Grenada (Heard From Today!)
By Lt Col P
23 Oct 1983, the same day as the Beirut bombing, a scratch joint task force assaults and takes the island of Grenada, overthrowing its tinpot Marxist government and ejecting Cuban soldiers and workers.
The Navy history website has a nifty little account of the campaign.
Meanwhile, Fox and Echo companies [of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines] merged north of St. George's and secured a flat, stadium-like area called the Queen's Racecourse, which the Marines dubbed "LZ Racetrack" (LZ standing for landing zone). The battalion landing team commander set up headquarters there.
"We did a lot of humping today," said Marine Captain Mike Dick, Fox Company commander, after the first day of the operation. He looked over his men and added in a low tone, "It's quite a bit different from Camp Lejeune. We're doing this for real and for keeps."
Make that Capt Mike Dick, VMI '77, now Colonel, USMC, retired.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
24th anniversary of Beirut bombing marked
By Trista Talton - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Oct 23, 2007 17:31:24 EDT
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — They gently brushed their fingertips across the stone where the names of the men who died on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon in 1983 are engraved.
On Tuesday, families and friends gathered around the Beirut Memorial here once again to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the day terrorists drove a bomb-laden truck into the headquarters building for the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.
The crowd — filled with an assortment of Marines, sailors, airmen, soldiers, mothers, fathers, wives, children and survivors of the blast — looked toward the wall as speakers talked about that fateful day.
Maj. Gen. Robert Dickerson, commander of Marine Corps Installations-East and the ceremony’s guest speaker, told the story of one survivor, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Nashton, who was fighting for his life on a hospital bed in Germany when he and other survivors were visited by then-Commandant Gen. P.X. Kelley.
Nashton could not see or speak and could barely hear. When Kelley knelt by his bedside, Nashton reached out a hand and brushed his fingers over the general’s star-collared shirt.
Nashton signaled he wanted to write something. He was handed a pen and paper and scribbled two words — “Semper Fi” — before handing the paper to Kelley, Dickerson said.
“Jeffrey feels guilty, as many of you do today, that he survived,” Dickerson said. “Don’t feel guilty. It’s your memory. It’s their legacy you’re maintaining.”
Dickerson rattled off a long list of terrorist attacks dating back to November 1979, when the U.S. Embassy in Iran was taken over by militants. He spoke of various embassy attacks throughout the years, the bombing of the Cole and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“The lessons learned in Beirut are relevant today,” Dickerson said. “These cowards are still out there. These cowards — these terrorists — are global. And they fear democracy.”
Photo slideshow:
Remembering Beirut
Source
Friday, October 19, 2007
OHIO CEREMONY
Ceremony for slain troops
Print StoryEmail to FriendDiscuss this story
The annual ceremony honors the loss of three local men in a 1983
terrorist attack.
By ANGIE SCHMITT
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS — A memorial that honors those killed in the Beirut bombing of 1983 stands about 4 feet high on the bank of Lake Hamilton here.
Centered around a circular flagstone, the memorial holds the names of the 14 Ohioans who lost their lives in the bombing that killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers deployed on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon that year.
"It just says 'Peace Keepers Memorial,'" said Richard Mitchells, commandant of the Tri-state Marine Detachment of the Marine Corps League, "because that's what they were — peacekeepers."
Family members of the three area men killed that day will return to this site Sunday, as they do every year near the anniversary of that date, Oct. 23, 1983.
A ceremony in honor of all those killed in the attack will begin at 1 p.m. with a call to attention and the posting of the Marine colors, said Mitchells, a Greenford resident who organized the event. Then, military officials will perform a ceremonial changing of the flags; one American, one POW, one Marine and one Navy.
A traditional memorial service will be held with a 21-gun salute. After that, New Castle resident Shirley Kirkwood will be among the family members invited to place a wreath on the stone in honor their lost loved ones.
Kirkwood's son, Shenango High School graduate James McDonough, was killed when a truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of dynamite crashed through the gates of the multinational force barracks, where hundreds of troops, mostly Marines, were sleeping.
After all these years, fall is still a painful time of year for Kirkwood, a 69-year-old mother of six. Exactly one month before the bombing McDonough, her oldest child, had celebrated his 21st birthday.
"It's just like it was yesterday," said Kirkwood. "When you lose a son like that, you can't get over it."
Struthers resident Edward Johnston was instrum ental in bringing the memorial to Struthers in 1993. His son, Edward Anthony Johnston, also of Struthers, lost his life in the attack. He was 22. The third local victim was Niles resident Stanley Sliwinski.
Meeting at this site, year after year, the three families have become friends, Johnston said. And all three are expected Sunday, including Sliwinski's daughter and widow.
Though the experience isn't exactly pleasant for Johnston, he said he still appreciates the solemn annual gathering.
"I'm glad to see that people do attend," he said. "It makes you feel good."
aschmitt@vindy.com
Print StoryEmail to FriendDiscuss this story
The annual ceremony honors the loss of three local men in a 1983
terrorist attack.
By ANGIE SCHMITT
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS — A memorial that honors those killed in the Beirut bombing of 1983 stands about 4 feet high on the bank of Lake Hamilton here.
Centered around a circular flagstone, the memorial holds the names of the 14 Ohioans who lost their lives in the bombing that killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers deployed on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon that year.
"It just says 'Peace Keepers Memorial,'" said Richard Mitchells, commandant of the Tri-state Marine Detachment of the Marine Corps League, "because that's what they were — peacekeepers."
Family members of the three area men killed that day will return to this site Sunday, as they do every year near the anniversary of that date, Oct. 23, 1983.
A ceremony in honor of all those killed in the attack will begin at 1 p.m. with a call to attention and the posting of the Marine colors, said Mitchells, a Greenford resident who organized the event. Then, military officials will perform a ceremonial changing of the flags; one American, one POW, one Marine and one Navy.
A traditional memorial service will be held with a 21-gun salute. After that, New Castle resident Shirley Kirkwood will be among the family members invited to place a wreath on the stone in honor their lost loved ones.
Kirkwood's son, Shenango High School graduate James McDonough, was killed when a truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of dynamite crashed through the gates of the multinational force barracks, where hundreds of troops, mostly Marines, were sleeping.
After all these years, fall is still a painful time of year for Kirkwood, a 69-year-old mother of six. Exactly one month before the bombing McDonough, her oldest child, had celebrated his 21st birthday.
"It's just like it was yesterday," said Kirkwood. "When you lose a son like that, you can't get over it."
Struthers resident Edward Johnston was instrum ental in bringing the memorial to Struthers in 1993. His son, Edward Anthony Johnston, also of Struthers, lost his life in the attack. He was 22. The third local victim was Niles resident Stanley Sliwinski.
Meeting at this site, year after year, the three families have become friends, Johnston said. And all three are expected Sunday, including Sliwinski's daughter and widow.
Though the experience isn't exactly pleasant for Johnston, he said he still appreciates the solemn annual gathering.
"I'm glad to see that people do attend," he said. "It makes you feel good."
aschmitt@vindy.com
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Beirut Vet in the News
By K.C. MYERS
staff writer
October 09, 2007
SANDWICH — To say John Santos suffered during his military service would be an understatement.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 23, 1983, the lifelong Sandwich resident fell asleep in the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and woke up buried in debris, unable to hear and suffering from a concussion and a fractured skull.
And he was one of the lucky ones. Approximately 241 service members died, most of them fellow Marines, when a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the barracks. It has been called the most deadly act of terrorism to U.S. citizens prior to Sept. 11, 2001.
Last month, almost 24 years after the bombing, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth awarded $2.65 billion to nearly 1,000 survivors of the bombing and their families, to be paid by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The judge stated that Iran clearly aided and backed the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which carried out the attack.
It's now up to the U.S. government to decide if and when to release Iranian assets frozen here and in other U.S.-friendly countries. There seems to be the political will to punish Iran for its participation in terrorist attacks, so the chances of the victims receiving this money are good, according to Washington, D.C., attorney Richard D. Heideman of Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, which represented some of the families.
Nine months too late
All this should be good news to Santos, 45, who has five children and cannot work because of back injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But here is where his luck really ran out. Santos didn't find out about the lawsuit until his daughter, now a junior at Sandwich High School, came across a reference to the litigation while researching the Internet for a book her teacher recommended. Her discovery, in January, came nine months too late.
A law enacted in 1996 that allows Americans to sue nations that the State Department considers sponsors of terrorism for damages suffered in terrorist acts effectively expired in April 2006, Heideman said.
Santos contacted Heideman's office as soon as he heard, but was told he had missed the deadline.
The judge found Iran liable back in 2003, but the suit made big news last month when Lamberth awarded the actual damages. Santos called a fellow survivor living in Massachusetts. The man (who asked that his name not be published) told Santos he was expecting $2 million to $5 million from the suit.
"Oh, I went ballistic," Santos said.
Santos cannot understand how no one — not the attorneys themselves nor fellow survivors — contacted him during all the years the lawsuit was in process.
"It's not like I moved or have an unlisted home number," said Santos, who graduated from Sandwich High School in 1980 and returned to his hometown following his military service.
Santos suffers back problems from crushed discs, a result of being thrown and then buried in debris following the bombing. He also has disfiguring facial scars and is missing part of an earlobe, he said.
"But that's nothing compared to what I've gone through with PTSD," he said.
Panic attacks
Santos, who received a Purple Heart, recalls passing body parts as he walked out of the destroyed military base. He can no longer go into restaurants or malls for fear he may have a panic attack, he said.
The attorneys searched for other survivors and families by posting notices on the Internet, but they mostly worked through a national support group, the Beirut Veterans Association, Heideman said. Santos, however, said he was never involved with the association because it's mostly for family members of the deceased, he said.
"For a long time, I didn't want to face it because I felt guilty that I lived," he said.
A very active member of that group, Chris Devlin, lives in Westwood. She is the mother of Michael Devlin, who died in the bombing at age 21.
Devlin said she found and alerted many survivors and family members in the Bay State, including the man who told Santos he expected $2 million to $5 million.
But she never found Santos.
"I don't know how I missed him," she said of Santos. "I feel ever so badly about it."
Privacy laws hampered her ability to search, she said.
"We were not privy to names and current addresses," Heideman said.
After the damages portion of the lawsuit was announced in September, a number of people contacted Heideman's office saying they'd survived or are family members of the deceased, Heideman said. They too claimed to not know about the lawsuit, he said.
"We are evaluating the situation," Heideman said of the additional possible plaintiffs. "It's a matter we are reviewing."
This is about the only glimmer of hope for Santos and others like him.
"It's not so much about the money," Santos said. "I just feel dishonored. ... The worst part is, my daughter feels so guilty for showing me that letter (on the lawsuit). The children are now the victims of the bombing. That's the last thing I ever wanted."
K.C. Myers can be reached at kcmyers@capecodonline.com.
BLOG EDITOR'S NOTE!!!!!
"The attorneys searched for other survivors and families by posting notices on the Internet, but they mostly worked through a national support group, the Beirut Veterans Association, Heideman said. Santos, however, said he was never involved with the association because it's mostly for family members of the deceased, he said."
THE BEIRUT VETERANS OF AMERICA IS AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOR THE VETERANS,AND FAMILY MEMBERS
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Editorial in Washington Times
Hold Iran accountable
Thu. 04 Oct 2007
The Washington Times
Op-Ed
By Lynn Smith Derbyshire and Judith C. Young
On Oct. 23, 1983, the government of Iran sent a truck bomb into the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, destroying the building like a child smashing play-doh. Two hundred and forty-one men were killed, and countless others were wounded. It was mass murder.
It took three weeks to dig through the rubble and identify all the dead. The families of these victims, U.S. Marines and servicemen who were sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers, sat in front of our television sets and wept, and waited, and prayed — and waited and prayed, and wept again, desperate for news of those we loved.
For 24 years, since that horrible day, that horrible moment, the government of Iran has literally been getting away with murder.
In May 2003, after a trial that weighed the evidence of Iran's role in the bombing, the victims of Iran's state-sponsored terrorism and their families saw the first step toward justice. A U.S. district court found the government of Iran liable for organizing and funding the Beirut attack. And just last month, after a four-year process of painstakingly reviewing the claims of the hundreds of victims, that same court awarded damages in excess of $2.6 billion to the victims and their families.
Does this decision mean that Iran will finally be held to a measure of accountability for its sponsorship of terrorism? Well, not exactly. That is because several court decisions have held that legislation which Congress passed in 1996, giving victims of terrorism a federal cause of action, does not allow victims to attach assets held indirectly by terrorist states, even if these assets can be proven to be controlled for the benefit of the terrorist states. Terrorist states have used these decisions to hide their assets from victims seeking damages.
This has prompted Sens. Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, and Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, along with 25 other cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans, to introduce S. 1944, the Justice for Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism Act. And in recent days, despite continued opposition from the State Department, even as Iran's leaders were thumbing their noses at the United States last week at the United Nations, members of Congress have rallied to this cause, with the Senate unanimously agreeing to include the Lautenberg-Specter bill as an amendment to the defense authorization. The measure is now in conference with the House and must be signed by the president.
This bill sends a strong and clear message to terrorist states such as Iran: You cannot murder Americans without consequences anymore. You can and will be held accountable. America and Americans now have one more tool in the world war on terror. The cost of state-sponsored terrorism is about to go up.
Will Iran be hurt by losing more than $2 billion of their investments abroad? Absolutely. The Iranian reaction to the court's recent decision was very public and very critical. They don't want to be held accountable for what they do. They don't want our nation to have laws that can deter them from supporting terrorist acts. They don't want to face the possibility that their government, currently under mounting domestic criticism for its mismanagement of its economy, may lose investments that generate significant income.
Maya Angelou said: "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
Governments such as Iran have been perpetrating acts of terrorism, and supporting terrorist organizations long enough. Today we say to them: no more.
None of us want the events of Oct. 23, 1983, to be repeated; they have been repeated far too many times already. The Achille Lauro, Robert Stethem of TWA Flight 847, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the U.S.S. Cole, September 11, Madrid, Bali, and on and on.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah says there is "Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
"But God says to her, "Restrain your voice from weeping... because there is hope for the future." Time does not heal wounds; only hope can heal wounds.
This legislation will hold Iran accountable for the murder of the men who were killed and wounded on October 23, 1983. And if we can accomplish that, then we believe that we will truly have hope for the future.
Lynn Smith Derbyshire lives in Oak Hill, Va. Her brother, Marine Capt. Vincent Smith was killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing. Judith C. Young lives in Moorestown, N.J. She is the mother of Marine Sgt. Jeffrey Young, who was killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing.
Thu. 04 Oct 2007
The Washington Times
Op-Ed
By Lynn Smith Derbyshire and Judith C. Young
On Oct. 23, 1983, the government of Iran sent a truck bomb into the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, destroying the building like a child smashing play-doh. Two hundred and forty-one men were killed, and countless others were wounded. It was mass murder.
It took three weeks to dig through the rubble and identify all the dead. The families of these victims, U.S. Marines and servicemen who were sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers, sat in front of our television sets and wept, and waited, and prayed — and waited and prayed, and wept again, desperate for news of those we loved.
For 24 years, since that horrible day, that horrible moment, the government of Iran has literally been getting away with murder.
In May 2003, after a trial that weighed the evidence of Iran's role in the bombing, the victims of Iran's state-sponsored terrorism and their families saw the first step toward justice. A U.S. district court found the government of Iran liable for organizing and funding the Beirut attack. And just last month, after a four-year process of painstakingly reviewing the claims of the hundreds of victims, that same court awarded damages in excess of $2.6 billion to the victims and their families.
Does this decision mean that Iran will finally be held to a measure of accountability for its sponsorship of terrorism? Well, not exactly. That is because several court decisions have held that legislation which Congress passed in 1996, giving victims of terrorism a federal cause of action, does not allow victims to attach assets held indirectly by terrorist states, even if these assets can be proven to be controlled for the benefit of the terrorist states. Terrorist states have used these decisions to hide their assets from victims seeking damages.
This has prompted Sens. Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, and Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, along with 25 other cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans, to introduce S. 1944, the Justice for Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism Act. And in recent days, despite continued opposition from the State Department, even as Iran's leaders were thumbing their noses at the United States last week at the United Nations, members of Congress have rallied to this cause, with the Senate unanimously agreeing to include the Lautenberg-Specter bill as an amendment to the defense authorization. The measure is now in conference with the House and must be signed by the president.
This bill sends a strong and clear message to terrorist states such as Iran: You cannot murder Americans without consequences anymore. You can and will be held accountable. America and Americans now have one more tool in the world war on terror. The cost of state-sponsored terrorism is about to go up.
Will Iran be hurt by losing more than $2 billion of their investments abroad? Absolutely. The Iranian reaction to the court's recent decision was very public and very critical. They don't want to be held accountable for what they do. They don't want our nation to have laws that can deter them from supporting terrorist acts. They don't want to face the possibility that their government, currently under mounting domestic criticism for its mismanagement of its economy, may lose investments that generate significant income.
Maya Angelou said: "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
Governments such as Iran have been perpetrating acts of terrorism, and supporting terrorist organizations long enough. Today we say to them: no more.
None of us want the events of Oct. 23, 1983, to be repeated; they have been repeated far too many times already. The Achille Lauro, Robert Stethem of TWA Flight 847, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the U.S.S. Cole, September 11, Madrid, Bali, and on and on.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah says there is "Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
"But God says to her, "Restrain your voice from weeping... because there is hope for the future." Time does not heal wounds; only hope can heal wounds.
This legislation will hold Iran accountable for the murder of the men who were killed and wounded on October 23, 1983. And if we can accomplish that, then we believe that we will truly have hope for the future.
Lynn Smith Derbyshire lives in Oak Hill, Va. Her brother, Marine Capt. Vincent Smith was killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing. Judith C. Young lives in Moorestown, N.J. She is the mother of Marine Sgt. Jeffrey Young, who was killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing.
Monday, September 24, 2007
There's a killer loose in the city...............
Michael Daly New York Daily News
Thanks to Mr. Daly for his timely article on the Piece of Garbage, that recently flew in from Iran, I believe he calls himself the President of Iran now, 25 years ago he was nothing more than a murderous thug, and nothing has changed in the meantime.
No way to forget terror with Iran's president in your face
Sunday, September 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM
As the unrelentingly offensive president of Iran flies into JFK today, we should remember five beautiful sons of our city who were murdered at an airport far from home.
* Lance Cpl. Terrence Rich of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Steven Jones of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Warren Richardson of Brooklyn.
* Cpl. Obrian Weekes of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Dennis Thompson of the Bronx.
The five were killed along with 236 other Marines in a suicide attack on their barracks at the edge of Beirut International Airport on Oct. 23, 1983.
The CIA determined that the 12,000 pounds of explosives were furnished by Iran, whose hothead of state arrives among us today.
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks a little smug, one reason may be that the United States did exactly nothing about the murder of those 241 Marines in revenge for our support for Saddam Hussein back then.
And, when 9/11 did rouse us to the reality of terrorism, Ahmadinejad was no doubt delighted to see the Bush Administration use the attack on the World Trade Center as a pretext to go after Iran's old enemy Saddam.
Iran commemorated its eight-year war with Iraq with a big parade yesterday that featured a new Ghadr-1 missile, whose name means "power." There were also the requisite signs indicating that the enemy of Iran's enemy is still its enemy.
"Death to America!"
Ahmadinejad was expected to board a plane later for America, to New York in particular. He will be moving through our city's streets under our protection even as his operatives set roadside bombs in Baghdad to murder our troops.
Iran almost certainly had nothing to do with 9/11, but it also almost certainly is aiding Shiite insurgents in killing G.I.s in Iraq. Ahmadinejad's current pals in this clandestine effort include Imad Fayez Mugniyah, the mastermind of the Beirut bombing that killed 241 Marines nearly a quarter century ago.
The number goes up to 242 if you include another New York Marine, Eddie Quail of upstate Hopewell Junction. Quail was eating in the chow hall at the four-story barracks in Beirut when the whole world seemed to explode around him.
"He didn't know if there was a nuclear war or the world had ended," a friend said yesterday.
Quail spent 2-1/2 days trapped in the rubble, not even knowing which way was up or down. He had somehow held onto a metal cup and he kept rapping it against the concrete.
Finally, somebody heard him. Quail was extracted alive, but part of his mind remained in the rubble. He was left alone in his terror as the country quickly forgot the attack.
"Like it never happened," the friend said.
A decade after the bombing, Quail's knees still shook when he sat.
"You would see it in him," the friend recalled. "He was the nicest, kindest guy, but he was a nervous wreck all the time."
Quail attempted to take his life by slicing his wrists. A few months later he ran in front of a truck and was killed.
"I guess it was a suicide," his friend said.
Word of Quail's death reached the Rev. Mychal Judge, then the FDNY's chaplain. Judge contacted the Marine Corps, which dispatched an honor guard to a modest funeral that ended with everyone holding hands in prayer.
Four years later, Judge himself became a victim of terrorism at the World Trade Center. Neither the Iranians nor Saddam had anything to do with that attack, but part of the blame rests squarely on all of us who were so quick to shrug off the terrorist attacks of the past.
The world did not change on 9/11. We just got a lesson in the world as it really is.
But, even now, people imagine that when we finally leave Iraq we will not still be at war, that the world will not still include Osama Bin Laden and Mugniyah. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's only virtue is he does not let us forget he is around.
While we are busy being outraged by Ahmadinejad's request to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, we should take the time to lay wreaths of our own at the graves of those five murdered Marines from New York, and one more for Eddie Quail.
Thanks to Mr. Daly for his timely article on the Piece of Garbage, that recently flew in from Iran, I believe he calls himself the President of Iran now, 25 years ago he was nothing more than a murderous thug, and nothing has changed in the meantime.
No way to forget terror with Iran's president in your face
Sunday, September 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM
As the unrelentingly offensive president of Iran flies into JFK today, we should remember five beautiful sons of our city who were murdered at an airport far from home.
* Lance Cpl. Terrence Rich of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Steven Jones of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Warren Richardson of Brooklyn.
* Cpl. Obrian Weekes of Brooklyn.
* Lance Cpl. Dennis Thompson of the Bronx.
The five were killed along with 236 other Marines in a suicide attack on their barracks at the edge of Beirut International Airport on Oct. 23, 1983.
The CIA determined that the 12,000 pounds of explosives were furnished by Iran, whose hothead of state arrives among us today.
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks a little smug, one reason may be that the United States did exactly nothing about the murder of those 241 Marines in revenge for our support for Saddam Hussein back then.
And, when 9/11 did rouse us to the reality of terrorism, Ahmadinejad was no doubt delighted to see the Bush Administration use the attack on the World Trade Center as a pretext to go after Iran's old enemy Saddam.
Iran commemorated its eight-year war with Iraq with a big parade yesterday that featured a new Ghadr-1 missile, whose name means "power." There were also the requisite signs indicating that the enemy of Iran's enemy is still its enemy.
"Death to America!"
Ahmadinejad was expected to board a plane later for America, to New York in particular. He will be moving through our city's streets under our protection even as his operatives set roadside bombs in Baghdad to murder our troops.
Iran almost certainly had nothing to do with 9/11, but it also almost certainly is aiding Shiite insurgents in killing G.I.s in Iraq. Ahmadinejad's current pals in this clandestine effort include Imad Fayez Mugniyah, the mastermind of the Beirut bombing that killed 241 Marines nearly a quarter century ago.
The number goes up to 242 if you include another New York Marine, Eddie Quail of upstate Hopewell Junction. Quail was eating in the chow hall at the four-story barracks in Beirut when the whole world seemed to explode around him.
"He didn't know if there was a nuclear war or the world had ended," a friend said yesterday.
Quail spent 2-1/2 days trapped in the rubble, not even knowing which way was up or down. He had somehow held onto a metal cup and he kept rapping it against the concrete.
Finally, somebody heard him. Quail was extracted alive, but part of his mind remained in the rubble. He was left alone in his terror as the country quickly forgot the attack.
"Like it never happened," the friend said.
A decade after the bombing, Quail's knees still shook when he sat.
"You would see it in him," the friend recalled. "He was the nicest, kindest guy, but he was a nervous wreck all the time."
Quail attempted to take his life by slicing his wrists. A few months later he ran in front of a truck and was killed.
"I guess it was a suicide," his friend said.
Word of Quail's death reached the Rev. Mychal Judge, then the FDNY's chaplain. Judge contacted the Marine Corps, which dispatched an honor guard to a modest funeral that ended with everyone holding hands in prayer.
Four years later, Judge himself became a victim of terrorism at the World Trade Center. Neither the Iranians nor Saddam had anything to do with that attack, but part of the blame rests squarely on all of us who were so quick to shrug off the terrorist attacks of the past.
The world did not change on 9/11. We just got a lesson in the world as it really is.
But, even now, people imagine that when we finally leave Iraq we will not still be at war, that the world will not still include Osama Bin Laden and Mugniyah. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's only virtue is he does not let us forget he is around.
While we are busy being outraged by Ahmadinejad's request to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, we should take the time to lay wreaths of our own at the graves of those five murdered Marines from New York, and one more for Eddie Quail.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Marine leads lawsuit against Iran
Slickville Marine leads lawsuit against Iran
By Richard Gazarik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 20, 2007
It was Oct. 23, 1983, when the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detonated sent Marine Lance Cpl. Terry Valore, of Slickville in Westmoreland County, flying into a wall as his barracks disintegrated around him in Beirut, Lebanon.
Valore was a member of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, which was part of a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force assigned to Lebanon when Hezbollah terrorists, backed by Iran, drove a truck filled with explosives past a Marine checkpoint. They crashed the truck into the barracks, killing 241 Marines, soldiers and airmen.
Nearly 24 years later, Volare could be on the verge of payback.
He is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In March, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington entered a judgment against Iran that could allow Valore and relatives of Marines killed in the attack to recover damages.
story continues below
Now they have to collect.
A bill proposed Aug. 2 in the U.S. Senate -- Senate Bill 1944, the Justice for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act -- would allow the plaintiffs to recover damages from Iranian assets frozen by the United States. The bill is before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"We're trying to put pressure on Congress to get it to a vote," said Valore, 45.
The former Marine, who was burned over 90 percent of his body, said, "it's been a long, tough road" to get to this point.
He said terrorists have been "exploiting loopholes" in the law by hiding behind sovereign immunity, which shields foreign governments from lawsuits.
"I've had my ups and downs every day," he said. "I lost a lot of good friends and would love to see their families get some monetary gain from it."
His attorney, Daniel Gaskill, of Rockville, Md., said the Senate bill would make exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which bars lawsuits against other nations. The exceptions include state-sponsored terrorism, kidnapping, extrajudicial killings, torture, hostage-taking and aircraft sabotage.
In entering the judgment, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote that Valore and the other 44 defendants "have established by clear and convincing evidence" that Iran was responsible for the attack. He added that the "elements of civil conspiracy are established between the defendants in this case and the actual perpetrators of the attack."
Lamberth said the evidence linked Iran through its Ministry of Information and Security to Hezbollah, which U.S. military officials say is now being backed by Iran in attacks on American forces in Iraq. The judge ruled that Iran provided money and support for the terrorists who planned and carried out the Beirut attack.
Lamberth will decide on the amount of damages at a hearing Sept. 7, Gaskill said. A court-appointed special master would determine individual amounts for Valore and the other plaintiffs.
"We don't know what the judge will decide," Gaskill said. "My guess is he will go about $3.3 billion. Whatever number he gives us, it's like one less roadside bomb that the Iranians will have money to spend on."
Gaskill, himself a former Marine, said the legislation is needed so his clients can recover damages from the Iranian assets held by the United States. He said an act of Congress is needed to gain access to the frozen funds since he is barred by law from suing the U.S. government to force their release.
According to court records, Hezbollah packed a 19-ton truck with explosives and disguised it as a water delivery vehicle that routinely arrived at Beirut International Airport, where Valore's unit was stationed. Hezbollah hijacked the real water truck and sent in the fake. The truck crashed through sandbags and concertina wire surrounding the barracks and detonated about 6:25 a.m., when many of the Marines were sleeping. The blast left an 8-foot-deep crater and leveled the four-story barracks.
"What resulted was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detonated up to that time," Lamberth wrote.
Valore was on guard duty when the explosion occurred. The blast slammed him into a pillar, which kept him from being blown outside and buried when the building collapsed.
In his ruling, Lamberth said the physical and psychological toll on the survivors and families is incalcuable.
"This court acknowledges that there is little it can say to effectively convey to the (families) of these brave servicemen how deeply sorry it is for their losses." He said the attack "remains a tragedy that will never be forgotten."
"Parents and children alike were lost that day. Families were torn apart, never to become whole again. The physical and emotion and psychological scars suffered by these victims will undoubtedly endure long after the issuance of a judgment in this case."
In 2003, the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 settled their lawsuit against Libya for $2.7 billion after Libya admitted responsibility for the 1988 bombing as the plane flew over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Other lawsuits are pending in New York involving the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Somerset County.
Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism in 2003 filed a $116 trillion lawsuit against a company run by the family of Osama bin Laden, Sudan and a number of Saudi princes, alleging they helped finance the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The case is pending.
Valore said he plans to see the case through to the end.
"I got one shot at this," he said. "We all got one shot. I plan on changing history with this law. I almost lost my life over there. I can't let them win."
Richard Gazarik can be reached at rgazarik@tribweb.com or (724) 830-6292.
By Richard Gazarik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 20, 2007
It was Oct. 23, 1983, when the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detonated sent Marine Lance Cpl. Terry Valore, of Slickville in Westmoreland County, flying into a wall as his barracks disintegrated around him in Beirut, Lebanon.
Valore was a member of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, which was part of a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force assigned to Lebanon when Hezbollah terrorists, backed by Iran, drove a truck filled with explosives past a Marine checkpoint. They crashed the truck into the barracks, killing 241 Marines, soldiers and airmen.
Nearly 24 years later, Volare could be on the verge of payback.
He is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In March, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington entered a judgment against Iran that could allow Valore and relatives of Marines killed in the attack to recover damages.
story continues below
Now they have to collect.
A bill proposed Aug. 2 in the U.S. Senate -- Senate Bill 1944, the Justice for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act -- would allow the plaintiffs to recover damages from Iranian assets frozen by the United States. The bill is before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"We're trying to put pressure on Congress to get it to a vote," said Valore, 45.
The former Marine, who was burned over 90 percent of his body, said, "it's been a long, tough road" to get to this point.
He said terrorists have been "exploiting loopholes" in the law by hiding behind sovereign immunity, which shields foreign governments from lawsuits.
"I've had my ups and downs every day," he said. "I lost a lot of good friends and would love to see their families get some monetary gain from it."
His attorney, Daniel Gaskill, of Rockville, Md., said the Senate bill would make exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which bars lawsuits against other nations. The exceptions include state-sponsored terrorism, kidnapping, extrajudicial killings, torture, hostage-taking and aircraft sabotage.
In entering the judgment, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote that Valore and the other 44 defendants "have established by clear and convincing evidence" that Iran was responsible for the attack. He added that the "elements of civil conspiracy are established between the defendants in this case and the actual perpetrators of the attack."
Lamberth said the evidence linked Iran through its Ministry of Information and Security to Hezbollah, which U.S. military officials say is now being backed by Iran in attacks on American forces in Iraq. The judge ruled that Iran provided money and support for the terrorists who planned and carried out the Beirut attack.
Lamberth will decide on the amount of damages at a hearing Sept. 7, Gaskill said. A court-appointed special master would determine individual amounts for Valore and the other plaintiffs.
"We don't know what the judge will decide," Gaskill said. "My guess is he will go about $3.3 billion. Whatever number he gives us, it's like one less roadside bomb that the Iranians will have money to spend on."
Gaskill, himself a former Marine, said the legislation is needed so his clients can recover damages from the Iranian assets held by the United States. He said an act of Congress is needed to gain access to the frozen funds since he is barred by law from suing the U.S. government to force their release.
According to court records, Hezbollah packed a 19-ton truck with explosives and disguised it as a water delivery vehicle that routinely arrived at Beirut International Airport, where Valore's unit was stationed. Hezbollah hijacked the real water truck and sent in the fake. The truck crashed through sandbags and concertina wire surrounding the barracks and detonated about 6:25 a.m., when many of the Marines were sleeping. The blast left an 8-foot-deep crater and leveled the four-story barracks.
"What resulted was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detonated up to that time," Lamberth wrote.
Valore was on guard duty when the explosion occurred. The blast slammed him into a pillar, which kept him from being blown outside and buried when the building collapsed.
In his ruling, Lamberth said the physical and psychological toll on the survivors and families is incalcuable.
"This court acknowledges that there is little it can say to effectively convey to the (families) of these brave servicemen how deeply sorry it is for their losses." He said the attack "remains a tragedy that will never be forgotten."
"Parents and children alike were lost that day. Families were torn apart, never to become whole again. The physical and emotion and psychological scars suffered by these victims will undoubtedly endure long after the issuance of a judgment in this case."
In 2003, the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 settled their lawsuit against Libya for $2.7 billion after Libya admitted responsibility for the 1988 bombing as the plane flew over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Other lawsuits are pending in New York involving the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Somerset County.
Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism in 2003 filed a $116 trillion lawsuit against a company run by the family of Osama bin Laden, Sudan and a number of Saudi princes, alleging they helped finance the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The case is pending.
Valore said he plans to see the case through to the end.
"I got one shot at this," he said. "We all got one shot. I plan on changing history with this law. I almost lost my life over there. I can't let them win."
Richard Gazarik can be reached at rgazarik@tribweb.com or (724) 830-6292.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Fourth of July Beirut Vet Remembered
Remember America's heroes on July 5th too
Published Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Chet Decker is the sports editor for The Pioneer. He is a West Fargo graduate and was a journalist during his years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is currently employed as a Fargo Police Officer.
There’s only one thing I like during the Fourth of July holiday more than fireworks and barbeques. It’s during those annual fireworks displays that I remember true American heroes I had the honor to meet while serving two enlistments in the active duty U.S. Marine Corps as a combat journalist.It’s because of these men that we continue to have a 4th of July to celebrate, and we should remember them the other 364 days of the year as well. Their stories are the foundation of our country and embody the very flag everyone is waving around this week.
Their hardships could be written about, talked about and spread all over the world a million times over, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
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| Heroes managed to live while defending our country and flag. Countless people have died for that flag, and a majority of their stories will never be told. Don't forget them. / Submitted photo | ||
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Retired Master Sergeant Kenneth Whitehead was finally awarded a Bronze Star in 1999 for his life-saving actions in Vietnam in 1966. He was on watch, while many of his fellow Marines slept in tents nearby. Suddenly a grenade flew out of nowhere. Whitehead said he wasn’t even thinking when he picked up the live grenade and hurled it away from the tents. Just as he was realizing what he had done, he saw enemy soldiers advancing on him. That’s when he put his rifle into his shoulder and began killing those that wanted to kill him.
During an interview, Whitehead told me through tears about a battle earlier in the war when advancing enemy soldiers were so numerous that it seemed like a turkey shoot. He was shooting them with his pistol from just a few yards away as they attacked his tank. Whitehead drove the tank down an enemy trench line, crushing numerous enemy soldiers and burying several alive. Twelve U.S. Marines were killed in the battle. Whitehead said the war still goes on inside him – feelings of guilt for being a survivor and feelings of guilt for having killed scores of human beings.
And then there is the Marine who stands out most in my mind – former Corporal Paul Rivers, now a U.S. Marshall. I first met him during a ceremony in 1997 that marked the 14th anniversary of the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Rivers was lying in his bunk gathering himself to get out of bed and into uniform for duty. He remembers a tremendous light and waking up pinned under concrete with a plumbing pipe melting onto his face. Rivers ended up in a Lebanese hospital next to dead and dying Marines. He remembers the screams. Of more than 100 servicemen on his floor in the barracks, he is one of two that lived.
Rivers cried when he told me his story, about how everyone in the room with him, including his best friends, perished. When he told me, “My brothers would have wanted me to carry on,” I cried with him.
Rivers carries the weight of being one of a handful of surviving Marines in that 1983 terrorist attack that killed 241 American servicemen. Surely many who were sleeping never even knew what hit them. You can be damn sure that he remembers those patriots that surely did not want to die for their country but did anyway.
That American flag that sometimes seems to only be waved during holidays like the 4th of July is ours. Many people didn’t need to earn the right to wave that flag, because brave men like Mitchell Paige, Kenneth Whitehead and Paul Rivers did that for them.
Those heroes managed to live while defending our country and flag. Countless people have died for that flag, and a majority of their stories will never be told.
In a certain way, the gracefulness and beauty of our flag blowing in the wind tells those stories.
Don’t forget them.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Beirut Vets inspiration for Haditha Colonel
At Haditha Hearing, Dueling Views of a Battalion Commander
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., June 7 — Through three combat deployments in Iraq, a Bronze Star and numerous combat ribbons, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani’s Marine Corps career has been defined, it seems, by terrorist bombs.
In October 1983, news of the attack by Muslim extremists on a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 service members compelled Colonel Chessani, then a teenager from Rangely, Colo., to embrace Christianity and, later, to follow two brothers into the service. In November 2005, Colonel Chessani was a battalion commander in Haditha, Iraq, when a roadside bomb planted by Sunni Arab insurgents killed one of his marines and wounded two others.
Infantrymen under his command, seeking to engage the enemy, instead killed 24 civilians. Last year, the Marine Corps charged Colonel Chessani, 43, and three other officers with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the episode properly and relieved him of his command.
In a military hearing into whether he should face a formal court-martial, witnesses and military documents have helped paint two contradictory portraits of Colonel Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine officer charged since the Iraq war began more than four years ago.
On one side, battalion officers and enlisted men testifying under oath described Colonel Chessani, who at the time of the Haditha killings was on his third combat tour in Iraq, as a physically courageous leader whose integrity was beyond question.
“Lieutenant Colonel Chessani is by far the strongest moral leader I’ve ever worked with,” Sgt. Maj. Edward T. Sax, the battalion’s senior noncommissioned officer, testified last week. Maj. Samuel H. Carrasco, the Third Battalion’s operations officer, said Colonel Chessani’s “truthfulness is beyond reproach.” On Tuesday, Colonel Chessani’s adjutant, First Lt. Mark E. Towers, called him “a godly man” who spent a half-hour every morning in Iraq quietly reading the Bible in his quarters.
On the other side, Marine prosecutors have used testimony from Colonel Chessani’s subordinate and superior officers to portray him as a touchy and incurious field commander who, instead of investigating, sent deceptive reports about the Haditha killings up the chain of command.
Colonel Chessani never asked for a detailed briefing about how and why the marines killed 24 civilians, according to testimony, and did not inspect the scene of the killings, despite a report to superiors that he had.
Three months later, responding to questions about the civilian deaths from a Time magazine reporter, Colonel Chessani sent an e-mail message to his regimental commander that inaccurately stated that several AK-47s were found in a home where marines had killed several women and children, military documents show.
Major Carrasco, under questioning from prosecutors, also described Colonel Chessani as angrily shouting, “My men are not murderers!” after Major Carrasco and another battalion officer advised him, on Jan. 29, 2006, to open an inquiry into the killings.
Amid all the courtroom characterizations of him during the past week, Colonel Chessani, slightly built and with thinning gray hair, sat stone-faced at the defense table in his desert fatigues, jotting notes but rarely talking even to his lawyers.
By all accounts, including his own sworn statements to military investigators examining his response to the civilian killings, Colonel Chessani anguished over the casualties his marines suffered that day in Haditha — the most violent and chaotic day in the battalion’s combat tour.
From a command post about seven miles from Haditha, he viewed insurgent movements via video from an aerial drone and directed several attacks and counterattacks by marines against insurgents in residential areas around the city, according to testimony this week. Colonel Chessani visited one battle site later that day, but did not inspect the homes where 19 of the 24 civilians were killed by grenades and rifle fire.
In a sworn statement to military investigators in March 2006, Colonel Chessani said he never suspected that the killings were improper under the American laws of war, because they followed an attack by insurgents that, he believed, was intended to provoke lethal return fire by marines in a residential area.
“I believe the enemy picked the ground where he wanted to attack us,” Colonel Chessani said in a statement dated March 20, which has not been officially released. “They were — they had set this up so that there would be collateral damage.”
He later added, “Enemy had picked the place, he had picked the time and the location for a reason. I believed he made a definite choice in where it was and thought that, you know, he wanted to make us look bad.”
Marine prosecutors have suggested that Colonel Chessani was, in fact, so intent on not letting insurgents use the civilian deaths against the marines that he ignored evidence that his troops, under sporadic small-arms fire, had violated rules of engagement in killing civilians in their homes.
In a statement he gave on March 26, 2006, to an investigator from Naval Criminal Investigative Service from the base in Asad, Iraq, Colonel Chessani admitted, in stoical, confessional language, that he could have trained his marines better.
“Looking back, I could have done a better job preparing the marines for this deployment as it relates to R.O.E. training,” his statement said, using the abbreviation for rules of engagement. That might have included using live-fire training that required infantrymen to discern enemy targets from civilians.
Perhaps the most important arbiter of Colonel Chessani’s actions in Haditha is Col. Christopher Conlin, the investigating officer who will recommend whether the charges should proceed to a court-martial. Colonel Conlin, a former Iraq battalion commander presiding over his first military hearing, has made several comments that suggest a critical view of Colonel Chessani.
For example, last week, Colonel Conlin told a witness that many other battalion commanders would have joined their troops in the battle area on the day of combat in November 2005, instead of remaining miles away.
On Tuesday, Colonel Conlin asked Lieutenant Towers, who was a battalion legal adviser in Iraq in 2005, if a report by Colonel Chessani’s staff to the regiment stating that the colonel had examined the scene of the civilian casualties “implied that he went there.”
Lieutenant Towers answered firmly, “Yes, sir.”
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Iran, winner, and still , the world champion of terriorism!
* Author: Farid N. Ghadry
* News Date: 2/20/07
* Source: The Washington Times
The Syrian regime is just as complicit as Iran in moving forward hostile activities specifically designed to kill Americans. The evidence is there and widely acknowledged by those in the know, but U.S. political and military leadership have proved hesitant to publicly pursue a tandem case against both Iran and Syria, despite the very prominent linkages that exist between the two in fermenting a wide spectrum of terror operations targeting U.S. forces.
The recent implication of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Qods Force in facilitating the movement of deadly weapons and “super” IEDs specially designed to inflict maximum casualties and penetrate armor speaks to only one half of the real story.
Regional intelligence services and inside sources from within Sunni officer corps opposed to the Assad regime have identified major foreign-fighter training camps in northern Syria and just outside Damascus overseen by Syrian Military Intelligence and run by former Iraqi Ba’athi Generals and senior Saddam Fedayeen commanders.
One major foreign fighter camp exists in the Latakia province in northern Syria, a mountainous area replete with Syrian Military Intelligence facilities and wide swaths of ostensibly government property closed to the public. The Iraqi officer in charge there is one Maj. Gen. Majid Sulayman. Yet another such camp exists 40 kilometers to the west of the border town of Qamishli, which lies in the Kurdish area in the northeastern tip of Syria bordering Iraq and Turkey; it is run by Maj. Gen. Qays al-Adhami. The al-Shaybani camp lies 30 kilometers south of Damascus and also trains foreign fighters. The al-Ikhals camp lies in the heart of the Qaysun mountain range near Damascus.
The al Qaeda connection is not that far removed. Arab papers report that the recent movement of large numbers of al Qaeda in Iraq fighters from Syria into Palestinian refugee camps in northern Lebanon and Beirut are sounding alarm bells that the Syrian security services are preparing to use these heavily armed and visibly well-funded cells to launch attacks against the anti-Syrian democratic government of Lebanon.
These cells are directed by Syrian extremists such as Shakir Absi, Abu Qa Qa, Sheikh Hashem Minqara and Abu-Khalid Imlah, who have historical ties with Syrian intelligence; all were formerly imprisoned in special detention centers run by the Political Security Directorate and then suddenly released by the good graces of Syrian security around the same time in 2005. Absi and Imlah maintain the strongest ties to Syrian intelligence. Absi — a former officer in the Syrian air force — and Imlah — the former head of SMI — supported Fatah al-Intifadah — who later created his own Fatah al-Islam offshoot.
What’s more, European security services are warning that senior al Qaeda leadership figures Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi and Atiyah Abdul-Rahman have tasked al Qaeda assets in the Levant to prepare for major international operations targeting Western Europe and even the U.S homeland. Operational planning is said to be progressing with potential targets already cased out. And these are just the Sunni extremists that the Syrians support.
Mr. Chizari, one of the major IRGC commanders netted by Coalition Forces in December, was present in Damascus a month prior to his capture where he was meeting with senior Syrian leadership and the Lebanese Hezbollah officials in charge of a specially designated “Force 2800″ which focuses on supporting fellow radical Shi’ite groups like the ones responsible for the recent kidnapping and execution of four U.S. soldiers in Karbala.
Mr. Chizari is the deputy for Iraq operations to Brig. Gen. Qasim Soleimani, who in turn heads Qods Force external operations and is strategic guide to IRGC activities in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. The super IEDs, also known as explosive formed penetrators, would never have proliferated so widely in Iraq had it not been for the work of IRGC officials like Gen. Soleimani and Mr. Chizari. Gen. Soleimani’s other right-hand man, Ja’afar al-Ibrahimi, aka Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, also attended these meetings. Muhandis is a senior Badr Brigade operator with close ties to Hezbollah and a central node to the IRGC supply network to anti-U.S. Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Mr. Muhandis was also recently identified by the United States as being behind the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait in the early 1980s as well.
The Syrian-Iranian regime terror connection is further underscored by Gen. Soleimani’s participation in high-level discussions on a monthly basis with Syrian leadership, including Assad’s brother and brother-in law.
Imad Mugniyeh, the infamous Hezbollah special operations super-terrorist who still retains a $5 million bounty on his head — placed by the FBI due to his role in planning the Marine barrack and embassy bombings in Beirut in 1982 — is also said to attend these meetings. Sources say that Mugniyeh was designated by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as the head of Force 2800.
The case is apparent and it goes beyond the circumstantial. The Syrian regime is not merely dabbling in terror sponsorship in an ad hoc manner. This is a concerted and strategic effort designed to inflict the maximum punishment upon the United States and its allies, not just in the region but across the globe.
The full scope and depth of regime involvement in enabling acts of self-sustaining terror might never be known. But enough indicators have subsequently arisen within the shadow of Iran’s own pernicious designs against the United States and struggling democratic allies in the Arab world, to realize that, left unchecked, we might find ourselves suddenly overwhelmed and outflanked by an enemy that, for the sake of expediency, was ignored.
Farid N. Ghadry is president of the Reform Party of Syria.
* News Date: 2/20/07
* Source: The Washington Times
The Syrian regime is just as complicit as Iran in moving forward hostile activities specifically designed to kill Americans. The evidence is there and widely acknowledged by those in the know, but U.S. political and military leadership have proved hesitant to publicly pursue a tandem case against both Iran and Syria, despite the very prominent linkages that exist between the two in fermenting a wide spectrum of terror operations targeting U.S. forces.
The recent implication of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Qods Force in facilitating the movement of deadly weapons and “super” IEDs specially designed to inflict maximum casualties and penetrate armor speaks to only one half of the real story.
Regional intelligence services and inside sources from within Sunni officer corps opposed to the Assad regime have identified major foreign-fighter training camps in northern Syria and just outside Damascus overseen by Syrian Military Intelligence and run by former Iraqi Ba’athi Generals and senior Saddam Fedayeen commanders.
One major foreign fighter camp exists in the Latakia province in northern Syria, a mountainous area replete with Syrian Military Intelligence facilities and wide swaths of ostensibly government property closed to the public. The Iraqi officer in charge there is one Maj. Gen. Majid Sulayman. Yet another such camp exists 40 kilometers to the west of the border town of Qamishli, which lies in the Kurdish area in the northeastern tip of Syria bordering Iraq and Turkey; it is run by Maj. Gen. Qays al-Adhami. The al-Shaybani camp lies 30 kilometers south of Damascus and also trains foreign fighters. The al-Ikhals camp lies in the heart of the Qaysun mountain range near Damascus.
The al Qaeda connection is not that far removed. Arab papers report that the recent movement of large numbers of al Qaeda in Iraq fighters from Syria into Palestinian refugee camps in northern Lebanon and Beirut are sounding alarm bells that the Syrian security services are preparing to use these heavily armed and visibly well-funded cells to launch attacks against the anti-Syrian democratic government of Lebanon.
These cells are directed by Syrian extremists such as Shakir Absi, Abu Qa Qa, Sheikh Hashem Minqara and Abu-Khalid Imlah, who have historical ties with Syrian intelligence; all were formerly imprisoned in special detention centers run by the Political Security Directorate and then suddenly released by the good graces of Syrian security around the same time in 2005. Absi and Imlah maintain the strongest ties to Syrian intelligence. Absi — a former officer in the Syrian air force — and Imlah — the former head of SMI — supported Fatah al-Intifadah — who later created his own Fatah al-Islam offshoot.
What’s more, European security services are warning that senior al Qaeda leadership figures Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi and Atiyah Abdul-Rahman have tasked al Qaeda assets in the Levant to prepare for major international operations targeting Western Europe and even the U.S homeland. Operational planning is said to be progressing with potential targets already cased out. And these are just the Sunni extremists that the Syrians support.
Mr. Chizari, one of the major IRGC commanders netted by Coalition Forces in December, was present in Damascus a month prior to his capture where he was meeting with senior Syrian leadership and the Lebanese Hezbollah officials in charge of a specially designated “Force 2800″ which focuses on supporting fellow radical Shi’ite groups like the ones responsible for the recent kidnapping and execution of four U.S. soldiers in Karbala.
Mr. Chizari is the deputy for Iraq operations to Brig. Gen. Qasim Soleimani, who in turn heads Qods Force external operations and is strategic guide to IRGC activities in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. The super IEDs, also known as explosive formed penetrators, would never have proliferated so widely in Iraq had it not been for the work of IRGC officials like Gen. Soleimani and Mr. Chizari. Gen. Soleimani’s other right-hand man, Ja’afar al-Ibrahimi, aka Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, also attended these meetings. Muhandis is a senior Badr Brigade operator with close ties to Hezbollah and a central node to the IRGC supply network to anti-U.S. Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Mr. Muhandis was also recently identified by the United States as being behind the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait in the early 1980s as well.
The Syrian-Iranian regime terror connection is further underscored by Gen. Soleimani’s participation in high-level discussions on a monthly basis with Syrian leadership, including Assad’s brother and brother-in law.
Imad Mugniyeh, the infamous Hezbollah special operations super-terrorist who still retains a $5 million bounty on his head — placed by the FBI due to his role in planning the Marine barrack and embassy bombings in Beirut in 1982 — is also said to attend these meetings. Sources say that Mugniyeh was designated by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as the head of Force 2800.
The case is apparent and it goes beyond the circumstantial. The Syrian regime is not merely dabbling in terror sponsorship in an ad hoc manner. This is a concerted and strategic effort designed to inflict the maximum punishment upon the United States and its allies, not just in the region but across the globe.
The full scope and depth of regime involvement in enabling acts of self-sustaining terror might never be known. But enough indicators have subsequently arisen within the shadow of Iran’s own pernicious designs against the United States and struggling democratic allies in the Arab world, to realize that, left unchecked, we might find ourselves suddenly overwhelmed and outflanked by an enemy that, for the sake of expediency, was ignored.
Farid N. Ghadry is president of the Reform Party of Syria.
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