Chavez Orders Tanks to Colombia Border, Raises Risks - Bloomberg.com: Hugo Chavez’s orders to close his Bogota embassy and send tanks to the border raise tensions beyond his previous rhetoric and to the point where miscalculation could trigger a military clash. Chavez, who ordered 10 armored battalions to the border yesterday, said Colombia’s air strike March 1 on a rebel camp in Ecuadorean territory risks a regional war. He pledged to support Ecuador under any circumstances. The...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered troops, tanks and fighter aircraft to his country's border with Colombia in a row over a cross-border attack. The Colombian army raided a jungle camp just inside Ecuador - an ally of Venezuela - where it shot dead a leader of the leftist rebel group FARC. Chavez called the rebel leader's death the cowardly assassination of a good revolutionary. Meanwhile, an indignant Ecuador government complained that the Colombian army raid violated its...

Along-standing fear of a linkup between drug traffickers and radical Islamists in Iran-influenced Latin America is closer to being realized, according to a statement by a top U.S. military official and reported by Agence France Presse. Adm. James Stavridis, commander of U.S. Southern Command, made the remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on January 16. “I fear greatly that the connectivity between narco-terrorism and Islamic radical terrorism could be disastrous...

This is a moving story and commemoration from br.Abu Hussein for his first Shaikh (teacher). As a late teenager, deeply impressionable, culturally conscious and concerned, Pepe was moved by the struggle. Pepe saw many a strange thing in life but even late in life he was moved by the struggle. It was all about his people or so he said. It was all about his people. Pepe grew up in an immigrant (Puerto Rican) home located in the inner city of North Philadelphia. The section he matured in is...

In a little notice meeting reflecting growing ties between South America and the Islamic world, Mexican President Felipe Calderon welcomed former Iranian President Mohamed Khatami to Mexico City. The two leaders met Wednesday at Los Pinos, Mexico's official presidential residence, to discuss deepening cultural bonds with the Islamic world in the face of Western notions of a "clash of civilizations. The visit drew virtually no mention in the press outside of Mexico, even in Iran. Khatami...

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Islamic terrorist groups have networks in Latin America and the Caribbean and could use the region as a base to launch attacks on the United States, the senior U.S. military commander for the region says. “For sure, members, facilitators, and sympathizers of Islamic terrorist organizations are present in our hemisphere,” Adm. Jim Stavridis, head of the U.S. Southern Command, wrote in an article in the fall edition of Americas Quarterly journal, obtained by...

In line with the strange, growing magnetic merging of Islamism and Marxism, a new story is emerging that Hugo Chavez is setting about the conversion of indigenous Venezuelans to Islam: Chavez has invited Iranian Shiite "missionaries" to convert the Guajiros and other indigenous peoples in Amazonia. The entire Wayuu tribe is now Muslim, women wear veils while men go to Kalashnikov shooting practice. Some have themselves photographed wearing suicide vests loaded with bombs, and the...

Macon Mayor Jack Ellis has sent a declaration of “solidarity” to Hugo Chavez, the fiery populist leader of Venezuela who has labeled President Bush “the devil” and pals around the world stage with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Cuban President Fidel Castro… “We commend President Chavez for the things he’s done in this country,” said Ellis, citing Chavez’s efforts to subsidize the cost of heating fuel for low-income residents of the...

In the late morning of May 12, 2007, Muslims and non-Muslims, Hispanics and non-Hispanics gathered at Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in northern Virginia for an extraordinary event. It was the first ever Hispanic Muslim Day. People of various ages, ethnicities, and religions gathered for a day of meaningful and insightful dialogue. Although the event was specifically geared toward the Hispanic community, organizers of the event were successful in fostering a friendly environment and welcoming...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of...