(CIA TERRORIST AT LARGE IN USA)Posada Carriles: ‘The bin Laden of the Americas’ http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72972

The news regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden by United States military forces hit the airwaves on Sunday, 1 May 2011, prompting jubilation among many people in the United States and other places around the world. This triumphalism of US citizens, who were directly or indirectly affected by the military activities of bin Laden’s al Qaeda group, emanated from the belief that bin Laden’s death served justice to the victims for the 11 September 2001 attack on the US. It is, however, important to note that as dreadful as bin Laden was, modern international terrorism did not begin with him. As quiet as it is kept, international terrorism did not begin on 11 September 2001. Before Osama bin Laden, there was Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles, also known as Posada Carriles or ‘Bambi’, according to a de-classified CIA file.

On 6 October 1976, plastic explosives stuffed in tubes of toothpaste brought down Cubana Flight 455 leaving Barbados for Cuba. This singular attack on the Cubana Airline killed all 73 passengers on board, including some of the best athletes in the Caribbean, and was especially felt among Cuban youths who lost 24 members of their Olympic fencing team. This fencing team had recently competed and obtained all gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship. Investigations by the governments of Cuba, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, Venezuela and the United States ascertained that the mastermind of the explosion was Posada Carriles. The Caribbean demanded that Carriles and his accomplices be brought to swift justice.

Carriles was a key operative in many CIA campaigns against Fidel Castro and Cuba. Additionally, Posada was involved in a wider campaign of political repression involving kidnappings and assassinations all across South America. This campaign, called Operation Condor, had the special imprint of the dictators in Argentina and Chile. Orlando Letelier was a former minister of Chilean president, Salavador Allende’s government, who along with his secretary was assassinated by a car bomb explosion in Washington, D.C. on 21 September 1976. This was an example of American supported terrorism spilling on to the streets of the capital of the United States. Posada Carriles was directly linked to Operation Condor and to the assassination of Orlando Leteiler. It was only weeks after this killing on the streets of Washington that terror struck the Caribbean in the attack on the Cubana flight.