www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister, General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero says the police believe that the Maracaibo car bomb has more to do with an age-old vendetta between the Melean and Semprun families than anything else. 

Zulia State Police Detective Branch (CICPC) director, Idelfonso Urdaneta suggests that the car bomb may have been aimed at Rancher kingpin, Antonio Melean. The two rancher familes are said to be a law unto themselves in Zulia ... both families have suffered death from assassinations.

However, opposition groups continue to claim that it was a government-inspired attack to eliminate Melean, who had been a leading light in the anti-government national stoppage and the new Lands Law. 

The police will interrogate Melean today on the car bomb episode.

Meanwhile in Caracas, there has been growing speculation regarding a CCTV video showing persons, who allegedly planted the bomb in front of the Colombian consulate.

 MIJ Minister Rincon Romero says Venezuelan security forces have not reported knowledge of the video and has asked the Colombians to supply the video, if indeed it exists.

news.ft.com By Andy Webb-Vidal in Miami Published: March 4 2003 19:10 | Last Updated: March 4 2003 19:10

The US faces a growing risk from both Middle Eastern terrorists relocating to Latin America and terror groups from the region, a top US military official has warned.

General James Hill, Commander of US Southern Command, told Latin American military officers and regional intelligence analysts in Miami on Tuesday that groups such as Hizbollah, the militant Shia Muslim group, had established bases in Latin America.

These groups were taking advantage of smuggling hotspots such as the "tri-border area" joining Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and Venezuela's Margarita island to channel funds to terrorist groups round the world.

US officials are also worried that weak state institutions are making the region a haven for operatives affiliated to groups such as al-Qaeda who may flee the Middle East in the wake of a war in Iraq.

Security experts say no specific governments in the region can yet be considered "accomplice states" for harbouring terrorists but border and immigration controls must be tightened.

Fernando Falcón, a former Venezuelan state security police chief, said: "If I were al-Qaeda, I would be setting up in Venezuela right now."

Gen Carl Freeman, president of the Inter-American Defence Board, said parts of Latin America were potential rest-and-recuperation hideouts and stop-off points before entry to the US. "Latin American countries are vulnerable," he said. "Terrorists will find the weak link in the chain and take advantage."

Gen Hill also warned that the long-running, drug- fuelled conflict in Colombia was spilling over its borders. "There were more terrorist attacks last year in Colombia alone than in all the other nations in the world combined. This is a battle that must be fought together. If we don't, I fear we risk winning the battle in Colombia and losing the war in the rest of the region."

The warning comes as the strongest signs emerge that the Colombian conflict is becoming enmeshed with increasingly violent political tensions in Venezuela.

Two powerful bombs damaged the Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas last week. The attacks came shortly after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez criticised Colombia, Spain and the US for meddling in Venezuela's "internal affairs".

Last weekend near their shared border, the Colombian and Venezuelan military defused a truck-bomb several times larger than one that killed 36 at a club in Bogotá.

Mr Chávez said this week that the suspected embassy bombers had been "identified" as linked to opposition groups bent on denigrating him and pinning the blame on his government.

However, intelligence sources in Miami said they suspect the perpetrators were linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) or a group on the fringes of Venezuela's state security police.

Colombia's state security police said yesterday it was investigating the passage of rebels from Farc, including its chief, Manuel Marulanda, across the border into Venezuela.

The deepening insecurity in Venezuela comes as the US steps up its training of the Colombian army in its war against Farc.

Three US citizens working under a US Defense Department contract are being held as "prisoners of war" by Farc after being captured last month.

The US is understood to have agreed to dispatch "intelligence assistance teams" to the Colombian military, although it is not permitted to maintain more than 400 US troops in Colombia, a cap designed to prevent "mission creep".

Robert Steele, a former deputy director of US Marine Intelligence and a private sector adviser, said US resources should be better used to help avert Latin American economic crises that could breed radical political groups. "We have cold war mindsets that are not adequate for today. The US thinks of Latin America as a benign backyard. They are wrong. It is a nightmare ready to go north, and the Americans don't understand that."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

According to reports in the US media, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Manuel Marulanda Velez is currently in hiding in the jungle in Venezuela near its border with Colombia.

The article in the El Nuevo Herald newspaper, which cites intelligence sources for the information, claims that the FARC leader entered Venezuela through Vichada State.

The information has allegedly been corroborated by Colombian Federation of Municipalities president Gilberto Toro who said "this is not a report that the Venezuelan authorities should discard, on the contrary they should investigate."

Toro called on President Hugo Chavez Frias to launch an investigation so there would be no repeat of what happened with Peru's Vladimir Montesinos, who Venezuela repeatedly denied was in the country, but proved to be there all the time.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 03, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) deputy Pedro Castillo has named several army officers as implicated in selling weapons decommissioned from the Metropolitan Police (PM) during the government intervention in November.

Simon Bolivar Infantry 311th battalion, Private Lucio Duran allegedly handed his friends a list of 12 officers and NCOs to safeguard before he was murdered in Vargas ... Castillo told his friends he had received threats after he started selling the weapons to criminal elements in Vargas off his own bat.

• His family convinced him to recover the guns and hand them over … it was while he was trying to get 19 short arms and 2 HK sub machine guns back that he was killed.

Assemblyman Castillo names the officers as: Lt. Colonel Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Major Tomas Ernesto Mendez Goatache, Captains Hector Jose Salgado, Johnny Correa, Silvano Jose Torres and Juan Gabriel Puertas Tovar, Lieutenants Alfredo Jose Garcia Jaramillo, Omar Cecilio Marrero Aponte and Jose Gregorio Meneses Alayon, Staff Sergeant Pedro Javier Teran and Sergeants, Julio Cesar Marcano and Saury Jose Solis Benitez.

Castillo says Private Duran had allegedly underlined the names on official army letterhead. “According friends in the Police Detective Branch, I can say that Duran was murdered by Carlos Augusto Ibarra Ortiz and Alfredo Zambrano … they escaped with 19 9mm pistols, 380 short arms and 3 HK sub machineguns.”

www.iribnews.com 3/3/2003 10:28:48 AM

Caracas, March 3 - A car bomb exploded just blocks away from a chevron office in northwestern Maracaibo oil field Sunday, police and firefighter officials said.

Nine people inside the house where the explosion occurred -- including a local strike leader -- escaped unharmed, but the bomb caused severe damage to nearby buildings, authorities said late Sunday.

The car was parked outside the home of Antonio Melian, who participated in the crippling oil workers' strike designed to oust President Hugo Chavez, and who the police said had been "a very controversial figure" in the area.

The explosion came five days after twin attacks against the Colombian and Spanish embassies on February 25 which injured four.

President Hugo Chavez in his 'Alo Presidente' radio program blamed would-be "coup" leaders for the attacks, and said Venezuela was conscious it has a battle against "terrorism" on its hands. An opposition lawmaker warned that the car bomb could be an indication that Venezuela's conflict was being "Colombia-ized." Wreckage from the car was flung some 150 meters out, hitting neighboring houses, local media reported.