|
Spain seizes drugs shipment to Libya in global operation
[AlAhram] Spanish police said Tuesday they seized nearly 20 tonnes of hashish in a boat heading to Libya, as part of a global operation targeting the financing of gangs in North Africa and the Middle East.With the help of Europe's police agency Europol and air support from Italian police, Spanish forces intercepted the boat registered under the Panama flag off the coast of Almeria in Spain's southeast on September 23. They said all crew members were detained -- 11 Ukrainians and one Uzbek. The Guardia Civil police force said the boat was intercepted as part of an operation launched by Spanish, Moroccan, French, Italian and Greek authorities, with support from the US Drug Enforcement Agency. A total of seven boats have been caught in the multi-country operation, two of them carrying weapons and five full of hashish. They had all departed from ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... Investigators believe the drugs would have been used to buy weapons.
He would not be drawn on which groups the drugs and weapons were benefiting, but said police were "convinced... that they also finance jihadist terrorism." Of the two boats intercepted with weapons on board, one of them was sailing under the Bolivian flag and the other was registered in Togo. Altogether, they carried 11,400 long guns, more than a million cartridges and ten tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives. The boat registered in Togo was heading to Misrata on Libya's northwestern coast. The intended recipients are unclear but Misrata is home to powerful militias who were among the forces that seized the capital Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... in 2014 and forced the government to flee further east. But they are now fighting alongside forces from a UN-backed unity government formed earlier this year -- and re-established in Tripoli -- to oust the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group from nearby Sirte. Since it started in 2013, the multi-country operation has resulted in the detention of 109 people of various nationalities, the majority of them Syrian, Moroccan and Spanish. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-10-12 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=470015 |