FARC purchases 11 pounds (50 Kilos) of processed uranium

I'm sorryif this was posted earlier. I just got an email on it. I did some digging and found other references online.

Colombia Worried Rebels Seek Uranium

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia is worried about a document on the laptop of a slain rebel leader indicating the guerrillas were trying to obtain uranium, but has no evidence they intended to use it as a weapon, the vice president said Wednesday.

Francisco Santos told The Associated Press that despite fears he expressed to the world disarmament agency in Geneva on Tuesday, his government doesn't have any indication that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are seeking to build a radioactive dirty bomb.

Santos told the 65-member Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday that his government is alarmed because uranium is "the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism." A day later, he was backing off slightly.

"What I said was, 'Take note. To put the FARC and the word uranium in the same sentence is to make anyone's hair stand up,'" Santos said in a telephone interview from Brussels, Belgium. "Don't take it lightly."

The FBI, which has an office in Bogota, also has "no information or intelligence regarding the FARC attempting to use WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, spokesman Richard Kolko said in Washington.

The document addressing "the matter of the Uranium" was found in a laptop belonging to Raul Reyes, a top FARC commander killed Saturday in a raid into Ecuador that has generated intense international criticism. The poorly written communication, dated Feb. 16, is addressed to Reyes and signed by Edgar Tovar, who Santos said commands a FARC front near Ecuador.

Tovar writes that a man named Belisario in Bogota who supplies him with explosives "sent me a catalog and the specifications."

"They propose to sell each kilo at US$2.5 million (euro1.65 million) and they'll deliver it and we'll see to whom we can sell it and so the deal would be with a government to sell them a lot," he writes. "They've got 50 kilos ready and they can sell a lot more, they have direct contact with those who have the product."

The uranium reference was quickly cited by Colombia's government as it sought to deflect criticism over the raid.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at an explosive news conference.

Santos took Colombia's complaints Wednesday to Javier Solano, the European Union's foreign affairs representative.

"The Europeans are really worried about this. They're not taking it lightly," he told the AP after meeting with Solano.

But Colombian officials say they have no other information - either from the laptop or other sources - indicating an interest in radioactive materials or unconventional weapons by the FARC, which has been fighting successive Colombian governments for more than four decades without even using shoulder-fired missiles.

It wasn't clear what exactly the material Tovar was writing about might be. Santos said "this sounds like processed uranium."

The price mentioned suggests that the uranium would be processed, and hence dangerous. Unprocessed uranium is relatively harmless and goes for about US$100 (euro66) a kilo, according to Charles Ferguson, a physicist with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

"If it were weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium, I'd be freaking out because you can make a low-yield improvised nuclear device from that," Ferguson said. But he added: "I'm not aware of any highly enriched uranium of appreciable quantities in the region of Colombia, Venezuela or anywhere else near there."

Associated Press writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this story from Washington.

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What Colombian investigators found on the FARC terror leader’s computer:

– FARC connections with Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa
– Records of $300 million offerings from Hugo Chavez
– Thank you notes from Hugo Chavez dating back to 1992
– Uranium purchasing records
– Admit to killing the sister of former President Cesar Gaviria
– Admit to planting a 2003 car bomb killing 36 at a Bogota upper crust club
– Directions on how to make a Dirty Bomb
– Letter to Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi asking for cash to buy surface-to-air missiles
– Meetings with "gringos" about Barack Obama
– Information on Russian illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout who was later captured
– FARC funding Correa’s campaign
– Cuban links to FARC

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FARC purchased uranium

During Saturday's raid against the FARC in Ecuador, the Colombian army seized three computers loaded with incriminating information against Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. The computers belonged to Raul Reyes, the FARC's #2 man.

The Colombian Government's Official Website (in Spanish) details the findings:

The Venezuelan government paid $300 million to the FARC on February 14 this year.

Venezuela had agreed to ship old rifles to the FARC during that same meeting.

The computer files show the acquisition and sale of 50 kilograms of uranium. The Colombian government has created a task force to locate this uranium.

The information in the computers reconfirm the FARC's ties to the drug trade.

The information on the uranium purchase, however, brings a different context to this war:

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that the Farc are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," said Colombian national police chief Oscar Naranjo at a news conference in Bogota.

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Other Reyes computer materials showed the FARC's role in a 700-kilo sale of cocaine and discussions with Venezuela about a transfer of weapons, the police chief said, as well as the FARC's purchase of 50 kilos of uranium, showing they were taking steps to become ``global terrorists.''

Miami Herald correspondents Frances Robles and Pablo Bachelet contributed to this report from Miami and Washington. Special correspondents Phil Gunson and Sibylla Brodzinski contributed from Caracas and Bogotá.

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Colombia's national police chief stood by its attack that killed Reyes, and said that documents recovered from his laptop showed Venezuela's leftist government recently paid $300 million to the rebels, among other financial and political ties that date back years, and that high-level meetings have been held between rebels and Ecuadorean officials.

And this shocker: Colombia says some documents suggest the rebels have bought and sold uranium.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium this means that the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at an explosive news conference.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

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[Oscar Naranjo, Colombian Police Commander]:
"One topic that demands our attention and why we have deployed an investigative team made up of specialists, is the narration of the purchase and selling of 50 kilos of uranium. You all understand the magnitude of this statement, and the efforts that we have initiated to clarify this, and the financing of the FARC by Venezuela with 300 million dollars."
© 2008 New Tang Dynasty TV

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Declarations by Naranjo also mentioned the purchase and sale of 50 kilogrammes of uranium, but did not attribute it to Colombia or Ecuador.
adnkronosinternational - http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/...

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Among the information reportedly retrieved from computers seized during the raid are references to FARC purchases of uranium, lucrative financial ties between FARC and Venezuelan leaders, high-level FARC contacts with Ecuador government officials and creation of FARC sanctuaries in Venezuela and Ecuador.

Recent State Department reports cite deepening ties between the Chavez regime and Iran and Cuba, and an unwillingness by Chavez to prevent Venezuelan territory from being used as a safe haven by FARC. These reports are alarming and require the careful attention of our government and those of our neighbors.

For Immediate Release March 3, 2008, House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican - http://foreignaffairs.republicans.hou...

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After the March 1 strike against a FARC compound in Ecuador, Colombia's intelligence agencies immediately seized the pirate's trove of information from the computers of terrorist Raul Reyes and put it to work.

They found that FARC was more than a local bunch of jungle-dwelling drug-runners. It turned out to be a 21st-century terror operation whose global operations reached deep into Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Russia Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

In some nations, FARC controlled drug routes and raised money. In others, it bought weapons of war. In still others, it exported Marxist subversion. It also had bigger ambitions to forge ties with North Korea, Iran and China.

With $300 million in sponsorship from Venezuela, it also had a bright future. If it hadn't been stopped dead by Colombia on the Ecuadorean frontier, it might have succeeded in all it was plotting.

According to Colombia's El Espectador, Reyes made a secret trip to Romania to scope out sellers. With uranium in hand, FARC could have taken out a city, possibly one in the U.S. In 2000, FARC sought a $100 million loan from Libya's Muammar Qaddafi to purchase surface-to-air missiles.

Colombia's swift use of intelligence also may have contributed to the fall of Victor Bout, a Russian weapons trafficker whose arms sales to savage regimes made him known as "The Lord of War." He was not only a FARC quartermaster. He also supplied guns to Afghanistan's Taliban, al-Qaida in Iraq and the monstrous warlords who scourged western Africa in the 1990s.

Five days after Reyes' computer was confiscated, Bout somehow was lured out of his hiding place for a Drug Enforcement Administration sting. He now sits in a Bangkok jail.

Then there's Mexico. In the March 1 raid, the Colombian army blew away five Mexican nationals whom some believe were taking a FARC explosives course.

FARC has decades of experience destroying oil pipelines, and Mexico has seen several terror attacks on its oil and gas installations over the past eight months. A Marxist terror group with Cuban links called EPR claimed credit. This group probably is connected with FARC.

Mexico is America's third-largest oil supplier. Thus, Colombian intelligence may have broken a key FARC link in a chain of attacks that not only threatened the Mexican government's revenue, but also America's energy supplies.

Only about 5% of the data in the FARC computers has been explored by Colombian experts, and further revelations are likely. But what already has been mined shows how much Colombia has contributed to America's security.

http://news.yahoo.com"> color="#0000ff">Yahoo! News Tue Mar 11, 6:57 PM ET - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20080311/...

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Speaking at a news conference, Gen. Oscar Naranjo said evidence in three seized computers also suggests FARC had given Chavez 100 million pesos when he was a jailed rebel leader.

Naranjo said other evidence in the computers suggests FARC purchased 50 kilograms of uranium this month.

CNN.con/world - http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/america...

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Writing two days before his death, Reyes tells his secretariat comrades that "the gringos," working through Ecuador's government, are interested "in talking to us on various issues."

"They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," noting that Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.

Reyes said the response he relayed is that the United States would have to publicly express that desire.

Another message, to Reyes from a lower-ranking commander and dated Feb. 16, includes mention of a possible purchase of 50 kilos—11 pounds—of uranium.

Uribe's government has claimed that means the FARC was seeking to build a dirty bomb. But the message discusses a different motive: selling the uranium at a profit.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?...

Three computers planted by US agents.

I'm sure the FARC has the means to build a bomb - doesn't everyone?

Let's get real here - any information released by the US lackeys in the Columbian government is highly suspect.