The Castro dictatorship in Havana remains very much involved in harboring and supporting terrorists ranging from jihadists to fugitive murderers with American blood on their hands, experts say.
The Obama administration's decision to take Cuba off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism "appears at odds with disturbing evidence collected for a report on Cuba's terrorist ties" posted last month by the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS), a research institute affiliated with the University of Miami,
the Daily Caller reported Wednesday.
"I think this is an unwarranted concession. Number one, Cuba is still involved with terrorism and is still harboring American and Spanish terrorists in Cuba," and "is still involved with Hamas and Hezbollah," institute director Jaime Suchlicki told the website.
"Cuba is an ally of Iran and Venezuela, and Cuba hasn't made any concessions of … the system opening up, not repressing dissidents in Cuba. Why are we making concessions without anything in return?"
The institute's report says that during 2014, the communist Cuban regime said it would begin to freeze assets linked to al-Qaida in Cuba. Thus, the Castro regime "tacitly admitted that they had been facilitating financing of terrorism," ICCAS says.
According to the report, Cuba "directly and through Venezuela continues to provide intelligence to Hamas and Hezbollah."
Two Arab Shiite Muslims, Ghazi Nasr Al din and Fawzi Kanaan, "have set up shop in Caracas, Venezuela, under the protection of the Venezuelan government. Working in coordination with the Cuban government, both are active in promoting Hezbollah and Iranian targets in South America and against the U.S.," ICCAS reported.
The pair "fund-raise for Hezbollah, facilitate travel for Hezbollah activists to Venezuela and through Venezuela to other countries. This is all part of the strategic alliance between Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran," it added.
Moreover, Cuban military officers act as liaisons between the Venezuelan military and narcoterrorists operating with the Colombian FARC organization.
Cuban General Leonardo Ramon Andollo, chief of operations of Cuba's Armed Forces Ministry, "has visited Venezuela and acted as a go-between [for] the Cuban and Venezuelan military involved in drug trafficking," according to ICCAS.
A huge issue for many Americans is the Castro regime's continuing role in harboring numerous fugitive criminals from the United States, among them Joanne Chesimard, placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list in 2013 for the May 1973 murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster.
Chesimard has been living in Cuba after escaping in 1979 from a New Jersey prison, where she was serving her sentence for murdering Foerster.
But Chesimard is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Cuba's harboring of fugitive terrorists and murderers, according to ICCAS.
Others include Ishmael LaBeet, one of five men "convicted of the infamous Fountain Valley Massacre, a racially tinged 1972 armed robbery in the Virgin Islands that turned into mass murder, with eight dead," ICCAS reported.
There is also William Morales, "the master bomb-maker of the Puerto Rican separatist group FALN, which set off 140 or so blasts around the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, killing at least six people," according to the research organization.
Others include Charles Hill, "who in 1971 hijacked a civilian plane carrying 49 passengers and fled to Cuba."
Hill is also wanted in the 1971 murder of New Mexico state police officer Robert Rosenbloom. Also in Cuba is Frank Terpil, a former CIA officer and convicted arms trafficker who is wanted on charges of providing explosives to the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
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