And now the posting level heads downwards for a bit

Yes, even less posting than usual! Getting ready to finally move and the recovery from the pre-move, pre-sale house cleaning has moved my sleeping pattern back to the 'wildly swinging from 3 hours to 7 hours sort'. Which means, of course, a darker shade of the Land of Gray. Still, for all of that, there is a *lot* that I am processing from the last few months of posts...

Dot connecting - lack thereof by the INTEL Community and, mostly, everyone. Just going over the posts, one of the most obvious things is the absolute depth of the Transnational Terrorist support network. Case in point is Monzer al-Kassar: This single individual has been involved with more parts of the Transnational Terror network than I care to think about, and has utilized his ability to connect person-to-person in a way that is amazing.

Consider the set of dots he connects from my past posts (first, second and third) and what is in the notebook I have on him and a couple of other characters in the arms business:

1) Drug trafficking in the 1970's, giving inroads to the Sicilian Mafia.

2) His wife, Raghda is a member of the Assad family.

3) In control of the heroin trade through the Bekaa Valley and for 20% of the heroin reaching the US in the early 1980's.

4) Connections with Jerzy Dembrowski of CENREX and connections via the Iran/Contra scandal that would see Kassar get millions of dollars to buy weapons for the Contras and to facilitate the actual hostage swaps.

5) Kassar's connections with Soviet era Polish arms manufacturers, which helped supply the Iran/Contra deal.

6) Kassar's connections with the later Russian mafia, as well as Polish, Latvian, Romanian mafias.

7) Kassar's connection with Carlos Menem of Argentina, to work out a supply deal whereby advanced missile and nuclear technology is sent from Argentina to Syria (this was scotched by the US, but those connections proved valuable). I mean he did become an Argentinian and Menem's arms dealer.

8) Iranian radical elements showing up in Argentina, taking part in assassinations and the first wave of Islamic attacks in South and Central America: Argentina, Brazil and Panama. Plus the AMIA bombing report suggested that Kassar be investigated, but that was never done at the behest of the administration there. Needless to say many files *disappeared*.

9) References by Interpol to an *earlier* FARC arms-deal from Eastern Europe that looks surprisingly like the most recent attempt that brought Kassar in.

10) Connections with Abbu Abbas.

11) Connections with Abu Nidal, and the Achille Lauro hijacking.

12) Connections with BCCI for money laundering and, perhaps, technology transfer via it to a Turkish firm that Kassar had ties to.

13) Connections to Chile via drug trafficking, having a nephew there.

14) Connections to Merex International Arms via the Iran/Contra affair and to Lt. Col. (ret) James P. Atwood.

15) His ties that brought down Imperial Consolidated for his stake in Imperium Mining. And just what part *did* Osama bin Laden have in that?

16) Just what sort of ties does it require to get someone in Spanish prison to recant their testimony about Kassar? Or get another witness killed in S. America? Or to get another one drunk in his home town and have him fall out of a window to his death?

17) Connections with Somalia.

18) Connections with Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya Argentaria.

19) Connections to Franfurt, Germany in the mid-1980's and his heroin smuggling ring there.

20) Connections with the PLO, Black September and PFLP-GC.

21) Connections with the East German firm IMES.

22) Connections with the Cali and Medellin drug cartels.

And that is *just* on Monzer al-Kassar.

This has not even scratched the surface with the BNL scandal (my notebook so far), BCCI scandal and the various fun and frivolity of how USDA farm credit money gets turned into arms sales to Saddam Hussein.

I had not intended to become the All Source Expert on: terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking, organized crime, ex-Soviet concerns, various Mafias, various drug kingpins, multiple drug cartels, and a slew of other things, like tracking shipping firms, small arms manufacturers and finding out just how one goes about turning grain into AK-47s on the high seas. Add in Abu Nidal, Abbu Abbas, multiple Palestinian terror groups, Hezbollah (et. al.), Carlos Menem, the Assad family, and more folks than I can shake a stick at, and you get very slow going.

Lots and lots of connections to try and handle.

So, when you ask about where I am: either exhausted, brain fried, or trying to dig up new leads.

Say, how about any connectivity between Kassar and, say, Jamaat al-Muslimeen or Jamaat al-Fuqra? Bet they exist! You do *remember* the JFK airport plot and the posts on radical Islam and the Caribbean, plus Latin America, right?

A real kicker is that Kassar's ties to the Bekaa Valley come right around the same time as the first of the North Korean supernotes showed up... probably some ties there, too. One would think he has a couple of connections for that, alone.


Moving - probably in a month or so, and some low level activities going on right until everything gets busy. And the low level ones are exhausting to me. Still, its one of those deals where I need to do this *for* my health, so long as I don't wind up expired. No plans on that, just do what is necessary when I can. Luckily lots of detritus has been cleared out and sent to the Vietnam Vets and Lupus foundation and a few other worthy charities.


In some ways I feel like Mycroft Holmes: I do very well in a quiet, stable environment. Don't bother me with things like marching around to protest... health doesn't allow, but I can do a bit of writing now and again.

And anyone with any insight into personal protection against bobcats is greatly appreciated! Must be safe for an individual likely to suffer from cataleptic attack: namely me. Don't have the energy to be at a firing range, either, so accuracy and such is limited.

So posting when time, energy and mental capability allows.

Yesterday was the LAST day for complaints.