Dice el regimen que vigilará financiamiento al terrorismo y lavado de dinero

se vigilaran ellos mismos?

------------------------

martinoticias

El Banco Central de Cuba (BCC) puso en vigor un conjunto de medidas, publicadas este sábado por la Gaceta Oficial, para detectar lavado de dinero, financiamiento al terrorismo y movimientos de capitales ilícitos.

Se trata de las "Normas generales para la detección y prevención de operaciones en el enfrentamiento al lavado de activos, al financiamiento al terrorismo y movimiento de capitales ilícitos", que aparecen firmadas por Ernesto Medina, Ministro-Presidente del BCC.

Esas normas se aplicarán a "las instituciones financieras constituidas con arreglo a las leyes cubanas o extranjeras, cuyas funciones autorizadas en el territorio nacional sean proveer cualquier servicio de intermediación financiera, incluidas las operaciones de fideicomiso, de remesas y de cambio de moneda extranjera".

Señala que "la estrategia de gestión de riesgos de lavado de activos, el financiamiento al terrorismo y a la proliferación de armas se aplicará a todas las oficinas, filiales y sucursales de cada institución financiera".

Según la legislación de 25 artículos, "los integrantes del Sistema Bancario Nacional (que recibirán capacitación adicional) establecerán el nivel de vigilancia, cautela y control de las transacciones financieras que realicen, a fin de evitar que puedan ser utilizados o involucrados en la realización de operaciones con recursos de procedencia ilícita, o para financiar el terrorismo y la proliferación de armas".

En determinados casos, las instituciones financieras identificarán a los usuarios y verificarán la autenticidad de los datos y documentos presentados para su radicación y operaciones en la isla caribeña.

También las instituciones financieras cubanas podrán aplicar "medidas intensificadas" de control para obtener información adicional sobre el cliente, actualizar su identificación y el carácter o finalidad de la relación comercial, entre otras.

Once instituciones bancarias extranjeras están acreditas en la isla, según el sitio en internet del BCC. (bc.gov.cu).

Ellas son: Havin Bank Ltd, National Bank of Canada, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Banco Sabadell S.A, Société Généralé, Fransabank Sal, Caja de Ahorro y Monte de Piedad de Madrid, Banco Nacional de París BNP, Caja de Ahorro del Mediterráneo y BPCE Iinternational et Outre-Mer (BPCE-IOM).

La apertura a la inversión extranjera desde la década del 90 expone a la isla a que se sucedan esos delitos, como el caso del empresario francés Jean-Louis Autret, que fue condenado en agosto de 2011 a 15 años de prisión, bajo cargos de lavado de dinero, ligados con el narcotráfico y el fraude fiscal.

Estados Unidos, que mantiene a Cuba desde 1982 en la lista de países que apoyan el terrorismo, señaló en su informe publicado el mes pasado sobre el terrorismo en el mundo en 2012 que el Grupo de Acción Financiera Internacional (GAFI) había identificado deficiencias estratégicas en la gestión cubana contra el lavado de dinero y la lucha contra el financiamiento del terrorismo.

El reporte tomaba nota de que, en 2012, Cuba se convirtió en miembro del Grupo de Acción Financiera de Sudamérica contra el Lavado de Dinero, organismo regional al estilo del GAFI, un paso mediante el cual La Habana se comprometía a adoptar y aplicar las Recomendaciones del GAFI.

VIA Rail terror suspect wants a lawyer who will ensure he is judged by the “holy book” — not the Criminal Code

Toronto Sun

TORONTO - One of the men accused in the VIA Rail terror plot wants a lawyer who will ensure he is judged by the “holy book” — not the Criminal Code.

Dressed in orange and donning glasses, a bearded Chiheb Esseghaier appeared in court via video Monday morning.

The court heard that his Legal Aid application is still pending and a lawyer refused to represent Esseghaier because of his conditions.

The 30-year-old Montreal resident interrupted by saying “excuse me” three times to clarify.

“It was not me who refused,” Esseghaier said. “The last lawyer, he wrote and signed a piece of paper (that) he cannot change the reference of my judgement from Criminal Code to holy Qur’an.”

He has also not yet received disclosure about his case.

During his last two court appearances, Esseghaier did not hesitate to speak out against Canada’s Criminal Code.

“I don’t want (a) book written by humans,” he said in court on May 23.

After the RCMP arrested them in April, Esseghaier and his co-accused, Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, were charged with conspiring to murder unknown persons, aiding a terror group, and interfering with transportation facilities for a terror group. Esseghaier was additionally charged with instructing someone to take part in a terror group between Sept. 7 and Dec. 20, 2012.

He is scheduled to appear in Brampton court on June 10 in relation to an application by various media outlets to unseal search warrants.

His next Toronto appearance is via video in Old City Hall court at 11 a.m. on June 25.

State Department: Havana Provides Safe Haven to US Fugitives

cubaconfidential

By Juan O. Tamayo, jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuba is harboring and supporting U.S. fugitives but may be trying to distance itself from two dozen members of a Basque terrorist group who live on the island, according to the State Department’s annual Country Report on Terrorism released Thursday.

The report for 2012 is totally separate from the department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, which now includes Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan and subjects those nations to a special set of U.S. economic and other sanctions.

Advocates of keeping or removing Cuba from the list awaited the 2012 report with special interest because of media reports earlier this year, flatly denied by the State Department, that Secretary of State John Kerry would take Havana off the list.

The Cuba section of the 2012 report appeared to be similar to the section in 2011, with both noting that Havana authorities are continuing to harbor fugitives wanted in the United States and supporting them with housing, ration books and medical care.

One such fugitive is Joanne Chesimard, on the FBI’s “most wanted terrorist” list since 2005. A Black Panther who was convicted in the 1973 murder of New Jersey State Trooper, she escaped from prison in 1979 and turned up in Havana in 1984. The FBI hiked the reward offered for her capture to $2 million in April.

“There was no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups,” the 2012 report said, in wording almost exactly the same as in the 2011 report.

Both reports also noted “suggestions” that Havana has tried to distance itself from members of Spain’s Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA), classified by Washington as a terrorist group, who live in Cuba by “not providing services, including travel documents, to some of them.”

The 2012 version adds that two dozen ETA members are living in Cuba.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also classified as a terror group, received refuge in Cuba in past years, according to the latest version. The 2011 report noted that FARC members had received medical assistance. The FARC and Colombian government are currently holding peace talks in Havana.

Both reports also noted that the U.S. Financial Actions Task Force has identified Cuba as having “strategic … deficiencies” in the fight against terrorism financing and money laundering. The latest report adds that Cuba has now joined a regional body designed for that purpose.

Cuba has been on the separate U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1982. Havana also is on a separate U.S. government list, with Venezuela and others, of countries that are not “cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts.”

To remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors, the White House is required to notify the U.S. Congress that Cuba has not engaged in terrorism for some time and promised not to do so again.

Islamic Terrorism: Why Is It So Hard For Liberals to Just Say It?

Pajamasmedia

French Soldier Stabbed in Throat Outside Paris

breitbart

(AP) - A French soldier was stabbed in the throat in a busy commercial district outside Paris on Saturday, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.

President Francois Hollande said the identity of the attacker was unknown and cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the assault on the uniformed soldier in the La Defense shopping area. The life of the 23-year-old soldier was not in danger, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The stabbing follows the slaying Wednesday of a British soldier, who was brutally stabbed on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes.

"There could be a link, but we will look at all the elements," Hollande said during a news conference in Ethiopia, where he was traveling.

The British soldier, 25-year-old Lee Rigby, was attacked while walking outside the Royal Artillery Barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The gruesome scene was recorded on witnesses' cellphones, and a video has emerged in which one of the two suspects -- his hands bloodied -- boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, the suspects waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to witnesses.

In the video, one of the suspects declared, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you ... We must fight them as they fight us."

Two Muslim hard-liners have identified that suspect as Michael Adebolajo, a Christian who converted to Islam and attended several London demonstrations organized by banned British radical group al-Muhajiroun.

Obama reframes counterterrorism policy with new rules on drones

nbcpolitics

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

In a major address Thursday President Barack Obama sought to reframe the nation’s counterterrorism strategy, saying, “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands.”

He said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, “We must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."

In an attempt to define a new post-Sept. 11 era, Obama outlined new guidelines for the use of drones to kill terrorists overseas and pledged a

President Barack Obama discusses civilian casualties resulting from U.S. drone strikes while speaking Thursday at the National Defense University

renewed effort to close the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay.  In the speech, Obama argued that, “In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States.” He warned that “unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.”

With efforts under way in Congress to redefine the 2001 authorization to use military force (AUMF) against al Qaida, Obama said he would work with Congress “in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

Toward the end of Obama’s address as he discussed the Guantanamo detainees, he was repeatedly interrupted by heckling from Medea Benjamin, founder of the antiwar Code Pink, whose members have frequently been arrested for disrupting hearings on Capitol Hill – but Obama patiently said that Benjamin’s concerns are “something to be passionate about.”

“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror,” he declared. 

As part of his redefinition of counterterrorism, the president announced several initiatives:

• Setting narrower parameters for the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill terrorists overseas and to limit collateral casualties;
• Renewing efforts to persuade Congress to agree to close the Guantanamo detention site in Cuba where 110 terrorist suspects are being held;
• Appointing a new envoy at the State Department and an official at the Defense Department who will attempt to negotiate transfers of Guantanamo detainees to other countries. 
• Lifting the moratorium he imposed in 2010 on transferring some detainees at Guantanamo to Yemen. Obama imposed that moratorium after it was revealed that Detroit “underwear bomber” Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab was trained in Yemen.

Obama argued that when compared to the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers, “the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda's affiliates in the

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington.

Arabian Peninsula – AQAP – the most active in plotting against our homeland. While none of AQAP's efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.”

So he said, “As we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”

He said that the current threat is often from “deranged or alienated individuals – often U.S. citizens or legal residents – (who) can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”

In discussing his drone strategy he indicated his remorse over the innocent people who had been killed: “it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars. For the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

There remains considerable doubt about Obama’s ability to persuade a majority in Congress to change the current law on releasing detainees held there.

The defense spending bill which Obama signed into law last year prohibits any transfers to the United States of any detainee at Guantanamo who was held there on or before Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama became president.

And the law sets a very high legal bar for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to transfer a detainee to his country of origin, or to any other foreign country.

Hagel would need to certify to Congress that the detainee will not be transferred to a country that is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. The country must have agreed to take steps to ensure that the detainee cannot take action to threaten the United States, U.S. citizens, or its allies in the future.

The law allows Hagel to use waivers in some cases to transfer detainees.

Speaking a day before Obama’s speech, Ben Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of the Lawfare blog which covers detainee news, said, “I don’t see any significant change in congressional sentiment right now” on closing the Guantanamo site.

“He’s got a lot of domestic pressure from his base to be seen to be doing something and he’s also got a hunger strike there (at Guantanamo) — and I think there’s a lot of genuine sentiment in the administration that they want to do something (about Guantanamo) so they’re committed to another push and trying again – but the question of what they actually could get done is a difficult question. There’s very limited latitude.”

Man with ties to Boston bombing suspects shot during FBI questioning

U.S. News

By Richard Esposito and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News

A man with ties to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was shot and killed while being questioned by the FBI in Florida, the agency said on Wednesday.

The man who was shot, Ibragim Todashev, had been interviewed about his connections to the bombing suspects before by the FBI and started out cooperative, NBC sources said.

The suspect then went to attack the agent and was shot, the sources said.

The suspect is deceased, the FBI said.

“We are currently responding to a shooting incident involving an FBI special agent,” FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier said in a statement to NBC News.

“The incident occurred in Orlando, Florida. The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties,” Couvertier said. “We do not have any further details at this time. We expect to have more information later this morning.”

Uzbek Immigrant Arrested For Teaching Bomb-Making To Terrorists

Report: Al Qaeda-linked militants planned attack on US Embassy in Egypt

worldnews

By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

An al Qaeda-linked cell disrupted in Egypt was planning suicide attacks on the French and U.S. embassies, the state news agency MENA reported, according to Reuters.

In light of this news and last week’s stabbing of a U.S. citizen on the embassy’s perimeter, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo alerted U.S. citizens to exercise “elevated awareness.”

“The knife attack on the Embassy's perimeter, along with weekend media reports acknowledging that Egyptian authorities have disrupted a terror cell possibly targeting Egyptian and Western interests, serve as yet another reminder of the need to exercise good situational awareness,” read a statement from the embassy, which was obtained by NBC News. 

According to Reuters, authorities announced Saturday they had captured three Egyptians with al Qaeda links, saying they had been found in possession of 22 pounds of explosive materials.

"The investigations revealed that the suspects were intending to carry out terrorist bomb operations inside Egypt via suicide operations, penetrating the security cordon in front of the American and French embassies with a car bomb," MENA said, citing a source in the state security prosecutor's office, according to Reuters.

MENA said the suspects had escaped from prison in 2011, during the revolts that removed Hosni Mubarak from power.

White House releases additional documents related to Benghazi response

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on firstread >>

Man with altered Saudi passport arrested with pressure cooker at Detroit airport

usnews

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

A man traveling with an altered Saudi Arabian passport was in federal court Monday after a pressure cooker was discovered in his luggage at the Detroit airport over the weekend.

The man, identified in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court as Hussain Al Kwawahir, made his initial court appearance Monday on charges of altering a passport and lying to customs officials.

Two pressure cooker bombs were used in the attacks that killed three people and injured more than 250 others last month at the Boston Marathon.

Al Kwawahir, 33, wasn't charged with any terrorism-related offenses, however, and U.S. officials told NBC News they were handling the incident as simply a documents case.

The incident occurred Saturday at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Mich., authorities said. When customs officials noticed that a page had been removed from Al Kwawahir's passport, they examined his luggage and found the pressure cooker, the complaint said.

Al Kwawahir, who was flying into Detroit from Amsterdam, told agents he didn't know how or why the page had been removed.

Al Kwawahir first explained the pressure cooker by saying he'd bought it as a gift for his nephew, who he said was a student at the University of Toledo in Ohio, believing they weren't sold in the U.S. He then changed his story, saying his nephew had managed to buy a pressure cooker in the U.S. but that it had broken.

The complaint didn't explain why the nephew needed someone to fly into the country with a pressure cooker, but the U.S. officials told NBC News that federal agents tracked him down and said he does, indeed, cook with one. 

The Associated Press quoted the young man, Nasser Almarzooq, as saying he'd asked his uncle to bring him the pressure cooker because he wanted to cook lamb and the cookers he bought in the U.S. didn't work.

IMMINENT: Terrorist super-axis to strike within U.S.

wnd

Reza Kahlili

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.

A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials and to a

Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei/  www.spiran.com

congressional intelligence committee.

Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.

If only one of the attacks occurs, the regime will consider the operation a success, the source said. Tehran believes, he said, an attack would not be traced back to Iran due to the nationalities of the operators.

One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days. India alleges Pakistan used proxies to carry out the Mumbai attack so it wouldn’t be traced back to Pakistan, just as Iran now is using proxies to hide its current terrorism. The information provided by the source provides details of a new jihadist coalition with a focus on creating instability in the U.S.

The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence questioned and a sense of security diminished. There has yet to be any link to a specific group or country.

As WND reported exclusively April 22, the regime’s Quds Forces have done extensive planning on gatherings, events and high-value targets in the U.S., but for two years have focused on events such as the Boston Marathon. The Quds Forces run an extensive network of terrorists out of South Asia.

A Feb. 14, 2010, meeting in Iran either set up the new jihadist coalition or continued the coalition among the Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida. The latter coalition was formed years ago by Imad Mugniyeh, the dead mastermind terrorist from Hezbollah, under the direction of Ahmad Vahidi, then the head of the Quds Forces and the current Iranian defense minister, to collaborate on their fight against the U.S.

At the 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces; Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah; devised a plan for operations against the U.S. under a new coalition, dubbed the “Coalition of Muslim Soldiers.” The coalition includes al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman. Command and control centers are located in the Iranian provinces of Kerman, Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchistan, the source said.

The coalition, led by Soleimani, with Iran the main source of funding, is based on a strategic collaboration and devoid of ideological differences and opinions of Shiite and Sunni Marjas. The main operational commanders, mostly well-known terrorists, are:

1. Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2. Brig. Gen. Abdolreza Shahlabi of the Quds Forces.
3. Brig. Gen. Hamed Abdollahi of the Quds Forces.
4. Brig. Gen. Hossein Movahedian of the Quds Forces.
5. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr of the Quds Forces.
6. Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida.
7. Abdol Rahman Yasin of al-Qaida operations.
8. Abu Saeed al-Mesri of al-Qaida in Latin America.
9. Adnan ShokriJuma of al-Qaida in America.
10. Hakimalah Masoud of al-Qaida operations.
11. Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operations head of Hezbollah and the brother-in-law and cousin of the dead terrorist Imad Mugniyah, who now serves as Mugnyiah’s replacement as the military leader of Hezbollah and the deputy to the Quds’ Soliemani.
12. Talal Hamieh, the head of the External Security Organization, strategic planning and funding for Hezbollah in Venezuela. He commutes directly from Venezuela to Damascus, Syria, then to Lebanon and back.
13. Fozi Mohammad Mostafa of Hezbollah operations.
14. Mohammad Ali Hamdi of Hezbollah operations in Toronto, Canada. He targets nuclear power plants and other sites in Canada.
15. Ebrahim Saleh Mohammad al-Yaghoub of Hezbollah operations.
16. Mohammad Ahmad al-Monavar, the operations commander for Abu Nidal.
17. Jahad Servan Mostafa, the operations commander for al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Based on intelligence and infiltration by Western intelligence agencies into institutions, operations and cultural centers of radical Arab Islamists after 9/11, the new coalition recruits non-Arab Islamists from many other nationalities and Arabs from countries not on the hot list for American agencies.

Iran believes that the perception of security in America that has helped empower its actions in the Middle East must be turned 180 degrees, not only to defeat and derail all U.S. calculations based on gathered intelligence but to destabilize the political, economic and social conditions in America, the source said.

Based on that understanding, he said, the U.S. through its military might has kept the fight in the Islamic region and away from its homeland and its allies’ turf. Now continuous operations must be conducted in the U.S. homeland to change that equation, they believe.

More than 2,600 targets, including public places, government buildings and military installations, have been chosen for attack, and reconnaissance has been done. Information about some of the targets, based on direct knowledge of the source, has been given to U.S. officials to neutralize the threat and confront the terrorists. They include specific government buildings, news networks, malls and sports events.

This new coalition has also prepared for a major attack to avenge al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden’s killing to satisfy Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida, for his collaboration with the Iranian regime.

The radical regime ruling Iran has set up several channels for financial support of the new coalition with its terrorist activities. Multiple commerce, cultural and financial institutions in the U.S. are part of that network. The connection includes individuals running businesses in Damascus and its connections to al-Qaida operatives in America.

Since 2001, more than $270 million has been invested in the expansion of mosques and Islamic centers in America by institutions in the Iranian city of Qom. As part of the coalition’s plan, some 27 mosques and Islamic centers in America are their target for collaboration, infiltration and recruitment of sympathizers for various missions, including reconnaissance and terrorist acts.

The source said the new coalition, due to its composition of different people in Central Asia, is a very complex organization.

The publication of a limited version of the full report is an intention to put the Islamic regime on notice that should it go ahead with its planned attacks in the U.S. homeland, it will be held responsible, the source said.

“El Chacal”acusa de traidor al gobierno venezolano por dejarlo sin fondos

euronews

Sin defensa. El terrorista venezolano Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, más conocido como “Carlos” o “el Chacal”, ha prohibido a sus abogados que le representen en el juicio de apelación abierto este lunes en París por una de las dos cadenas perpetuas que cumple en cárceles francesas por crímenes perpetrados en ese país. El proceso ha despertado una gran expectación.

Françoise Rudetzki, de la asociación SOS atentados, afirma que no espera nada de Carlos”. Simplemente que respete un poco más a las víctimas, algo que no hizo en primera instancia, cuando las llamó daños colaterales. Espero que haya madurado, que no las desprecie y que las respete como nosotros respetamos los derechos de la defensa”.

Carlos ha prescindido de sus abogados y solicitado uno de oficio tras dejar de recibir apoyo económico del Gobierno de Venezuela. El juicio de apelación corresponde a la cadena perpetua impuesta hace dos años por cuatro atentados perpetrados a principios de los años ochenta que dejaron 11 muertos y casi 150 heridos.

Benghazi: If Only Charles Ramsey Were Secretary of State, Not Hillary Clinton

Pajamasmedia

Security concerns after 500 pounds of still-missing explosives stolen from federal bunker

Fox News

Around the same time the nation was transfixed on the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers last month, thieves on the other side of the country pulled off a little-noticed heist -- swiping 559 pounds of explosives from a federal storage facility in Montana.
As of Friday, not one ounce of it has been found.
The incident, federal officials believe, was not terrorism-related. But it's the latest to raise security concerns in an age when authorities are warning about the desire of violence-bent terrorists to inflict mass casualties with bombs.
Rep. Steve Daines, Montana's only congressman, told FoxNews.com he's "deeply concerned" about the theft in his state and will be "closely monitoring" the investigation.
The explosives were stolen from a locked U.S. Forest Service bunker near Billings. Thieves took off with various emulsion-type explosives, cast boosters and detonating cord.
Federal officials weren't able to point to why the explosives were taken and have downplayed what could happen if they fall into the wrong hands. Some in the area -- who did not want to be named publicly -- believe the facility might have been looted by local miners or by private forestry-related companies that want to bypass buying the explosives legally.

The types of items that were taken are often used in mines, to clear rockslides and construction trails, and to blow up animal carcasses. Strapping sticks of dynamite to a dead animal is a common method used in the region to dispose of the bodies. When animals -- like elk or horses -- start decomposing, the scent attracts bigger animals like bears to populated areas.
Carbon County Sheriff Thomas Rieger told FoxNews.com his office is working with federal authorities to find the culprit but admits it's disturbing to think that someone walked off with hundreds of pounds of bomb-making material.
"We still don't have any idea who done it," Rieger said, adding, "It's under a full investigation."
Daines, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said he's looking into the investigation and it's "critical that the USFS, ATF and local law enforcement find answers about how the security of this site was breached and work to strengthen the security measures for these storage sites to ensure that a theft like this does not happen again."
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Brad Beyersdorf said the agency is offering a $5,000 reward for information on the incident. Stealing explosives and possession of stolen explosives is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. To date, there have been no arrests made in connection to the case, though the Billings Gazette reports that the ATF is chasing some recent leads.
While Beyersdorf stressed that security at ATF-affiliated facilities in the country is tight, there have been an alarming amount of explosives lost from private sites over the past decade.
On Aug. 11, 2011, Travis McQueen broke into storage units at the Buckley Powder Company in Cass County, Neb., and stole 100 pounds of blasting agents, two cases of boosters and 3,000 feet of detonating cord. Authorities in the eastern Nebraska area put up flyers asking residents for help in cracking the case. An anonymous caller led federal agents to McQueen. Soon thereafter, authorities arrested Christopher Bousman in connection to the crime.
According to court records, McQueen stole the explosives and asked Bousman to help get rid of them. The two dumped the bulk of the stolen property into the Missouri and Platte rivers. McQueen was sentenced to 63 months in prison. On Monday, an Omaha federal judge sentenced Bousman to 18 months behind bars followed by three years of supervised release, Criminal Chief Jan Sharp told FoxNews.com.
Not much of the blasting agent was recovered after it was thrown into the river, Sharp said. The incident is the only sizeable theft of this nature in Nebraska.
In 2005, massive amounts of stolen explosives were also found after they went missing from the Cherry Engineering storage site near Albuquerque, N.M. ATF agents recovered 150 pounds of C-4 explosives, 250 pounds of sheet explosives, 20,000 feet of detonator cord and 2,500 blasting caps.
Federal authorities at the time said they didn't know what the thieves planned to do with the material but did say the amount that went missing was enough to flatten a large building. Most of the explosives eventually turned up in Bloomfield and Ignacio.
The problem of stolen dynamite isn't just a domestic one.
Missing explosives and other weapons made in the U.S. or under the guard of U.S. security forces, have mysteriously disappeared from multiple locations across the world -- most recently in Kuwait. The Interior Ministry said last month thieves broke into an unguarded warehouse and took 20,000 U.S.-origin M-16 assault rifles. Also lifted were 15,000 rounds of ammunition for 9mm pistols. According to Middle East Newsline, thieves broke down three doors before clearing out all the contents in the warehouse.  

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/10/500-pounds-still-missing-explosives-highlights-federal-security-flaws/#ixzz2SuB0B9Ac

Is This The Reasion Why The White House Will Not Release The Benghazi Emails?

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Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones told Libya's president one day after the Benghazi attack that Islamic terrorists had killed the U.S. Ambassador and reduced the compound to a burnt-out shell

Secret Email Reveals Top Official Told Libya's U.S. Abmassador That Terrorists Were Behind Benghazi Attack - Four Days BEFORE U.S. Ambassador To UN Said It Was A Spontaneous Attack -- Daily Mail

Sept. 11: Terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya
Sept. 12: State Dept. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs tells Libya's President that Ansar al-Sharia was responsible
Sept. 13: CIA writes candid talking points for members of Congress
Sept. 15: White House deputies edit the talking points, removing all references to Islamic terrorism
Sept. 16: UN Ambassador Susan Rice, in five television interviews, blames the attack on a spontaneous mob angered by an anti-Islam YouTube video

A top State Department appointee told Libya's ambassador to the United States one day after the military-style assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that the terror group Ansar al-Shariah was responsible.

But four days later, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said on television that it was the product of a spontaneous protest.

During a fiery and emotional congressional hearing on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy read aloud from an email dated Sept. 12, 2012 to senior State Department officers, from Elizabeth Jones, the acting Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

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Boehner calls for release of Benghazi emails as pressure grows on administration

Fox News

Pressure on the Obama administration to release more information about the Benghazi attack grew Thursday, as House Speaker John Boehner demanded officials turn over emails pertaining to the controversial "talking points" and another top Republican appealed for more whistle-blowers to come forward.
On the heels of a dramatic hearing where three whistle-blowers testified, Fox News has learned that former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, on the Hill for a meeting with House Republicans, also told lawmakers: "I think Hillary (Clinton) should be subpoenaed if necessary."
The comments and developments signal that Republicans will continue to press for answers on the deadly Sept. 11 attack. Despite arguments from Democrats that the hearing was not nearly as shocking as Republicans made it out to be, GOP lawmakers said it raised troubling questions that need to be investigated.
"The truth shouldn't be hidden from the American people behind a White House firewall," Boehner said Thursday. "Four Americans lost their lives in this terrorist attack. Congress will continue to investigate this issue, using all of the resources at our disposal."
Boehner specifically urged the Obama administration to make public a set of internal emails that some lawmakers had been able to review but not keep.
One of the emails apparently showed a top State Department official saying a group affiliated with Islamic terrorists was responsible for the strike. Separate emails, though, allegedly depict the White House and State Department pressing lower-level officials to remove references to terrorism in talking points about the attacks.
Based on those talking points, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would go on five Sunday talk shows shortly after the attacks to claim they were triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film. Top officials would later claim the flawed assessment was based on the best intelligence at the time, but the testimony from whistle-blowers Wednesday indicated that those on the ground knew the attack was terrorism.
"The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya," Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Libya, testified Wednesday.
After the hearing, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he will continue to seek whistle-blowers to "come forward."
"Candidly, as quickly as possible, we simply want to have the whistleblowers that are still out there, in fact witnesses that are still out there to come forward, tell us their story. We will get it out and we will close up this investigation," he told Fox News.
Issa, R-Calif., is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held the hearing.
The wide-ranging and dramatic testimony Wednesday raised several fresh questions about the attack. Witnesses questioned why security had not been tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the assault and why U.S. military assets did not respond sooner that night, with one alleging a military team was not given permission to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi the next morning.
Further, they raised serious concerns about the administration's initial decision to describe the attack as a protest gone awry despite evidence on the ground to the contrary.
In startling testimony, Hicks also claimed the State Department retaliated against him after he raised questions about that decision. He claimed that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones delivered a "blistering critique" of his management style after he criticized Rice's initial claim that the attack was tied to anger over an anti-Islam film. He also claimed that he was counseled to avoid personally discussing the attack with Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and was "effectively demoted" to a desk officer in the end.
Issa, in a written statement after Wednesday's hearing, called the alleged retaliation and intimidation "perhaps most troubling."
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the committee, vowed to protect the whistle-blowers while criticizing his Republican colleagues for allegedly trying to politicize the tragedy. He claimed afterward that the testimony only served to undercut Republican allegations.
"What should have been a bipartisan investigation involving our national security was another sorry example of Republicans promising explosive new facts but delivering only a press spectacle," he said in a statement.
The committee may move to hear testimony next from at least one leader of the State Department's internal review of the Benghazi attack. Though the leaders, former Joints Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, apparently declined to testify, Pickering told MSNBC on Wednesday that he is willing to speak.
Issa spokesman Frederick Hill on Thursday noted the "change of heart" -- but also said neither Pickering nor the administration has contacted the committee about possible testimony.
Several claims from Wednesday's hearing could open up new lines of inquiry on the attack and its aftermath. Among them, Hicks claimed that Rice's faulty claims about the nature of the attack hurt the FBI investigation.
Hicks argued that Rice's comments so insulted the Libyan president -- since they contradicted his Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated -- that it slowed the FBI's investigation.
"President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced," Hicks said, adding that the president was apparently "still steamed" two weeks later.
This bad blood, he claimed, contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17-18 days.
"I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi," he said, adding that the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during that time.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/09/issa-seeks-more-whistle-blowers-after-dramatic-benghazi-hearing/#ixzz2Sp6u0oH4

Boston police chief says feds never shared warnings about bomber

Fox News

Boston and Massachusetts law enforcement officials confirmed Thursday that federal agents left them in the dark on the growing warning signs about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the run-up to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, in testimony on Capitol Hill, said his officers on a joint terrorism task force were never told about an explicit warning from the Russian government or about Tsarnaev's travel to the Chechnya region last year. Davis said he would have liked to have known about that activity, and that it "absolutely" would have merited a second look at Tsarnaev.
Davis and Massachusetts homeland security official Kurt Schwartz testified that their officers were not looped in on Tsarnaev until after the bombing.
"At no time prior to the bombings did any member of the Massachusetts State Police or the fusion center have any information or knowledge about the Tsarnaev brothers," Schwartz said.
Current and former lawmakers at the committee hearing Thursday expressed disbelief at the lack of information-sharing.
"The idea that the feds have this information and it's not shared with the state and locals defies why we create the Department of Homeland Security in the first place," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a witness at Thursday's hearing, called the failure to tell Boston police about the brothers "a serious and aggravating omission."
"This may be one of the most significant and painful takeaway lessons," he said.
Officials continue to question what warning signs were missed about the Tsarnaev brothers. Attention has been drawn to a 2011 warning from the Russian government to the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The FBI has revealed it was told Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" and was preparing to travel overseas. The FBI says it interviewed Tsarnaev and found no evidence of terrorist involvement.
Tsarnaev ended up traveling to Russia for six months in early 2012.
Even in the federal government, information may not have traveled across all relevant agencies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the government's internal system "pinged" when Tsarnaev left the country in 2012, though a Republican senator has said the FBI claimed they were not aware of that trip.
Davis said Thursday his department was not told of any of those developments, and repeatedly said he would have liked to know.
"We were not aware of Tamerlan's activities," he said. Davis said he can't say he would have reached a different conclusion than the FBI, but the developments would have prompted another look.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/09/boston-police-chief-says-feds-never-shared-warnings-about-bomber/#ixzz2Sp4VVs5X

Diplomats criticize Benghazi response in GOP-led probe

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Linkage Between Boston Marathon Bombers And Prominent Islamist In Russia

War News Updates

Magomed Kartashov/ world.time.com

Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is A Prominent Islamist -- Simon Shuster, Time

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

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