Counter-Terrorism: Rounding Up The Gunrunners

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June 9,2008: The United States has persuaded Spain to extradite Syrian gunrunner Monzer al Kassar. For over 30 years, Kassar has been supplying weapons to terrorists and rebels around the world. Recently, the U.S. set up a sting operation that obtained compelling evidence of Kassar's guilt. Although Kassar claimed he could not receive a fair trial in the U.S. because he was an Arab, Spain was glad to be rid of him. Kassar thought he was safe in Spain, because he had never done any dirty work there.

The U.S. sting operation had Kassar offering to sell weapons to Colombian terror organization FARC. A similar sting operation was used to catch Russian gunrunner Viktor Bout in Thailand last year. But then Bout began calling in favors from contacts in the Russian government, resulting in a tug of war between U.S. and Russian diplomats. The end of this situation is still unclear.

 

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