More on Monzer al-Kassar . . .

On June 8, the DEA and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest in Spain of a major international arms dealer, Monzer al Kassar. The prosecutor’s office alleges that Kassar was arrested after an undercover operation in which he engaged in a purported deal to supply anti-American rebels in Colombia with millions of dollars’ worth of weapons.


U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia announced that “Monzer al Kassar has long been one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world. He has supported terrorists and insurgents by providing them with high-powered weapons that have fueled the most violent conflicts of the last three decades.” DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy, who announced the arrest with Garcia, said, “Monzer al Kassar commands a global munitions empire, arming and funding insurgents and terrorists across the globe, particularly those who wish to harm Americans.” Tandy said that Kassar “operates in the shadows, the silent partner behind the business of death and terror.”

In his prepared remarks, Garcia said that “The weapons that Kassar and his co-defendants agreed to provide included close to 8,000 machine guns, 2 million rounds of ammunition, 120 rocket-propelled grenade launchers (“RPGS”), 2,400 hand grenades, and surface-to-air missile systems (“SAMS”) specifically designed to take down United States helicopters.” Garcia also said that Kassar offered to send 1,000 men to fight with the FARC against U.S. military in Colombia, and agreed to supply thousands of pounds of explosives.


On the day of his arrest in Madrid, a grand jury indictment against Kassar was unsealed in New York City. Two associates of Kassar’s, Tareq Mousa al Ghazi and Luis Felipe Moreno, were simultaneously arrested in Romania.

One could not accuse the administration of bragging about this haul. Considering the magnitude of the international death-dealing alleged, in fact, the White House and the DOJ seem to have been remarkably -- if becomingly -- modest and low-key about it. While the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan did issue appropriate statements for public release, the DOJ apparently issued none. The DOJ home web site page for June press releases lists at least 70 indictments, arrests and other legal actions, big and small, including the arrests of two individuals for alleged conspiracy to import falsely labeled fish. But not this one.

Kassar’s arrest was reported rather concisely on or about June 9 in the Washington Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times and New York Newsday, although there seem to have been few or no follow-up stories in the press.

It was followed up excellently at ajacksonian.blogspot.com, where the information on Kassar is too copious to equal. Ajacksonian first posted material about Kassar when he was arrested, following Instapundit, then followed up with more material and related links shortly afterward.

I can follow up to some extent with information passed along to me a year or so ago, by an editor who probably wanted to see the topic written about. The U.S. Intelligence Community and international authorities have had Monzer al Kassar in their sights for decades.

Among other items:

  • In 1977, Monzer al Kassar was convicted in Britain of smuggling hashish oil into the U.K.
  • In 1978, Monzer al Kassar was deported from Britain after serving a jail term.
  • In 1980, Monzer al Kassar was allegedly tied to the assassination of Salah al-Bitar, a relatively progressive Syrian politician in opposition to the government.
  • In 1982, he was imprisoned in Spain.
  • In 1983-84, Monzer al Kassar allegedly tried to obtain remote-controlled detonators in Britain.
  • In 1985, Kassar was allegedly part of a plot to kill Israeli intelligence officers in Amsterdam, traveling to Paris to deliver guns for the plot.
  • Also in 1985, Monzer al Kassar reportedly went to Damascus on behalf of the Polish state arms firm, Cenzin, to sell RPGs and grenades to Iran for delivery to Lebanese Shia militia.
  • In late 1985, Monzer al Kassar allegedly flew Abu Abbas from Yugoslavia to Yemen after the Achille Lauro hijacking.
  • In 1986, he was sentenced to death in absentia in French courts for his part in the assassination plot in Amsterdam.

The al Kassar family came from Syria; Monzer al Kassar’s father, Mohammed, allegedly began the family’s illegal smuggling business and was Syrian ambassador to Kuwait and India for less than a year (1970-71) before being recalled.

Monzer al Kassar began as a pilot for Pakistan International Airlines and has extensive business connections in Europe and the Middle East. One of his brothers is a son-in-law of the former Chief of Syrian Military Intelligence.

A significant locus for many business-and-terrorism connections, in arms dealing and the smuggling that supports it, is the harbor town of Marbella, Spain. Marbella, on the Costa del Sol, has long been known as a handy jumping-off place for shadowy commerce between Europe and Africa. Africa, in turn, is the humble continent used by European ne’er-do-wells and merchants of death to triangulate deals involving other parts of the world.

Monzer al Kassar allegedly used putative African destinations in his arms dealing. His company, Alkastronic, allegedly sold thousands of grenades and other arms to Luxembourg ostensibly for shipment to Ghana but more probably for shipment to Iran.

Marbella looks like a good spot for heavy-duty scrutiny – sort of like Casablanca in World War II, without the romance -- if you’re actually concerned about gunrunning, the international black market or weapons commerce in general, and ties to drug trafficking and its kissing cousins, money-laundering and bribery.

There is no simple, narrowly partisan angle here. It took the complacency, neglect and complicity of three administrations – Bush, Clinton, Bush – to bring about the widespread anti-Americanism and financial cynicism that supports this commerce. Wide-open access to major weapons sources on one end and eager customers on the other, facilitated by greedy or corrupt officials and massive revenues, have created a global financial El Nino that sweeps the world even while individual officials and some others try their best to contain it.

Monzer al Kassar, in short, seems to have functioned effectively on a very large scale for decades, as long as he operated in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Lesson here for any bigtime arms dealer: if you hope to operate with impunity, by all means sell in the Middle East, regardless of whether that materiel will (also) be used to kill Americans. Like al Kassar, you get into hot water only when you come over into the Western hemisphere.

Admittedly it would be easy for a greedy criminal posing as a good anti-American to operate in a place like Colombia with its hinky history – Brazil was the place to which former Nazis fled, but Colombia was the South American destination of choice for former Nazi collaborators. In our time, the “war on drugs” has fueled anti-American sentiment throughout the hemisphere, operating largely by devastating the countrysides of several Latin American nations, where the poor are caught in the cross-fire while the political establishment clings to relative safety in wealthy urban enclaves. Then the local power structure always manages to get more firepower from Uncle Sam, in the guise of fighting drugs, even while its own members take part in the same commerce themselves or earn pay protecting it.

Still, it is difficult to understand why the White House and the Justice Department did not trumpet the catch in this case.

Not to downplay the effective work done in this case by the DOJ and the DEA, but – setting this individual case aside, and speaking of politicizing things, let’s hope the Intelligence Community, induced by the White House, does not have a policy of tossing selective nuggets of information to favored US attorneys for political reasons. It would be unconscionable of the CIA, the NSA, the DIA or the homeland security department to help some federal prosecutors brighten their luster at the expense of other offices – either by helping them land cases of special gravitas, or by helping them succeed where previous investigations were stymied. And obviously it would be even worse for any federal intelligence agency or entity to stymie or derail an investigation.

Regrettably, the failure of any investigation through malfeasance or simple misfeasance could be explained away as the result of a ‘wall’. If we have no effective oversight from the justice system or elsewhere, there would be no way to pierce the alibi.