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Since I began researching the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy, I have been shocked by the obvious signature that is written across all four of them. It is the signature of what President Eisenhower identified as the military-industrial complex of our government.[6] We can read that signature at once in Dallas in the identity of the scapegoat Lee Harvey Oswald.

Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975; Removed Section on CIA Assassination Plots White House Aide Dick Cheney Spearheaded Editing of Report to Dampen Impact New Documents Cast Further Doubt on Commission’s Investigation, Independence

The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic activities, over the objections of senior Commission staff, according to internal White House and Commission documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). The changes included removal of an entire 86-page section on CIA assassination plots and numerous edits to the report by then-deputy White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney.  Today’s posting includes the entire suppressed section on assassination attempts, Cheney’s handwritten marginal notes, staff memos warning of the fallout of deleting the controversial section, and White House strategies for presenting the edited report to the public. The documents show that the leadership of the presidentially-appointed commission deliberately curtailed the investigation and ceded its independence to White House political operatives. This evidence has been lying ignored in government vaults for decades. Much of the work of securing release of the records was done by the John F. Kennedy Assassinations Records Board in the 1990s, and the documents were located at the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland; or at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Additional mandatory declassification review requests filed by Archive fellow John Prados returned identical versions of documents, indicating the CIA is not willing to permit the public to see any more of the assassinations story than we show here. The documents in this set have yet to be incorporated into standard accounts of the events of this period.

Among the highlights of today’s posting: White House officials of the Ford administration attempted to keep a presidential review panel—the Rockefeller Commission—from investigating reports of CIA planning for assassinations abroad. Ford administration officials suppressed the Rockefeller Commission’s actual report on CIA assassination plots. Richard Cheney, then the deputy assistant to the president, edited the report of the Rockefeller Commission from inside the Ford White House, stripping the report of its independent character. The Rockefeller Commission remained silent on this manipulation. Rockefeller Commission lawyers and public relations officials warned of the damage that would be done to the credibility of the entire investigation by avoiding the subject of assassinations. President Ford passed investigative materials concerning assassinations along to the Church Committee of the United States Senate and then attempted—but failed—to suppress the Church Committee’s report as well. The White House markup of the Rockefeller Commission report used the secrecy of the CIA budget as an example of excesses and recommended Congress consider making agency spending public to some degree.

FSB source to "Komsomolskaya Pravda": "the customer of Nemtsov's murder was preparing an assassination of Vladimir Putin" The main suspect in the organization of the high-profile crime - is a commander of the Ukrainian battalion in the name of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Adam Osmayev. The correspondent of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" met with the FSB agent, who is part of the team investigating the murder of Boris Nemtsov. In an exclusive interview he spoke about the new details of the crime and named the most likely customer of the murder.

Today the investigators have irrefutable proof that all persons detained on suspicion of murder of the politician are the perpetrators, - said our source in the FSB. First of all, billing (data about calls and movements of the subscriber. - Ed.) from their mobile phones showed that they conducted surveillance of Nemtsov before the murder, following him closely. The suspects were tracked with their phones at the location where Nemtsov was present with his phone. During the murder all the detainees "were in the area": some under the bridge, some in a car, some nearby. Zaur Dadaev pulled the trigger. He first made a confession, and then, on the advice of his lawyers, took it back. But it changes nothing, the investigation has already collected compelling evidence of his guilt. I will not give details of how this was done. The pistol was thrown into the river after the crime, it was later recovered by divers. That Zaur Dadaev immediately said to the TV cameras: "I love prophet Muhammad" - is just a cover. There was no religious motive for the killings. They cynically carried out an order. They are far from devout Muslims. In fact, just real gangsters. And the most important thing. The executor of the murder was in close contact with Adam Osmaev, who recently became the commander of the Ukrainian battalion in the name of Dzhokhar Dudayev. They met, talked a lot on the phone. Zaur Dadaev and his cronies worked with Osmaev on Ukrainian affairs. And also with Chechens, who fought on the territory of Ukraine for the new regime. Zaur Dadaev was listed in the battalion "North" ("Sever") of the Chechen Interior Ministry, but while serving in it, in fact, was engaged in activities against Russia. He was associated with Osmaev by a certain relationship and mutual obligations.

The evidence is still being gathered. But I can say that today the main suspected customer of Nemtsov's murder is Adam Osmayev.

Following the attempt on Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro’s life with two explosive-laden drones on Saturday, the President promised to get to the bottom of the failed plot. Last night he showed that his government has learned some things at least, and Maduro says there is still more evidence to come. Prior to releasing the evidence, Maduro announced that he would be showing off what Venezuelan security had found late Monday night. According to Maduro at the time the evidence backed up the initial claims he had made right after the assassination attempt that “there is sufficient evidence of the participation of the outgoing Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos.” On Tuesday night Maduro presented the evidence to the people of Venezuela in a televised address. Much of what Maduro presented seems to confirm his conclusions and exposes a wider network of the forces plotting to end his life, and the Bolivarian revolution.

Late Tuesday night Maduro took to Twitter to announce that he would “be presenting strong evidence of the links that the Colombian oligarchy has with the events on Avenida Bolivar” in a few hours. In this post, Maduro promised that during his presentation that he would show that Venezuela’s security services “have the location, the names of the place in Chinacota Norte de Santander where they trained, the assassins, the terrorists,” and have also captured all those directly involved with the terrorist attack. Maduro’s final presentation late Tuesday shined even more light on the events of Saturday, including where the drone was controlled from. The Venezuelan Military also confirmed that the drones were stopped by signal jammers near the stage and that’s what caused them to crash and explode before reaching Maduro. According to Venezuelan intelligence, this attack was no one-off either, as the attackers had trained for months in the Colombian town of Chinacota, in the northern border province of Santander. According to Maduro, the assassination was originally planned for Venezuela’s Independence Day on July 5th but was delayed due to a lack of preparation. The military arrested two of the drone pilots minutes after the attack as well as four other conspirators in the days following the attempt on Maduro’s life. Two names of terrorists involved with the plot have been released so far, they are Rayder Russo, a resident of Colombia, and Osman Delgado, a resident of the United States. Earlier today, Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, said this list of suspectshas also grown since the attack to include another 19 individuals. According to the AG, many of these newly identified plotters are not actually in Venezuela so “The Public Ministry will send requests to the United States and Colombia for their cooperation to extradite those involved in this act.”

18 July 2006 — Oil, Iran and air bases, seem to be issues of recent times. Not indeed. It was some 55 years back that these issues were very much in play and a recently declassified document indicates that these were the reasons behind the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister on Oct. 16, 1951.

A recent declassified document from the US State Department brings to light some interesting facts. According to the document, a telegram was sent by the American Embassy in New Delhi on Oct. 30, 1951. “Is Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination a result of a deep-laid American conspiracy?” The telegram from the US Embassy in New Delhi carried the summary of an article published in the Urdu daily of Bhopal, “Nadeem” on Oct. 24, 1951, charging the US with the responsibility of Khan’s death. The summary then points to the facts raised in the Nadeem article, “It was neither a local incident nor connected with the Pashtoonistan movement (as some may have believed then). It had behind it a deep-rooted conspiracy and recognizable hand.” The article then says that the then Afghan government “knew about the conspiracy and the assassin was an Afghan, yet, the plot was hatched neither in Kabul nor in Karachi (the then capital of Pakistan).”

The declassified document reveals that the day before assassination, the secretary to the American ambassador in Karachi absent-mindedly jotted down “holiday” for Oct. 19 in a table diary and then immediately struck it off. Following the secretary’s departure, Mohammad Hussain, a Pakistani employee at the American Embassy in Karachi asked the secretary’s British clerk about the holiday. The clerk described it as a possible slip. “Mistake meaningful,” however, because “the secretary knew the embassy would be closed (on) Oct. 17 (sic) although no American or Pakistani holiday was scheduled then to fall that day. The story in Nadeem then points to another fact, as given in the declassified document. The American ambassador (in Karachi) offered condolences to Liaquat’s wife (Raana Liaquat Ali Khan) on the phone, some three and a half minutes before even the Governor General of Pakistan Khawaja Nazimuddin managed to offer his condolences. This was despite the fact that the governor general was the first to be informed (of the killing) by the Rawalpindi authorities. Indeed with no mobile connection, no live transmissions, even no TV, those were different days and the flow of information was much slower than today. The question that the newspaper article thus tried to raise was how did the American ambassador come to know of the assassination before the governor general of Pakistan found out?

Cables leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning reveal an apparent plot by the U.S. government to assassinate Bolivian President Evo Morales and overthrow his administration. The cables in question were published in August in “The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire,” a book in which multiple journalists along with Julian Assange analyze the contents of the treasure trove of cables Manning provided to WikiLeaks in 2010. The book devotes a section to what “The WikiLeaks Files” contributors Alexander Main and Dan Beeton call “the day-to-day mechanics of Washington’s political intervention in Latin America.” According to the cables, the plot to orchestrate a coup or carry out an assassination against Morales came after years of resistance by the Morales government to the United States’ Latin American agenda. TeleSUR, a Latin American TV network, reported last week that the Bolivian government is continuing a formal investigation into the allegations, despite denials by U.S. government officials:

“In a strongly worded statement the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia said, ‘The government of the United States was not involved in any conspiracy, attempt to overthrow the government of Bolivia or assassinate President Morales. This kind of unfounded allegations does not contribute to improving bilateral relations.’” These allegations of a U.S. plot mirror recent revelations that the DEA is targeting the Morales government with secret drug indictments after his administration kicked the U.S. agency out of Bolivia to pursue their own, locally-oriented and highly successful cocaine-reduction strategies. Contrary to the official denials, the WikiLeaks cables show how the U.S. escalated attempts to put pressure on Morales and his government over several years. According to Main and Beeton’s analysis of the cables, pressure on Morales began soon after his 2005 election as part of a wave of left-leaning candidates winning elections in Latin America. But Morales resisted U.S. directives and continued with his plans to nationalize the fossil fuels industry and move away from dependence on foreign aid and international loans. The cables suggest that starting from 2007 the U.S. government began providing aid to the “Media Luna” region of Bolivia, which is controlled by Morales’ opposition:

“A USAID report from 2007 stated that its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) ‘ha[d] approved 101 grants for $4,066,131 to help departmental governments operate more strategically.’ Funds also went to local indigenous groups that were ‘opposed to Evo Morales’ vision for indigenous communities.’” A year later, the residents of Media Luna were rebelling against the Morales government in clashes that led to 20 deaths. A coup seemed imminent, and the opposition had the support of U.S. officials: “[T]he United States was in regular communication with the leaders of the separatist opposition movement, even as they spoke openly of ‘blow[ing] up gas lines’ and ‘violence as a probability to force the government to . . . take seriously any dialogue.’” While officially supporting the Morales administration in public statements, the cables show the U.S. government preparing “a plan for immediate response in the event of a sudden emergency, i.e. a coup attempt or President Morales’ death.” Tensions only eased as other South American governments declared their support for Bolivia’s democratically-elected government.

Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens

Venezuelan former deputy María Corina Machado yesterday filed a criminal report against Caracas mayor Jorge Rodríguez, who on Wednesday linked her to an alleged “plot to assassinate” President Nicolás Maduro. Machado, who vehemently denies the accusations, aims for charges to be brought against Rodríguez for defamation, falsifying documents, cyber-spying, insult, and fabricating a criminal case, among others. The public prosecutor, Luisa Ortega, came out to justify the interception of communications, calling the situation a serious state security problem. She also confirmed that the relevant authorities had given their backing to the interception, and underscored that a criminal investigation is underway into the alleged plot.

Yesterday the Venezuelan government unveiled a series of emails which appear to show opposition figures plotting an assassination attempt against President Nicolás Maduro, seemingly with financial backing from the US. At the press conference, mayor of Caracas, Jorge Rodríguez, showed an email written on 23rd March by right-wing former deputy María Corina Machado and sent to Gustavo Tarre, a lawyer who is under investigation by the Public Ministry, orchestrating “violent actions” and the assassination plot. Other mails showed communication between Machado, former governor Henrique Salas Römer, Diego Arria, and US officials talking of financial backing for the opposition from the US, as well as economic support by the fugitive Venezuelan banker Eligio Cedeño, currently residing in the US. Rodríguez said that at least one US State Department official was involved in the plot.

What the colonial powers have done in Muslim countries is well known. Less well known are the machinations of Allen Dulles and the CIA in one of these colonial powers, France.Without the knowledge or consent of President John F. Kennedy, Allen Dulles orchestrated the efforts of retired French generals, rightwing French, Nazi sympathizers, and at least one White Russian, to overthrow Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to give Algeria its independence. Dulles et al feared an independent Algeria would go Communist, giving the Soviets a base in Africa.And there was another reason to hang onto Algeria: its natural resources. According to the US Energy Information Administration, it is “the leading natural gas producer in Africa, the second-largest natural gas supplier to Europe outside of the region, and is among the top three oil producers in Africa.”We note with great interest that the plot to bring down Charles De Gaulle — the kind of people involved, the role of Allen Dulles, the motive behind it — all bear an eerie similarity to the circumstances surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But that is another story.

As we have said earlier, Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy. And in this fascinating series of excerpts from David Talbot’s new biography on Dulles, we see how his reach extended deeply into the government of France.WhoWhatWhy Introduction by Milicent CranorThis is the second of a three-part series of excerpts from Chapter 15 (“Contempt”) of The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of the American Secret Government. HarperCollins Publishers, 2015. Go here to see Part 1. Previously, we presented excerpts from Chapter 20, and to see them, go here, here, and here.

When the coup against de Gaulle began three months later, Kennedy was still in the dark. It was a tumultuous time for the young administration. As he continued to wrestle with fallout from the Bay of Pigs crisis, JFK was suddenly besieged with howls of outrage from a major ally, accusing his own security services of seditious activity.

Alleged Colombian paramilitary Leiva Padilla, alias “El Colombia,” arrived in Venezuela on Saturday where he will face trial for the murders of socialist politician, Robert Serra (27), and his comrade and political assistant, Maria Herrera (26).  Leiva is considered by Venezuelan authorities to be the head of an eight man group responsible for assassinating the two young political activists on October 1st last year. He was arrested on November 5th 2014 by Colombian authorities in Cartagena after Venezuela issued an Interpol request for his capture. The extradition of the alleged paramilitary, who has dual Venezuela-Colombia nationality, was approved by Colombian president, Manuel Santos, early in May. 

In the days following the assassination of Serra and Herrera, the Venezuelan government released CCTV footage of six men entering Serra’s house in the working class barrio of Caracas, La Pastora. Authorities maintain that the group immediately “neutralised” an unsuspecting Herrera, who answered the door, and then proceeded to go upstairs where they violently assassinated Serra before leaving just several minutes later.  The legislator was tied, gagged and stabbed somewhere between twenty to fifty times in the chest and four times in the back. At the time, then-Venezuelan Minister of Justice, Peace and the Interior, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, affirmed that the attack bore all the hallmarks of a politically motivated assassination. 

In the months prior to his death, he was conducting a parliamentary investigation into the activities of Lorent Saleh, a young rightwing activist arrested in 2014 for allegedly plotting alongside Colombian paramilitaries to carry out a series of terrorist attacks and political murders in Venezuela. Also extradited from Colombia, Saleh is a chief ally of former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, currently under investigation for his alleged links to paramilitary networks. Uribe had also been accused of being linked to Saleh by Serra less than two weeks before his death.  According to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the murders were planned and financed by an unknown person in Colombia. They have been widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate those who support the country’s leftwing Bolivarian Revolution.  Many have also cited the crime as a sign of the increasing presence of rightwing paramilitary forces operating in the country.

The FBI was right to withhold records about an alleged murder plot targeting the leaders of Occupy Houston, to protect its informants, a federal judge ruled. Plaintiff Ryan Noah Shapiro is a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research includes “the policing of dissent … especially in the name of national security” and “examining FBI and other intelligence agency efforts to preserve domestic surveillance capabilities while simultaneously subverting the Freedom of Information Act,” according to his MIT profile. Shapiro sent the FBI three Freedom of Information Act requests in early 2013, asking for records about “a potential plan to gather intelligence against the leaders of [Occupy Wall Street-related protests in Houston] and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership [of the protests] via suppressed sniper rifles.” Shapiro told Courthouse News he learned of the alleged plot from FBI documents obtained by investigative reporter Jason Leopold.

The FBI had refused to give Shapiro any documents until he filed an April 2013 federal complaint in Washington, D.C., after which the agency gave him 17 pages. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer found last year that the FBI had properly withheld some records, but took issue with its use of Exemption 7 under the FOIA, which protects from disclosure “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes.” Collyer dismissed the lawsuit this week after reviewing the documents in her chambers. Shapiro challenged the FBI’s withholding of the names of its murder plot sources, claiming there is no privacy expectation for people who could be called to testify as trial witnesses. But Collyer found Monday that the FBI correctly invoked FOIA exemption 7(c), which shields law enforcement records from disclosure if they could constitute an invasion of personal privacy. The judge also agreed with the FBI that exemption 7(d) applied to the case. It allows records to be withheld if they “could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source.”

Citing a declaration from FBI agent David Hardy that said the confidential sources are “individuals who are members of organized violent groups,” Collyer said the likelihood of retaliation justified keeping the sources’ identities under wraps. Shapiro vowed to keep fighting for the records. “I’m of course disappointed in, and disagree with, the judge’s ruling. I’m now conferring with my attorney to determine next steps,” Shapiro said in an email. He said he is concerned that the FBI collected dossiers on Occupy protestors while publicly denying it. “The FBI even flatly asserted in a separate FOIA lawsuit of mine that, ‘(T)he FBI determined that it had never opened an investigation on the Occupy movement,'” Shapiro wrote. “Yet, in the course of my FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for records about the sniper plot against Occupy Houston, the FBI contradicted its own position.” Shapiro said that with recently released FBI documents about Occupy Chicago, “We are coming ever closer to finally forcing the FBI to concede it actually possesses a large volume of documents about this FBI-coordinated nationwide investigation of political protesters as supposed terroristic threats to national security.”

If you asked a typical American about conspiracy theories, he or she probably wouldn’t have any trouble rattling off an extensive list of theories ranging from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11. But if there’s one potential conspiracy that most Americans are totally unaware of, it’s the supposed CIA plot to kill UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. Dag had been the Secretary General for eight years, but died in an accidental plane crash in 1961, while en route to a cease-fire negotiation in the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia. But, over the years, there have been multiple claims that the plane was shot down, and that he was actually killed in an assassination plot that involved some combination of the CIA, a Belgian Mining Company, a South African paramilitary unit, and British intelligence. Why? Because he was pushing for Congo’s independence, which would have hurt the interests of any of those forces. Adding fuel to the theories, was a copy of a secret government document that surfaced in South Africa 18 years ago, which suggested that the CIA, MI5, and the South African government were in on Dag’s death. They presented statements from CIA director Allen Dulles, saying that “Dag is becoming troublesome … and should be removed.” Unfortunately the original documents couldn’t be found, so there was no way to verify the copies.

But last year the South African government claimed to have found the original document, which has led the UN to reopen their investigation into Hammarskjöld’s death. The CIA has, of course, has dismissed these claims as “absurd and without foundation.”

An October 7, 2015 hearing before the US Senate Committee on Armed Forces (SASC) titled, “Iranian Influence in Iraq and the Case of Camp Liberty,” served as a reaffirmation of America’s commitment to back the terrorist organization Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) and specifically 2,400 members of the organization being harbored on a former US military base in Iraq.

Providing testimony was former US Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, former US Marine Corps Commandant and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe General James Jones, USMC (Ret.), and Colonel Wesley Martin, US Army (Ret.). All three witnesses made passionate pleas before a room full of nodding senators for America to continue backing not only MEK terrorists currently harbored on a former US military base in Iraq, but to back groups like MEK inside of Iran itself to threaten the very survival of the government in Tehran. In the opening remarks by Lieberman, he stated: It was not only right and just that we took them off the foreign terrorist organization list, but the truth is now that we ought to be supportive of them and others in opposition to the government in Iran more than we have been.

Lieberman would also state (emphasis added): Here’s my point Mr. Chairman, we ought to compartmentalize that agreement also, that nuclear agreement. We ought to put it over there, and not let it stop us from confronting what they’re doing in Syria. Continuing the sanctions for human rights violations in Iran in support of terrorism. And here’s the point I want to make about the National Council of Resistance of Iran and other democratic opposition groups that are Iranian – we ought to be supporting them.  This regime in Tehran is hopeless. It’s not going to change. There’s no evidence … every piece of evidence says the contrary. So I hope we can find a way, we used to do this not so long ago, supporting opposition groups in Iran. They deserve our support, and actually they would constitute a form of pressure on the government in Tehran that would unsettle them as much as anything else we could do because it would threaten the survival of the regime which from every objective indicator I can see is a very unpopular regime in Iran.  The United States, unrepentant regarding the arc of chaos, mass murder, terrorism, civilizational destruction it has created stretching from Libya to Syria, now seeks openly to extend it further into Iran using precisely the same tactics – the use of terrorist proxies – to dismantle and destroy Iranian society.

Without the knowledge or consent of President John F. Kennedy, Allen Dulles orchestrated the efforts of retired French generals, rightwing French, Nazi sympathizers, and at least one White Russian, to overthrow Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to give Algeria its independence. Dulles et al feared an independent Algeria would go Communist, giving the Soviets a base in Africa.And there was another reason to hang onto Algeria: its natural resources. According to the US Energy Information Administration, it is “the leading natural gas producer in Africa, the second-largest natural gas supplier to Europe outside of the region, and is among the top three oil producers in Africa.”

As we have said earlier, Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy.  And in this fascinating series of excerpts from David Talbot’s new biography on Dulles, we see how his reach extended deeply into the government of France.

This is the third of a three-part series of excerpts from Chapter 15 (“Contempt”) of  The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the,  Rise of the American Secret Government. HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.  Go here and here to see Parts 1 and 2. Previously, we presented excerpts from Chapter 20, and to see them, go here, here, and here.

Hard-line Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will be charged for her presumed link to an alleged plot to assassinate Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. In a letter that Machado published on her twitter account yesterday, the Attorney General’s office solicited her presence next 3 December to formally charge her. The opposition figure and former parliamentarian is one of several people suspected of having a role in the alleged plot, with six other figures linked to the opposition having arrests warrants out against them.

Details of the alleged plot were publicly announced by pro-government figures in May this year which state prosecutors have since been investigating. One email intercepted by intelligence services and allegedly sent from Machado’s account stated, “I believe the time has come to join forces, make the necessary calls, and obtain the financing to annihilate Maduro… and the rest will come falling down”.

long time opponent of the Bolivarian government and member of one of the country’s most influential families, Machado was a leader of the movement of opposition protests and street barricades named “The Exit” which brought several Venezuelan cities to a halt from February to May this year. The protests, barricades and clashes with security forces left 43 dead and around 900 wounded, including National Guard officers and civilians from both sides.

A coup, including the assassination of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other top-government officials by civilian and military conspirators has reportedly been foiled. The would be coup d’état plotters had reportedly ties to the United States. 

Al Jazeera English has once again removed an article by Columbia University professor Joseph Massad hours after publishing it. The article, “The Dahlan Factor,” appeared for several hours on the Qatar-based broadcaster’s website this morning at this link, but was later removed without explanation (the full article is republished below). The article had been extremely popular, appearing in the fifth spot on the website’s “What’s Hot” section.

Massad’s article: The Dahlan factor The Israeli and US betting on the Dahlan horse will only increase the resolve of the Palestinians and their supporters

The recent resurrection of Mohammad Dahlanby several Arab governments, Israel and the US is a most important development for the future of the Palestinian cause, Palestinian Authority (PA)-Israel negotiations, and Hamas-ruled Gaza. Dahlan is viewed, by many Palestinians, as the most corrupt official in the history of the Palestinian national movement (and there are many contenders for that title). Dahlan, it would be recalled, was the PA man in charge of Gaza after the Oslo Accords were signed, where he commanded 20,000 Palestinian security personnel who were answerable to the CIA and to Israeli intelligence. His forces would torture Hamas members in PA dungeons throughout the 1990s. His corruption, at the time, was such that he allegedly diverted over 40 percent of taxes levied against the Palestinians to his personal account in what became known as the Karni Crossing Scandal in 1997. Dahlan, who has been accused repeatedly by both Hamas and Fatah of being an agent of US, Israeli, Egyptian, and Jordanian intelligence, would attempt to stage a US-organised coup against the democratically elected Hamas government in 2007 in Gaza, an attempt that backfired on him and ended with his eviction from the Strip (I had forewarned about the coup several months before it occurred).

Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations withRespect to Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee") Rules and Authorizing Resolution Rules of Procedure and S. Res. 21, 94th Congress

Interim and Staff Reports (1975) Interim Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, S. Rep. No. 94-465 Staff Report, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973 Final Report, S. Rep. No. 94-755 (1976) Book I, Foreign and Military Intelligence Book II, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans Book III, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans Book IV, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and Military Intelligence Book V, The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies Book VI, Supplementary Reports on Intelligence Activities

Hearings Volume 1, Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents (September 16, 17, and 18, 1975) Volume 2, Huston Plan (September 23, 24, and 25, 1975) Volume 3, Internal Revenue Service (October 2, 1975) Volume 4, Mail Opening (October 21, 22, and 24, 1975 Volume 5, The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights (October 29 and November 6, 1975) Volume 6, Federal Bureau of Investigation (November 18, 19, December 2, 3, 9, 10, and 11, 1975) Volume 7, Covert Action (December 4 and 5, 1975) Additional Link Collection of Church Committee Reports and Hearings

Venezuelan opposition Mayor and longtime rightwing politician, Antonio Ledezma, has been arrested by the country’s intelligence services, SEBIN, for his alleged role in plotting to stage a coup against the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro.  The planned coup was uncovered last week by security forces, just hours before several US backed Air Force officials had planned to partake in a bombing spree of strategic targets in the capital. They had hoped this would lead to the assassination of the country’s president and bring about regime change in the South American country.  “Antonio Ledezma who, today, by order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, was captured and is going to be prosecuted by the Venezuelan justice system, to make him answer to all of the crimes committed against the peace and security of the country and the Constitution… We’ve had enough of conspiracies, we want to work in peace!” announced Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, amidst a chorus of cheers from onlookers.

Last week, Ledezma, who is current Mayor of the Metropolitan Capital District of Caracas, signed a statement calling for a “National Transition Agreement” alongside opposition politicians, Maria Corina Machado and currently detained leader of the Popular Will party, Leopoldo Lopez.  The document calls on Venezuelans to unite behind a plan to remove elected President Nicolas Maduro and sets out an action programme for the would be provisional government. This includes facilitating the return of “exiled” Venezuelans, prosecuting current members of government and reaching out to international financial lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund.  Circulated on February 11th, the statement was disclosed just a day before the attempted coup was set to unfold and was reportedly the signal to set the plan in motion.  

“It has no base in any juridic text, it is a putschist act of conspiracy that is unfortunately to the liking of thousands of opposition militants who have been indoctrinated to attack democracy,” Constitutional Lawyer, Jesus Silva, told Venezuelanalysis.  Ledezma’s detention comes in the wake of several other arrests, including those of a number of airforce officials implicated in the plan.   According to revelations made by the President of the National Assembly, Diosadado Cabello, on Wednesday night, Ledezma has since been named by one of the arrested officials under questioning.  The confession links Ledezma to a plan to “eliminate” opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez last year in order to create “chaos” and destabilise the government. Fellow opposition politician and National Assembly legislator, Julio Borges, is also implicated in the assassination plan, which forced an intervention by the government in early 2014. At the time, Lopez’s wife, Lilian Tintori, stated that the government had acted to protect her husband’s safety.