its administration of Palestine under the League of Nations mandate, and asks the General Assembly to make recommendations regarding the future government of Palestine.

May 13, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly appoints an eleven nation Special Committee on Palestine to study the Palestine problem and report by September 1947.

August 31, 1947: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine issues its report, which recommends unanimously (all 11 member states voting in favor) that Great Britain terminate their mandate for Palestine and grant it independence at the earliest possible date; and which also recommends by majority vote (7 of the member nations voting in favor) that Palestine be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states.

September 17, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall, in an address to the United Nations, indicates that the United States is reluctant to endorse the partition of Palestine.

September 22, 1947: Loy Henderson, director the State Department’s Near East Agency, addresses a memorandum to Secretary of State George Marshall in which he argues against United States’ advocacy of the United Nations proposal to partition Palestine.

October 10, 1947: The Joint Chiefs of Staff argue in a memorandum entitled “The Problem of Palestine” that the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states would enable the Soviet Union to replace the United States and Great Britain in the region and would endanger United States access to Middle East oil.

October 11, 1947: Herschel Johnson, United States deputy representative on the United Nations Security Council, announces United States support for the partition plan of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

October 17, 1947: President Truman writes to Senator Claude Pepper: “I received about 35,000 pieces of mail and propaganda from the Jews in this country while this matter [the issue of the partition of Palestine, which was being considered by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine from May 13, 1947 to August 31, 1947] was pending. I put it all in a pile and struck a match to it — I never looked at a single one of the letters because I felt the United Nations Committee [United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] was acting in a judicial capacity and should not be interfered with.”

Ca. November 1947: A subcommittee of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine establishes a timetable for British withdrawal from Palestine.

November 19, 1947: Chaim Weizmann meets with President Truman and argues that the Negev region has great importance to the future Jewish state.

November 24, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall writes to Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett to inform him that British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had told him that British intelligence indicated that Jewish groups moving illegally from the Balkan states to Palestine included many Communists.

November 29, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly approves the partition plan for Palestine put forward by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition divided the area into three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone around Jerusalem.

December 2, 1947: President Truman writes to former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., encouraging him to tell his Jewish friends that it is time for restraint and caution. “The vote in the U.N.,” Truman wrote, “is only the beginning and the Jews must now display tolerance and consideration for the other people in Palestine with whom they will necessarily have to be neighbors.”

December 5, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the State Department is imposing an embargo on all shipments of arms to the Middle East.

December 12, 1947: President Truman writes to Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, that it is essential that restraint and tolerance be exercised by all parties if a peaceful settlement is to be reached in the Middle East.

February 4, 1948: Chaim Wiezmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, arrives in New York.

February 12, 1948: Secretary of Defense James Forrestal says at a meeting of the National Security Council that any serious attempt to implement partition in Palestine would set in motion events that would result in at least a partial mobilization of United States armed forces.

February 19, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall says at a press conference, when asked if the United States would continue to support partition, that the “whole Palestine thing,” was under “constant consideration.”

February 21, 1948: Eddie Jacobson, a longtime and close personal friend of President Truman, sends atelegram to Truman, asking him to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

February 22, 1948: President Truman instructs Secretary of State George Marshall that while he approves in principle a draft prepared by the State Department of a position paper which mentions as a possible contingency a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine, he does not want anything presented to the United Nations Security Council that could be interpreted as a change from the position in favor of partition that the United States announced in the General Assembly on November 29, 1947. He further instructs Marshall to send him for review the final draft of the remarks that Warren Austin, the United States representative to the United Nations, is to give before the Security Council on March 19, 1948.

February 27, 1948: President Truman writes to his friend Eddie Jacobson, refusing to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

March 8, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to President Truman, in a memorandum entitled “United States Policy with Regard to Palestine,” that Truman’s actions in support of partition are “in complete conformity with the settled policy of the United States.”

March 9, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall instructs Warren Austin, United States representative to the United Nations, that if a United Nations special assembly on Palestine were convened, the United States would support a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine.

March 12, 1948: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine reports that “present indications point to the inescapable conclusion that when the [British] mandate is terminated, Palestine is likely to suffer severely from administrative chaos and widespread strife and bloodshed.”

March 13, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson walks into the White House without an appointment and pleads with Truman to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman responds: “You win, you baldheaded son-of-a-bitch. I will see him.”

March 18, 1948: President Truman meets with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman says he wishes to see justice done in Palestine without bloodshed, and that if the Jewish state were declared and the United Nations remained stalled in its attempt to establish a temporary trusteeship over Palestine, the United States would recognize the new state immediately.

March 18, 1948: The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine reports to the United Nations Security Council that it has failed to arrange any compromise between Jews and Arabs, and it recommends that the United Nations undertake a temporary trusteeship for Palestine in order to restore peace.

March 19, 1948: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin announces to the United Nations Security Council that the United States position is that the partition of Palestine is no longer a viable option.

March 20, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the United States will seek to work within the United Nations to bring a peaceful settlement to Palestine, and that the proposal for a temporary United Nations trusteeship for Palestine is the only idea presently being considered that will allow the United Nations to address the difficult situation in Palestine.

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes in his diary regarding the confusion caused by the State Department’s handling of the trusteeship issue: “I spend the day trying to right what has happened. No luck. Marshall makes a statement. Doesn’t help a bit.”

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes to his sister Mary Jane Truman that the “striped pants conspirators” in the State Department had “completely balled up the Palestine situation.” But, he writes, “it may work out anyway in spite of them.”

March 22, 1948: President Truman writes to his brother Vivian Truman regarding Palestine: “I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”

March 25, 1948: President Truman says at a press conference that a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine would be only a temporary measure, intended to establish the peaceful conditions that would be the essential foundation for a final political settlement. He says that trusteeship is not a substitute for partition.

April 11, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson enters the White House unnoticed by the East Gate and meets with Truman. Jacobson recorded of this meeting: “He reaffirmed, very strongly, the promises he had made to Dr. Weizmann and to me; and he gave me permission to tell Dr. Weizmann so, which I did. It was at this meeting that I also discussed with the President the vital matter of recognizing the new state, and to this he agreed with a whole heart.”

May 12, 1948: President Truman meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State George Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett, Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and several others to discuss the Palestine situation. Clifford argues in favor of recognizing the new Jewish state in accordance with the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947. Marshall opposes Clifford’s arguments, and contends they are based on domestic political considerations. He says that if Truman follows Clifford’s advice and recognizes the Jewish state, then he (Marshall) would vote against Truman in the election. Truman does not clearly state his views in the meeting.

May 12, 13, and 14, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett discuss the different views held in the White House and the State Department regarding whether the United States should recognize the Jewish state. Lovett reports to Clifford on May 14 that Marshall will neither support nor oppose Truman’s plan to recognize the Jewish state, that he will stay out of the entire matter.

May 13, 1948: Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, writes to President Truman: “I deeply hope that the United States, which under your leadership has done so much to find a just solution [to the Palestine situation], will promptly recognize the Provisional Government of the new Jewish state. The world, I think, would regard it as especially appropriate that the greatest living democracy should be the first to welcome the newest into the family of nations.”

May 14, 1948: late morning eastern standard time (late afternoon in Palestine): David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, reads a “Declaration of Independence,” which proclaims the existence of a Jewish state called Israel beginning on May 15, 1948, at 12:00 midnight Palestine time (6:00 p.m., May 14, 1948,eastern standard time).

May 14, 1948, 6 p.m. eastern standard time (12:00 midnight in Palestine): The British mandate for Palestine expires, and the state of Israel comes into being.

May 14, 1948, 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: The United States recognizes Israel on a de facto basis. The White House issues the following statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.” To see a color copy of this document click here.

May 14, 1948, shortly after 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin leaves his office at the United Nations and goes home. Secretary of State Marshall sends a State Department official to the United Nations to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning.

May 15, 1948: On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq attack Israel.

January 25, 1949: A permanent government takes office in Israel following popular elections.

January 31, 1949: The United States recognizes Israel on a de jure basis.

February 24 to July 20, 1949: Israel signs armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.