Recently in Venezuela Category

Miami: U.S. orders expulsion of Venezuelan consul general linked to Iranian cyber-attack plot

"The State Department had said last month it was looking into 'very disturbing' allegations that Acosta was a participant in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks on sensitive US national security facilities."

"US orders expulsion of Venezuelan consul," by Jim Mannion for the Associated Press, January 8:

The United States has ordered the expulsion of Venezuela's consul general in Miami amid reports linking the diplomat to an alleged Iranian plot to target sensitive US facilities with cyber attacks, the US State Department said Sunday.

The US action comes as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to kick off a Latin American tour in Caracas later Sunday.

In Caracas, President Hugo Chavez made no mention of the consul's expulsion in his Sunday radio and TV program but accused Washington of "inventing" Iranian plots to attack the United States from Latin American countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

For the United States to say "no country should get close to Iran really is a laugh," Chavez said.

The Venezuelan embassy in Washington was notified Friday that Livia Acosta Noguera, the consul general in Miami, had been declared persona non grata and had until Tuesday to leave the country, said State Department spokesman William Ostick.

"In accordance with Article 23 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the department declared Ms Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuelan consul general to Miami, to be persona non grata. As such, she must depart the United States by January 10," he said.

"We cannot comment on specific details behind the decision to declare Ms Acosta persona non grata at this time," he added in a statement.

The State Department had said last month it was looking into "very disturbing" allegations that Acosta was a participant in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks on sensitive US national security facilities.

The allegations were made in a documentary that aired on the Spanish-language television network Univision, which said Acosta was taped discussing the alleged plot with a Mexican computer expert who said he was among a group of students recruited for the plot.

The contacts reportedly took place in 2007 while Acosta was serving as a second secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico City.

An excerpt of one conversation has Acosta demanding information that the student, Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo, had passed on to Iranian diplomats about the locations of US nuclear power plants. She was quoted as later telling Munoz that she had passed the information to the head of Chavez's presidential security unit.

Univision said Munoz said he was recruited for the Iranian plot by a leftist professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, but then recruited other students to secretly videotape the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats they met with.

According to Univision, the students then sent or personally turned over the material they gathered to US embassy officials in Mexico, the FBI, Pentagon and US lawmakers....

U.S. officials: Jihadists in South America

"The United States has determined that Islamic insurgency groups based in the Middle East have established operations in South America."

(Maybe they read about it here.)

"U.S. officials said Middle East insurgents use South America to raise money through drug trafficking and other illegal activities. They said the Islamic groups also employ South America to recruit agents and ensure logistics for operations.

"The groups that operate in South America include the Palestinian-based Hamas, the Lebanese-based Hizbullah and the Egyptian Gamiat Islamiya, officials said. These organizations have representation in several countries in South America, including Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Paraguay, Trinidad and Venezuela.

"'These logistic cells reach back to the Middle East and extend to this hemisphere the sophisticated global support structure of international terrorism,' U.S. Southern Command Gen. James Hill said. 'Not surprisingly, Islamic radical groups and narcoterrorists in Colombia all practice the same business methods.'"

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FrontPageMag.com

Books by Robert Spencer

The Muslim Brotherhood in America, by Robert Spencer

Islamophobia: Thoughtcrime of the Totalitarian Future

Muslim Persecution of Christians, by Robert Spencer

The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks

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