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Assad Ahmad Barakat	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Hezbollah	International				20021218
	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Lebanese Hizballah	Caribbean-Latin America				20040612	Link
	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Casa Apollo	Caribbean-Latin America				20040612	Link
	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Barakat Import	Caribbean-Latin America				20040612	Link
	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Husseinieh Imam Khomeini	Caribbean-Latin America				20040612	Link
	Assad Ahmad Barakat	Hezbollah	Caribbean-Latin America				20040209

Caribbean-Latin America

One of Hezbollah’s most important members arrested in Brazil

2018-09-22

[JTA] One of Hezbollah’s most wanted members, Assad Ahmad Barakat, was placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! near Brazil’s border with Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... and Paraguay on Friday. Barakat has been labeled by the U.S. Treasury as one of the Lebanese terrorist group’s main financiers. He is part of the Barakat Clan, a criminal organization known for its links to Hezbollah. Barakat was arrested in Foz de Iguazú, in southern Brazil. That triple border, or Triple Frontier as it is known as, has been linked with Hezbollah terrorist activity for decades, specifically as a source of the group’s funding. In July, the Barakat Clan’s assets were frozen by the Financial Information Unit of Argentina. On Aug. 31, Argentine Judge Rubén Darío Riquelme ordered Barakat’s international capture. Barakat was also sought by Paraguay and Brazil. Barakt, who was born in Leb, is also accused in Paraguay for identity fraud and for omitting information about his nationality status. Ha’aretz adds: Brazilian police have arrested a man designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a high-ranking Hezbollah financier after neighboring Paraguay sought his detention on identity theft charges, authorities in Brazil said on Friday. In 2004, U.S. authorities designated Assad Ahmad Barakat as one of Hezbollah's "most prominent and influential members." They said he had long served as a treasurer for the group and was an associate of the then-financial director of Hezbollah, a Death Eater group based in Leb. It was not immediately known if Barakat had a lawyer. Brazilian federal police said in a Friday written statement that the country's Supreme Court authorized his arrest after Paraguayan authorities issued a warrant late in August. Police also said Argentine authorities accused him of laundering $10 million through a casino in the border city of Puerto Iguazu. Barakat was previously imprisoned in Paraguay from 2002 to 2008 on charges of tax evasion. After his release, Brazilian police said, Barakat lived in Brazil, and carried out business activities in Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Argentina freezes assets of suspected Hezbollah fundraising network

2018-07-17

[IsraelTimes] Barakat Group targeted for funding terror group linked to 1992 attack on Israeli embassy and 1994 AMIA attack, both in Buenos Aires In a first, Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... ’s government has targeted a Hezbollah fundraising network in the northern Triple Frontier with Brazil and Paraguay. The Financial Information Unit of the Argentine Republic investigated possible criminal actions by Lebanese citizens living in Argentina who could be involved in money laundering and financing terrorist acts. Hezbollah has been linked to the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29. A Hezbollah jacket wallah carried out the 1994 attack, orchestrated by Iran, on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85. The unit investigated the Barakat Group, also known as the Barakat Clan, a criminal organization linked to Hezbollah, which operates in the area known as the "Triple border" made up of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, led by Assad Ahmad Barakat. As a result, Argentina’s government issued an administrative order freezing the assets and money of the group’s members, allowed by an article of the national Criminal Code related to financing terrorism. Barakat, along with other people who operate at the tri-border area, has been designated a terrorist by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, of the Treasury Department of the United States, which means that his assets are frozen and he is unable to operate financially in the US. The Triple Frontier between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay is often mentioned as a place linked to Hezbollah and the Barakat group, and has been investigated over the last two decades as a source of money for Hezbollah and for other groups’ activities related to terrorism. This is the first time that one of the three governments has frozen assets and funds from a Hezbollah-linked organization based in the Triple Frontier. The Financial Information Unit identified at least 14 people linked to the Barakat Clan who registered multiple crossings to Argentina, mainly through the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, located in the Province of Misiones. Once in Argentina, the members of the clan would make, in a casino in Iguazú, charges for supposed prizes that together would exceed $10 million, without declaring either the income nor the discharge of funds when crossing the border. The "strong hypothesis" of the unit is that once out of the country the money is transferred to Hezbollah. According to a Financial Information Unit statement issued on Friday, the Barakat clan is involved in crimes of smuggling, falsification of money and documents, extortion, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering and terrorist financing. "In relation to this illegal act, it is suspected that it would raise funds for the Lebanese Hezbollah organization," wrote the government agency. The accounts were frozen on Wednesday, according to the statement. Argentina is home to a large Lebanese expat community and US authorities suspect groups in that community of raising funds through organized crime to support the Iranian-backed terror organization. In 2006, the US Treasury targeted the same fundraising network. Earlier this year, the US and Argentina agreed to work together to cut off Hezbollah funding networks and money laundering financing terrorism across Latin America.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Hizballah Member Financing Terror in South America

2004-06-12

From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty The U.S. Treasury Department on 10 June designated Lebanese Hizballah member Assad Ahmad Barakat and two of his companies -- Casa Apollo and Barakat Import -- as responsible for terrorist financing in South America’s tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, according to the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs. Barakat reportedly used strong-arm tactics and coercion to raise money that was sent to Hizballah in Lebanon and Iran. As of late 2001, he reportedly traveled to Lebanon and Iran annually. On these trips he allegedly met with Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and spiritual leader Hussein Fadlallah. Barakat also served as deputy financial director for a religious center in Brazil called the Husseinieh Imam Khomeini. Regional intelligence sources previously identified Assad Ahmad Barakat’s brother, Sheikh Akram Ahmad Barakat, as a kind of roving Iranian ambassador for Latin America. Barakat currently is imprisoned in Paraguay for tax evasion.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Binny, Mugniyeh planned joint attacks from the Triple Border

2004-02-09

If this is true, it’s the first concrete info we’ve had on al-Qaeda and Hezbollah planning joint operations and certainly ups the ante in that regard. South American-based terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden allegedly plotted an attack on Jewish targets in Ottawa in an effort to undermine Middle East peace talks. The plan to assault unspecified landmarks in the Canadian capital, as well as cities in Argentina and Paraguay, was thwarted by authorities in December 1999, says a new U.S. Library of Congress report. The study also details how Hezbollah operatives active in South America have funnelled large sums of money through Canada in recent years to finance operations in the Middle East. The findings are among the latest to suggest Canada has become not only a staging ground for international extremists but also a potential target for attacks. The beer in Canada's entirely too good. Many of the women have titties. Hockey is Satan's own game! The country must be destroyed! The report, Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America, was completed last July by the congressional library’s federal research division under an agreement with the Director of Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics Center. The centre, staffed by members of the U.S. intelligence community, reviews and analyses information about illegal drug trafficking for American leaders and law enforcement agencies. Notice how the drug trafficking keeps nudging into the Wonderful World of Terror? The report, drawing on an extensive range of open sources, concludes various Islamic terrorist groups have used the tri-border area — where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet — for fundraising, recruiting and plotting terrorist attacks in the region and elsewhere in the Americas. It says the tri-border area’s terrorist and organized crime activities are assisted by corruption of local officials. The region features one of the most important Arab communities in South America, numbering as many as 30,000. "Since the 1994 attack, Islamic terrorists in the TBA have largely confined their activities to criminal fundraising and other activities in support of their terrorist organizations, including plotting terrorist actions to be carried out in other countries," says the study. You can raise a lot of funds in ten years... Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network has reportedly had "an interest and a presence" in the region since the mid-1990s, although some are skeptical of that claim. Both bin Laden and Al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are said to have visited Brazil in 1995. I doubt if it was for Carneval. Somehow I can't picture Binny doing the samba in the streets with passing pretty girls... By mid-1999, Argentina’s Secretariat for State Intelligence was investigating Islamic extremist groups in the tri-border area allegedly operating under bin Laden’s orders. Agents began taping telephone calls to the Middle East by extremists in Ciudad del Este, the second largest city in Paraguay, and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. They also secretly filmed meetings of the Shi’ite and minority Sunni groups of the area’s Muslim community. Co-ordinated police raids in the region’s three principal cities on Dec. 22, 1999, reportedly thwarted a plot by terrorists under the control of bin Laden and Hezbollah leader Imad Mouniagh to "stage simultaneous attacks on Jewish targets" in Buenos Aires, Ciudad del Este and Ottawa "in an attempt to undermine the Middle East peace process," the report says. I don't know why they bothered. The Middle East peace processor seems to grind on without their help, never getting anywhere... It provides no details about the suspected plots, which were noted in the Paraguayan media at the time but garnered little attention elsewhere, coming almost two years before the eye-opening attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Who the hell reads Paraguayan papers? Individuals rounded up in the raids but later released included "operatives of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as a suspected Iranian intelligence agent." Senior members allegedly involved were Hezbollah’s Assad Ahmad Barakat and Mohamed Ali Aboul-Ezz Al-Mahdi Ibrahim Soliman of the Egyptian extremist group Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya — the latter group reputedly linked to bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Both men apparently fled and were later arrested in connection with other events. I wonder, arrested by whom? Police foiled the alleged plot to attack Ottawa and other cities just eight days after the arrest of Ahmed Ressam of Montreal, caught trying to sneak explosives from British Columbia into the United States. Ressam, the would-be "millennium bomber," was convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. In September 2001, a Paraguayan SWAT team raided a Ciudad del Este shop run by Barakat, seizing material including training courses for suicide bombers and financial statements totalling $250,000 in monthly transfers to the Middle East. A Paraguayan prosecutor accused Barakat and Saleh of sending money to terrorist bank accounts in various countries. "Specifically, they sent half a million dollars to Canada, Chile and the United States (New York), and bank drafts of $524,000 (U.S.) to Lebanon," the report says. "Paraguayan police found a letter from the Hezbollah commander congratulating Barakat for financing activities in the Middle East." There's another pattern: picking the most obscure place you can find and setting up shop. Afghanistan, Kurdistan, the Algeria-Mali border, Wadi Hadrammaut in Yemen, and now Paraguay... In February 2000, Paraguayan authorities arrested Ali Khalil Mehri, considered one of the principal Hezbollah fundraisers in the region. Among the items seized in a raid on his apartment were records of money transfers to Canada, Chile, Lebanon and the United States of more than $700,000 (U.S.). Mehri was charged with funnelling the proceeds of counterfeit software to Hezbollah, but escaped from prison and fled to Syria. Seems like if you've got a lot of cash flow, it's pretty easy to escape prison and get out of the country...

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International

Terror Cell On Rise In South America

2002-12-18

Terrorist training camps operated by Hezbollah continue to flourish in a remote and lawless area along the shared borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, according to law-enforcement officials and a recent report by anti-terrorism authorities. Known as the "tri-border region," the area is flanked by the freewheeling cities of Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, Foz do Iguazu in Brazil and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, where terrorists meet for what the sources said were high-level sessions to discuss future attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets in North and South America. Since the September 11 attacks on America, anti-terrorism investigators worldwide have intensified their focus on the tri-border region and on reports of increased cooperation between Hezbollah and al Qaeda. Argentina's Secretariat of State Intelligence first reported in 1999 that al Qaeda members were in the region to coordinate terrorist training and to plan future attacks with Hezbollah. U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that an alliance with Hezbollah would give al Qaeda a new base close to the United States for attacks, the sources said. They also said that Hezbollah, implicated in the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984, is believed to have an al Qaeda-like capacity to organize attacks against U.S. targets. Hezbollah, which has several thousand members, has established cells in Europe, Africa, South America and North America, and receives substantial financing, training, weapons and explosives from Iran and Syria. Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh once described the tri-border region as a "free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism." The FBI sent agents to the region this year after a poster of Iguazu Falls, the area's major tourist attraction, was found inside an al Qaeda bunker in Afghanistan. Everyone goes to Afghanistan, it seems. Even travel agents A meeting of terrorist operatives took place three months ago in a camp near Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan boomtown of 240,000, the sources said. The town is known as a haven for terrorists, arms smugglers, drug dealers, international organized-crime figures and money launderers, many of whom are tied to Middle Eastern countries. Sounds like a fun place. Fueled by the area's rampant political corruption, representatives of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups — including those sympathetic to al Qaeda — travel nearly unchecked in and out of the region, organizing meetings, engaging in criminal activity and establishing training camps, the sources said. The Virginia-based Terrorism Research Center (TRC) concluded in a recent investigation that the area was being used to train terrorists "to kill Americans and Jews" and was a safe haven for terrorists on the run. The report said that the region had emerged as a "conduit for raising and transferring money for terrorist groups." TRC Director Walter Purdy said Hezbollah's military chief in the region, Assad Ahmad Barakat, is one of the area's six power brokers and co-owns one of Ciudad del Este's largest shopping malls. "Shop at Crazy Assad's! Today's BlueLight Special - Semtex!" Ahmad Barakat's top lieutenant, Sobhi Mahmoud Fayad, was arrested last month in Ciudad del Este on suspicion of raising funds for Hezbollah. He was detained after police spotted him writing down license-plate numbers outside a U.S.-sponsored disaster-management meeting. Putting together a list, was he? The Bush administration believes Mahmoud Fayad, 34, is part of an international money-laundering operation that bankrolls terrorism. The arrest came after U.S. authorities pressed Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina to boost anti-terrorism efforts after the September 11 attacks. Press harder Mr. Purdy said that a lack of government control on the borders, ineffective law enforcement and a support network already in place provides a "comfortable atmosphere for terrorists to operate." He said that between 25,000 and 30,000 of the region's residents are Arab immigrants, mostly Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians. He said TRC interviews confirmed that al Qaeda terrorists were moving freely in and out of the area. "The system is wired and in place," Mr. Purdy said. "For $5,000, you can get anyone in or out, and there'll be no trace you were ever there." Documents R'Us on every corner Mr. Purdy also said that the region is "one of the world's emerging threat areas" that terrorists could use to stage attacks. "Sometimes you have to look no further than your own border," he said, noting that al Qaeda terrorists easily found immigration routes into the United States through Canada. "Terrorists in the tri-border region already have established contacts with crime cartels in Mexico." But, the drug cartels don't have anything to do with terrorists! And checking IDs at the border is anti-hispanic!

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