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THE MALTESE DOUBLE CROSS -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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That would go to the CIA.
The CIA control the special action group operating out of this apartment building in Weisbaden, Germany.
Operational intelligence to a group in Beirut, Matthew Gannon, CIA Chief of Station, and Army Major Chuck McKee, trying to locate and rescue American hostages being taken in and out of the Bekaa.
[Juval Aviv, Investigator] A lot of attempts have been made to release those hostages by contacting known figures in the terrorist world, drug dealers and known terrorists as Monzer al-Kassar who is related to the Syrian government by marriage, who lives and operated both in Damascus and in Europe and had experience in trafficking not only weapons all over the world but also drugs. They have assigned that mission to Monzer al-Kassar. He helped gather in the drugs in the Bekaa Valley and helped in the drugs going into the United States. He was an asset of the CIA.
[Steve Donahue, DEA undercover agent] I only knew him as Mohammed, Abu Mohammed. He was the person that had to facilitate the delivery of, there was a brown substance that's a precursor to heroin. They call it 'base' or 'base.' I think its base. And that's coffee colored and it comes in like gunny sacks, and he is the person that I met who facilitated the heroin across the Syrian border in the northern, the city of Qaa in northern Lebanon.
[Lester Coleman, U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency] Monzer al-Kassar is probably the most notorious, in the 80's anyway, gun and arms and drug supplier in the middle east. Nothing went down in the Bekaa Valley related to narcotics for example without the explicit approval of Rifat Assad and Monzer al-Kassar. Nothing happened in the Bekaa Valley, not the hostages, not the opium trade, not the heroin laboratories, not the cocaine processing labs, none of that could have happened without the express consent and involvement of Rifat Assad and the Pink Panther Brigade and his partner Monzer al-Kassar. And the Americans knew that.
NSC INTELLIGENCE DOCUMENT
[Narrator] Payments made to Monzer al-Kassar by Lt. Col. Oliver North.
The account numbers.
And amounts.
As new recruits are sworn in for the ongoing war the guest of honor at the Hizbollah table of dignitaries: Ahmed Jibril. Jibril who made airplane bombs in a terrorist cell in Frankfurt in October, 1988.
[Juval Aviv, Investigator] When Jibril realized that that operation was going on, because he was participating in drug shipments and raising money through drugs, monetary, and so the players on the ground were known. He realized, very simple, that if he can put, if he can gain access to one of the suitcases, of controlled, monitored suitcases, and put a bomb into it, the bomb will be put on the plane, will be supervised by those who were supervising it, including all the law enforcement agencies, by making sure that nobody challenges the suitcase, nobody opens it, it goes through the security system, and all he had to do was just put it in that suitcase and the rest is history.
[Jafaar Family Member] Khaled didn't know anything about drugs, bombs or anything. Khaled was obliged to travel to Germany, where Mohammed Ja'far, who was in charge of the Hizbollah party, had told him to go. He told him that he'll send him to his Palestinian friends at Ahmed Jibril's, and other organizations, who will help him earn some money. He also told him that he will marry him to his sister. He used the boy Khaled, who didn't know anything about drugs or bombs. He had never used any weapons, neither has any member of his family. He wouldn't hurt a fly.
[Steve Donahue, DEA undercover agent] I met Moostafa in 1974. I went to his home in Baalbek, actually in Shroni? where the Jafaar clan lives. And they have two homes, one in Shroni?, and one in Hermel, in central Baalbeck, in central Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley, and I also know a great deal about his family. This was in the pre-terrorist days, really.
[Narrator] The Jafaar Family Seat.
The bullet holes from Hizbollah.
The shrine inside to Khaled.
Grandfather Moostafa Jafaar. Khaled was his favorite grandson.
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