Report: Al-Nusra Front making chemical weapons in Syria

A report says the foreign-backed militants operating inside Syria have been making chemical weapons in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The weapons, which are made by an individual named Hani Nour Eldin Aqeel in a workshop in the city of Yabroud, are smuggled to the city of Douma in domestic gas capsules by women who have come to be referred to as Harayer al-Soura, the Arabic-language news website Asianewslb reported on Sunday.

Meanwhile, local reports also said that the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front has been running bomb-making workshops in Yabroud and transfer the explosives to the different areas of Syria, including the capital, as well as neighboring Lebanon.

The al-Nusra Front has been behind many of the deadly bombings targeting both civilians and government institutions across Syria.
The development comes as the United States is struggling to secure support for military action against Syria over the accusation that the Syrian government has used chemical weapon against its people.

The US Congress will officially start debating a US administration plan for war when lawmakers end their recess on September 9.

The recent war rhetoric against Syria first gained momentum on August 21, when the militants operating inside the Middle Eastern country and its foreign-backed opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation.

The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have warned against war.

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• Syrian Al-Qaeda offshoot al-Nusra Front produces Chemical Weapons (syrianews.cc)
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Texas (Austin): Yassine Brothers Funneled Money To Hezbollah

Owners of some of Austin’s most lucrative nightclubs were dealing in drugs, laundering the money through the clubs then funneling it to a family member with ties to a terrorist group in the Middle East, according to federal authorities.

During bond hearings in federal court in Austin Tuesday, an Internal Revenue Service investigator said Hussein “Mike” Ali Yassine and Mohammed “Steve Austin” Ali Yassine sent money in $2,500 increments to their uncle, Mohammed Ishmael in Lebanon.

Authorities say he is associated with Hezbollah, a militant group and political party in Lebanon.  The U.S. Department of State lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The Yassines, their brother, Hadi Ali Yassine and seven business associates were arrested last week on narcotics trafficking, money laundering and firearm charges.

Yassine Enterprises owns nine nightclubs — Pure, Stack, Fuel, Spill, Kiss & Fly, Hyde, Roial, Malaia and Treasure Island.  The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has temporarily shut down the clubs.

Tuesday Hussein Ali Yassine and Mohammed Ali Yassine were denied bond.  Four were granted bond — Hadi Yassine, Marisse “Madi” Marthe Ruales, Amar Thabet Araf and Sami Derder.  No decision has been made on bond requests for Nizar “Nino” Hakiki, Karim Faiq, Edgar Orsini and Alejandro Melendrez.

During three hours of testimony, Assistant U. S. Attorney Gregg Sofer questioned Randall Gillette, special agent with the U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency and James Neff, criminal investigator with the Internal Revenue Service.

The agents explained its undercover sting operation in which a confidential source was used to arrange two sales of cocaine between Steve Yassine and Nizar Hakiki.  The agents testified the proceeds from the deals were then funneled through Yassine`s nightclubs and Famous Vodka, owned by Hadi Yassine, the third brother.

Neff also stated in the hearing that the business was reporting income of $1 to $2 million when it actually was taking in between $7 and $10 million.

According to testimony, the Texas Comptroller‘s Office has frozen Mike Yassine’s accounts.  It was also revealed that he has bank accounts in Switzerland and Lebanon.

Several of the defendants are under investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Source

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• Popular Austin Clubs Shut Down Due To Owners Arrest (dayandadream.com)
• Concerns grow over Hezbollah fundraising in the US (charlotte.news14.com)
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• US adds IMU, IJU operatives to list of global terrorists (longwarjournal.org)
• Congressional Report: Hezbollah has “several thousand” donors in the USA (iamiranaware.wordpress.com)

Hezbullah Charged with Laundering Money in the U.S.

Complaint against Lebanese financial institutions with alleged ties to Hezbullah over a massive money laundering scheme.

By Elad Benari

Several Lebanese financial institutions with alleged ties to the Hezbullah terror organization were part of a massive scheme that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal proceeds through the United States, prosecutors charged on Thursday.

AFP reported that a criminal complaint in a New York federal court targeted the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two Lebanon-based houses, the Hassan Ayash Exchange Company and Ellissa Holding, in the scheme to launder profits from narcotics dealing and other criminal activities.

The U.S. Attorney’s office is alleging that “funds were wired from Lebanon to the United States to buy used cars, which were then transported to West Africa,” according to a statement quoted by AFP.

“Cash from the sale of the cars, along with proceeds of narcotics trafficking, were then funneled to Lebanon through Hezbullah-controlled money laundering channels,” said the statement.

AFP noted that all of the financial institutions allegedly involved in the scheme are linked to Hezbullah, which is considered a terrorist organization by Washington.

The statement added that federal authorities are seeking the assets of the three institutions, some 30 U.S. car dealers and a U.S. shipping company. They are also seeking civil money laundering penalties totaling $483.1 million, which allegedly represents the total of money laundered.

Attorney Preet Bharara told AFP that the scheme “reveals the deviously creative ways that terrorist organizations are funding themselves and moving their money, and it puts into stark relief the nexus between narcotics trafficking and terrorism.”

Bharara added, “Today, we are putting a stranglehold on a major source of that funding by disrupting a vast and far-flung network that spanned three continents.”

Thursday’s complaint comes after earlier in the week, U.S. authorities indicted a Lebanese national allegedly tied to Hezbullah on drug and money laundering charges.

The indictment against 47-year-old Ayman Joumaa, who is currently at large, alleges he led a conspiracy that, among other activities, sold nearly 100 tons of Colombian cocaine to the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico between 2005 and 2007 that was ultimately smuggled into the United States.

Earlier this year, the Treasury Department designated Joumaa as a drug trafficker and said Hezbullah profited from his network.

More on this topic

• Sleiman Condemns Terror Attacks on Israel, UNIFIL
• Lebanon Uncovers Four Katyusha Rockets
• Hizbullah Charged with Laundering Money in the U.S.
• Hariri: Lebanon’s South Not for ‘Settling Scores”
• IDF Commander: Hizbullah Will Take Over Assad’s Missiles
• Hizbullah Lambastes Judge for Releasing ‘Israel Collaborators’
• Hariri Puts Lebanese Opposition on Collision Course With Assad
• Syrian Opposition Puts Iran, Hizbullah On Notice
• Beirut Opposition Comes Out Swinging Over STL
• Nasrallah Comes Out of Hiding, Asks to be Martyred

Source

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• US Alleges Zetas-Hezbollah Funding Link (mb50.wordpress.com)
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Bank ledgers reveal Hezbollah drug racket

Jo Becker, Beirut
December 15, 2011

LAST February, the Obama administration accused one of Lebanon‘s famously secretive banks of laundering money for an international cocaine ring with ties to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Now, the bank’s ledgers have been opened to reveal the clandestine ways the ”Party of God” finances its operations.

Intelligence from several countries points to the direct involvement of high-level Hezbollah officials in the South American cocaine trade. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Virginia announced the indictment of the man at the centre of a case involving the Lebanese Canadian Bank, charging that he had trafficked drugs and laundered money for Colombian cartels and the Mexican gang Los Zetas.

US intelligence analysts believe that for years Hezbollah received as much as $US 200 million ($A198 million) annually from its main patron, Iran, along with additional aid from Syria. But that support has diminished as Iran’s economy buckles and Syria’s government battles rising unrest.

”The ability of terror groups like Hezbollah to tap into the worldwide criminal funding streams is the new post-9/11 challenge,” said Derek Maltz, a Drug Enforcement Administration official.

US Treasury officials said senior bank managers had helped a handful of account holders in a scheme to wash drug money by mixing it with the proceeds of used cars bought in the US and sold in Africa.

In all, hundreds of millions of dollars a year sloshed through the accounts, held mainly by Shiite Muslim businessmen in the drug-smuggling nations of West Africa.

Many of these were known Hezbollah supporters, trading in everything from rough-cut diamonds to cosmetics and frozen chicken.

Founded three decades ago as a guerilla force aimed at the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has never before had such a prominent place in the country’s official politics. Yet much of its power derives from its status as a state within the Lebanese state. In South America and in Europe, prosecutors began noticing Lebanese Shiite middlemen working for drug cartels. But the strongest evidence of an expanding Hezbollah role in the drug trade comes from the two investigations that ultimately led to the Lebanese Canadian Bank.

The trail began with a man known as ”Taliban”, overheard on Colombian wiretaps of a Medellin cartel.

In reality he was a Lebanese transplant, Chekri Mahmoud Harb, and in June 2007, he met in Bogota an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration and sketched out his route.

The undercover agent casually remarked that he must have Hezbollah connections. Mr Harb smiled and nodded, the agent reported. Agents had known that there was a major money launderer whose phone sat in Lebanon.

Now they had a name: Ayman Joumaa, owner of the Caesars Park Hotel, Beirut.

Eventually, an American team sent to look into Joumaa’s activities uncovered the used car operation.

The administration decided to invoke a rarely used provision of the Patriot Act. Since the bank had been found to be of ”primary money-laundering concern”, the Treasury Department could turn it into an international pariah by forbidding US financial institutions to deal with it. President Barack Obama was briefed, and in February, Treasury officials acted.

The indictment announced on Tuesday charges Joumaa with co-ordinating shipments of Colombian cocaine to Los Zetas in Mexico for sale in the US, and laundering the proceeds. The US has no extradition treaty with Lebanon, and Joumaa’s whereabouts are unknown.

Treasury’s Daniel Glaser said Lebanon’s Central Bank had shown its willingness to co-operate with the US in shutting down the Lebanese Canadian Bank and selling it to a ”responsible owner”.

Source

Related articles

• US Alleges Zetas-Hezbollah Funding Link (mb50.wordpress.com)
• Beirut Bank Seen as a Hub of Hezbollah’s Financing – New York Times (nytimes.com)
• Bank ledgers reveal Hezbollah drug racket (smh.com.au)
• Government Says Hezbollah Profits From U.S. Cocaine Market Via Link to Mexican Cartel (propublica.org)
• Hezbollah Identifies Undercover CIA Officers Working in Lebanon (foxnews.com)
• US indicts alleged drug smuggler tied to Hezbollah (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Hezbollah Allegedly Helps Cartels Launder Coke Money (wired.com)

US Alleges Zetas-Hezbollah Funding Link

Written by  Hannah Stone

U.S. authorities have accused a Lebanese man of selling Colombian cocaine to the Zetas and laundering money on their behalf, while using the profits to finance Hezbollah, a militant group based in Beirut.

According to the latest indictment, Ayman Joumaa, aka “Junior,” (pictured) and his partners sold 85 tons of cocaine to the Zetas between 2005-2007, which was later trafficked into the U.S., and laundered some $850 million in their profits for the group, some of it through the Lebanese Canadian Bank. The latest charges do not mention Hezbollah, though Joumaa was accused earlier this year by the Treasury of being part of a drug trafficking and money laundering ring which financed the group, reports ProPublica.

According to the indictment, Joumaa’s group would charge the Zetas 8 to 14 percent for its money laundering services.

The story speaks to some of the U.S.’s worst fears about its enemies in the Middle East gaining ground in Latin America. ABC points out that

U.S. officials have long known about [Hezbollah] operating in South America’s tri-border area in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina where the group runs drugs and large scale counterfeiting networks, according to U.S. officials. In recent years there has been more recent concern about the group establishing a footprint in Central America.

Slate looks at the other side of the deal, pointing out that Lebanon would be a good place for the Zetas to launder money, as it has highly secretive banking regulations, while there is a large Lebanese community in Mexico, with links to the Lebanese banking sector.

The case is reminiscent of a supposed plot revealed by U.S. authorities in October, which involved a representative of the Iranian intelligence service making contact with people he thought were members of the Zetas, in order to order a hit against Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington. As with that case, which did not quite add up, it is worth treating with caution attempts to link Mexican trafficking groups to Muslim militants, which have often appeared to be more based on Washington’s fears than on evidence.

However, U.S. officials were cautious about asserting direct links between the two groups in the latest case, pointing out that “It’s not like there’s a sit-down between the leaders of Hezbollah and the Zetas,” as ProPublica reports.

A version of this article appeared on the Pan-American Post.

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• Hezbollah Allegedly Helps Cartels Launder Coke Money (wired.com)
• US Indicts Alleged Drug Smuggler Tied to Hezbollah (abcnews.go.com)
• Government Says Hezbollah Profits From U.S. Cocaine Market Via Link to Mexican Cartel (propublica.org)
• US indicts alleged drug smuggler tied to Hezbollah (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Beirut Bank Seen as a Hub of Hezbollah’s Financing – New York Times (nytimes.com)
• Lebanese man accused of leading drug ring indicted (sfgate.com)
• Despite rise of Mexican cartels, Colombian traffickers still strong in Central America (csmonitor.com)
• Bank ledgers reveal Hezbollah drug racket (smh.com.au)