Chavez plans for terrorist regime: Venezuelan security officials say that President Hugo Chavez is plugging terrorist networks into the country's infrastructure, embracing jihadists and Castroites

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 7, 2003 | by Martin Arostegui

Chavez gave instructions to destroy records on 10 suspected Hezbollah fundraisers conducting suspicious financial transactions in the islands of Margarita, Aruba and Curacao, and the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia, according to Ferreira. The Venezuelan president also dissolved key military counterterrorist units by firing 16 highly experienced, U.S.-trained intelligence officers at the time of the terrorist plane attacks in New York City and Washington. Circulos Bolivarianos leader Lina Ron celebrated the event by burning an American flag in the center of Caracas.

Reports on the investigation rescued from Chavez's burn pile and showed to INSIGHT specify that two of the suspects sought by the FBI--Fathi Mohammed Awada [Venezuelan ID card No. V6282373] and Hussein Kassine Yassine [No. V6293922]--withdrew $400,000 from the branch of the Banco Confederado in Margarita before gong to Lebanon in December 2001. The report concludes that the individuals were "engaging in suspicious transactions which validate the suspicions of the U.S. government."

The money transfers never were recorded by Venezuela's national banking superintendent, a Chavez appointee. U.S. diplomatic sources in Caracas confirm that official inquiries through Venezuela's banking authorities have failed to reveal evidence on terrorist money laundering. "We've only consulted officials of the government," admits a U.S. economic officer.

Intelligence sources familiar with the cover-up say Chavez is withholding information on the Arabs, some of whom were important financial contributors to his presidential campaign. The report, withheld from the United States, also mentions Nasser Mohammed al-Din, described as a powerful entrepreneur and a close personal friend of Chavez, at whose home in Margarita the Venezuelan president stays on his frequent visits to the resort island, which is a favored venue for his private meetings with Castro. According to presidential pilot Maj. Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez and Castro get together two or three times a week.

Margarita Island appears to be the center of an extensive terrorist financial network stretching throughout the Caribbean to Panama and the Cayman Islands, where three Afghanis traveling on false Pakistani passports were caught entering from Cuba with $200,000 in cash in August 2001. According to British colonial authorities, efforts to launder the money through Cayman banks also involved a group of Arab businessmen.

Chavez's ties to international terrorism date back to the days of his bloody 1992 military rebellion against the government of Carlos Andres Perez in which nearly 100 people were killed. After being received with honors by Castro in Havana, Chavez proceeded to Tripoli and Baghdad. "He came back with a lot of money to form his Movimiento Revolucionario Venezolano [MRV] and run for president," says Col. Pedro Soto, a Chavez supporter at the time.

Chavez paid presidential state visits to Libya, Iraq and Iran in February 2001, signing cooperation agreements with Muammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Tehran's ruling mullahs. Castro visited Libya, Iran and Syria some months later. An MRV politician and close Chavez aide closely tied to the Circulos Bolivarianos, Freddy Bernal, was in Iraq last March. He got caught trying to move arms into Saudi Arabia by U.N. peacekeeping forces policing the border.