KABUL—The war in Afghanistan reached a wrenching milestone this summer: For the second month in a row, U.S. and coalition troop deaths in the country surpassed casualties in Iraq. This is driven in large part, U.S. officials point out, by simple cause and effect. Marines flowed into southern Afghanistan earlier this year to rout firmly entrenched Taliban fighters, prompting a spike in combat in territory where NATO forces previously didn’t have the manpower to send troops. “We’re doing something we haven’t done in seven years, which is go after the Taliban where they’re living,” says a U.S. official.
But amid a well-coordinated assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai and large-scale bombings last week in the capitals of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. forces are keenly aware that they are facing an increasingly complex enemy here—what U.S. military officials now call a syndicate—composed not only of Taliban fighters but also powerful warlords who were once on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency. “You could almost describe the insurgency as having two branches,” says a senior U.S. military official here. “It’s the Taliban in the south and a ‘rainbow coalition’ in the east.”
Indeed, along with a smattering of Afghan tribal groups, Pakistani extremists, and drug kingpins, two of the most dangerous players are violent Afghan Islamists named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, according to U.S. officials. In recent weeks, Hekmatyar has called upon Pakistani militants to attack U.S. targets, while the Haqqani network is blamed for three large vehicle bombings, along with the attempted assassination of Karzai in April.
Ironically, these two warlords—currently at the top of America’s list of most wanted men in Afghanistan—were once among America’s most valued allies. In the 1980s, the CIA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition to help them battle the Soviet Army during its occupation of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar, then widely considered by Washington to be a reliable anti-Soviet rebel, was even flown to the United States by the CIA in 1985.
“He was the most radical of the radicals,” recalls former Rep. Charlie Wilson, immortalized in the recent film Charlie Wilson’s War for his role in directing U.S. military aid to anti-Soviet Afghan warlords. “He didn’t hate us as much as he hated the Soviets,” he adds, “but he sure didn’t like us much.” In his early years, the warlord distinguished himself by throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women. Today, a senior defense official says Hekmatyar is “as vicious as they come.” In 2002, the CIA shot a Hellfire missile from an unmanned drone in an effort to kill him.
U.S. officials had an even higher opinion of Haqqani, who was considered the most effective rebel warlord. “I adored Haqqani. When I was in Afghanistan, Haqqani was the guy who made sure I would get out,” says Wilson. “He was a marvelous leader and very beloved in his territory.”
Haqqani was also one of the leading advocates of the so-called Arab Afghans, deftly organizing Arab volunteer fighters who came to wage jihad against the Soviet Union and helping to protect future al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Today, U.S. military officials are not certain that Haqqani is alive, though he was featured in an undated video that recently surfaced. “Either way, the Haqqani we’re fighting now is the son”—34-year-old Sirajuddin Haqqani—says the senior U.S. military official. “He gets a lot of benefit from his father’s prestige.”
Today, the Haqqani network is driving the recent rise in violence in eastern Afghanistan, according to U.S. military officials. Haqqani “is definitely the strongest” enemy in the border provinces of Paktia, Paktika, and Khost, known among military officials as p2k. The senior U.S. military official notes that Haqqani is increasingly moving to more-asymmetric means of attack to avoid straight-on shootouts with better-armed U.S. forces, a general tactical guidance that came from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar last year. To that end, U.S. military officials estimate that they have seen a 10 percent rise in use of roadside bombs, which now account for one third of the attacks against coalition forces in the country.
At the highest levels, Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network cooperate and find sanctuary in Pakistan, where the country’s political turmoil and suspension of operations in the lawless tribal areas have facilitated increased attacks in Afghanistan. Of the two warlords, Hekmatyar, by U.S. military estimates, “has a wider geographic coverage” and greater political credibility. A recent press release issued by Hekmatyar’s spokesman thanked the Pakistani “mujahideen” for their support in the Afghan war against American and other “occupation forces.” It noted, however, that the efforts allow the international community to blame Pakistan for meddling in Afghan affairs and requested that fighters restrict their activities for now to “U.S. installations and interests within Pakistan.”
A former politician, Hekmatyar founded the Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (known as hig), an offshoot of which remains a popular party in the Afghan parliament. “There’s blue—or ‘good’—hig and red—or ‘bad’—hig,” says the senior U.S. military official. “About half of his group sides with the government; the more recalcitrant are still joining the insurgency.”
But though the Hekmatyar and Haqqani networks have loose alliances and similar goals, each has its own turf. “They are swimming in the same stream, but they are not unified. There is no Ho Chi Minh,” says the U.S. military official. “They have the same broad generic approaches, and it works. The bottom line is that if your only mission is to wreak havoc in Afghanistan, you don’t have to be coordinated—and what they’re doing is plenty good enough to stir up problems in this country.”
In the course of conducting these operations, insurgents have benefited greatly from the shortage of U.S. and allied troops here, say U.S. officials. Earlier this month, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that he is “deeply troubled” by the increasing violence in Afghanistan but emphasized that troop levels in Iraq precluded a further increase in forces. “We need more troops there,” he said in Washington. “But I don’t have the troops I can reach for.”
There are signs, however, that the Pentagon’s priorities are shifting as conditions improve in Iraq. The Defense Department last week moved an aircraft carrier from Iraq war duty in the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, shortening the distance that strike planes must fly to provide air support in Afghanistan. And the Pentagon recently announced that it is extending by one month the seven-month deployment of 2,200 of the 3,200 marines sent to Afghanistan in March.
Still, U.S. officials are in widespread agreement that there aren’t enough forces in the country. There are currently 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan backed by some 25,000 allied troops under NATO command, in total roughly 37 percent of force levels in Iraq. “There should be another 20,000 marines” in Afghanistan, says the U.S. official. “We’re advancing, but we’re doing it with troop levels that are unacceptably low.” Mullen, too, has raised questions about the consequences of what he calls an “economy of force” campaign. “What we’re going through right now is an ability to, in almost every single case, win from the combat standpoint,” said Mullen. He added, however, that “we don’t have enough troops there to hold. And that is key, clearly, to the future of being able to succeed in Afghanistan.” l
With Kevin Whitelaw in Washington and Aamir Latif in Pakistan
Transcript:
Some Democratic Leaders say Impeachment is off the table.
So, let us set a new table for our nation, upon which we place the Constitution and where we demand that all those who have taken an oath to defend it .. keep their promise and protect our nation from the threat within.
Please go to kucinich.us now and sign the petition, which calls for impeachment. This is the one petition that will make a difference because I will be delivering it personally to your member of congress. Please circulate word of this petition far and wide, to all your friends and family. This is the one opportunity that we have right now to actually change events in this country.
Two hundred and thirty-two years ago, our nation was conceived in liberty. We have once again reached a moment of truth, one that Lincoln recognized at Gettysburg as to whether “this nation or any nation so conceived or so dedicated can long endure”.
Through the ashes of war, Lincoln prayed that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
This Fourth of July, 2008, we face a different kind of war; one which is trying our souls.. a war based on lies. But with the power of truth and the power of the people we can achieve a new birth of freedom, standing up for what is good in America, insisting on the rule of law, demanding adherence to the Constitution, and supporting the impeachment of a President who lied to take us into a war against Iraq.
Be the answer to Lincoln’s Prayer. Please pledge your support now to restoring the rule of law in America. As we once again celebrate our Independence, let us celebrate freedom from fear and pledge that this government of the people will survive in this land that we love.
Please go to kucinich.us now. This is your chance to make a difference; truly celebrate our Independence. Thank you.
This Nation’s Deathbed exposes the SPP Summit and the protests of Montebello Quebec held in summer of 2007. The film offers the best explanation to date of, of what the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement actually is and what it’s grave implications on Canadian Sovereignty would be once fully implemented;
From binding and unfair contracts that would give license to American corporate interests over the annexation of natural resources such as water and lumber.
The merger of the 3 country’s military forces and rise of a police state.
The transformation of the economy and its currency.
The dismantling of health care.
The further erosion of democratic proceedings, checks and balances on government and corporations.
The privatization of Canadian infrastructure such as highways, energy, water, and agriculture.
In short the SPP amounts to the the allowance of private corporations to rule over deciding policies that will inevitably harm the quality of life that many simply take for granted, as corporations would be unaccountable to the well being of Canadian lives, and only interested in profit.
The film tells the story of a building resistance movement; one that began outside the Montebello resort to demonstrate and expose treason as it was committed. And it follows on into the continued protests held nation wide in cities across Canada. It is a movement that has promised that it shall persist until the people’s voices are heard, when the SPP is put to a public referendum.
Featured speakers include patriotic Canadians like Wendy Forrest, Connie Fogal, Diana Nicholson, Vijay Sarma as well as guest appearances from authors such as Jerome Corsi of the Late Great USA and Linda McQuaig, author of Holding the Bullies Coat.
Produced by White Buffalo Films, Steven Davies and Dan Dicks
PRESS FOR TRUTH
The Nation’s Deathbed can be watched on and is sold exclusively by on pressfortruth.ca
In association with
CAP-PAC
THE CANADIAN ACTION PARTY
The Canadian Action Party is the only party that has been opposing the North American Union and is our greatest hope for a free and prosperous Canada.
http://canadianactionparty.ca
WEARECHANGE TORONTO
“We Are Change has arisen from the remnants of our republic to fill the vacancy left by those who swore to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution against all enemies – foreign and domestic. We seek to expose the fraud of the left/right paradigm and reveal that the world truly functions on a top/down hierarchy that threatens to destroy free society as we know it. We Are Change works to educate, motivate, and activate those striving to uncover the truth behind the private banking cartel of the military industrial complex that is directing the majority of U.S. policy, and that is actively seeking to eliminate national sovereignty and replace it with a “one world order.” We will also continue to move in a direction that reconnects “We the People” to our nations founding principles laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
Today, long-time international arms dealer Monzer al Kassar will appear before federal judge Jed Rakoff in a hearing in Manhattan. Al Kassar already was arraigned on Friday, shortly after his extradition to the U.S., and he pleaded not guilty to charges of selling millions of dollars worth of machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and surface to air missiles to the FARC, the Colombian rebel group designated as a terrorist organization. Al Kassar’s current accommodations, the federal correctional system, are a far cry from what he was used to when NBC News producer Aram Roston met him in 2006, in a palace in the south of Spain.
I don’t think Monzer Al Kassar even imagined back then, when I met him in 2006 in his palace, that he was the target of a nascent U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency sting investigation. I was surprised at the time that he’d agreed to meet me. His name was ubiquitous in international arms scandals and his reputation was grim: allegations of drugs, guns, arms to all sorts of terror groups.
And yet when I met him he acted calm as could be, a bit dramatic and a bit pompous, occasionally pretending the allegations against him were political conspiracies against an aggrieved activist. And he would stoop to pet his small white poodle, named Yoqui. Investigations seemed to be quite far from his mind. The DEA had investigated him in the past, and a DEA agent had even testified against him in a Spanish court years ago. But it seemed, back in September 2006, that he had eluded all the investigators and the cases around the world, and was enjoying his ill-gotten gains.
But if he was not worried about the DEA, he had other concerns. Back in September 2006 the Iraqi government accused him of assisting the insurgents. I flew to Southern Spain and checked into a hotel in Marbella. Al Kassar sent an aide to chauffeur me to the hotel, in a big black BMW. The man’s name was Felipe Moreno, a Chilean. He was gray-haired and short and apparently he was al Kassar’s personal assistant. He spoke of traveling to Syrian with Al Kassar.
(Felipe, like Al Kassar, is now in custody in federal prison. With Al Kassar, in 2006, he was about to be drawn, allegedly, into the web DEA investigators and undercover informants were weaving around Al Kassar.)
The palace was set off in the small neighboring area of Puerto Banus, up on a hill overlooking the harbor. It was a beautiful, white marble estate, surrounded by high walls. Watchmen pulled back gates to let us in, and there were small guard shacks to the right and left. Felipe told me that at night three Spanish Mastiffs prowled the grounds to keep intruders away.
It was a lavish interior, with sweeping staircases, a grand piano and various bronze sculptures. I was led into a grand salon, and there Monzer Al Kassar kept me waiting, until he finally made an appearance, waving me to sit and settling himself down too. He wore a well-tailored suit of some heavy fabric, and a salmon shirt with a matching kerchief in his pocket.
He was guarded in the interview at first. When I took out my digital recorder he told one of his aides to bring in a big black tape recorder and he ostentatiously insisted on recording our interview as well. Later on, he relaxed.
He denied funding the Iraqi insurgency. “I’m answering you frankly,” he said. “I have nothing to hide. I have to tell you the truth; if they connect me with money or laundering money this is nonsense. To start with, where’s the money? Where’s the money?
But he insisted he would have been proud if he had supported the insurgency.
“What they have accused me with, if it’s true, it’s an honor for me, if it’s true.” He postured as a freedom fighter a bit. “It’s an honor for every honest people in this world to be against the occupation of Iraq and against what is going on there.”
Connections to Saddam’s son
While he denied having known Saddam Hussein, he admitted having met Uday Hussein, Saddam’s notoriously sadistic son, and on his wall near the fireplace were two photos of him with Uday, in fact.
His photo collection, of which he was quite proud, was a rogue’s gallery. There on a coffee table, in an ostentatious frame, was a portrait of the famous Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas, the head of the Palestine Liberation Front, and mastermind of one of the most notorious terror incidents of the 1980s – the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruiseliner, where tourist Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound and elderly Jewish American, was killed.
In one photo, the portly Abu Abbas and Monzer Al Kassar, dressed in 70’s clothes, hugged. Monzer Al Kassar was tried, and acquitted, by Spanish authorities in the 1990s, for alleged involvement in the Achille Lauro atrocity. He beat the case.
“You cannot call him a terrorist!” Al Kassar insisted to me. “He’s a hero. Put it down. Write it down.” Al Kassar portrayed himself as an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights. “If you’re on the side of the Israelis, then he’s a terrorist of course. You call him a terrorist, but I don’t allow you to call him a terrorist.”
But in spite of all this, Al Kassar would not admit to supporting Abu Abbas. “He never asked any help. He doesn’t need any help. He has his own people. He did not ask and I did not send any weapons to him.”
Another photo on his wall was Hassan Aideed, the son of Farah Aideed, the notorious Somali warlord portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down. Al Kassar has been named in UN reports as shipping weapons to Somalia in violation of UN arms embargoes.
Al Kassar told me he became an arms dealer back in the 1970s, when the government of Communist Yemen, a Soviet client state, gave him a diplomatic passport. He shrugged, as if it was all no big deal. “I’m not here now to remember, of course,” he said. “I’ve worked more that 20 years in the arms business. I have never seen a gun. Believe or not. You go to the ministry, on the catalog, they give us the code or the name: ‘We want ak47’ and we go and sign the ministry.”
He also denied almost everything. He says he never dealt drugs and never acted as an intelligence informant.
He invited me to lunch, too, where he had some visitors. We ate around a huge circular table, serving ourselves off big platters, while Monzer Al Kassar’s little lapdog, the poodle, begged for scraps.
“I’ve met interesting people,” he said. “Good people, bad people. How do I know who’s good and who’s bad? And this is a matter of opinion. Who is bad? The bad people for you may be the good people for me and the good people for me may be the bad people for you.”
MIAMI — From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit.
An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.
Law enforcement officials said that the shift toward prescription-drug abuse, which began here about eight years ago, showed no sign of letting up and that the state must do more to control it.
“You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley, a drug intelligence inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which co-sponsored the study. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that’s what makes things complicated.”
The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.
The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.
Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).
The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.
Florida scrutinizes drug-related deaths more closely than do other states, and so there is little basis for comparison with them.
It has also witnessed several highly publicized cases in recent years that have highlighted the problem. Only last year, an accidental prescription drug overdose killed Anna Nicole Smith in Broward County.
Still, the state has lagged in enforcement. Thirty-eight other states have approved prescription drug monitoring programs that track sales. Florida lawmakers have repeatedly considered similar legislation, but privacy concerns have kept it from passing.
As a result, federal, state and local law enforcement officials say, Florida has become a source of prescription drugs that are illegally sold across the country.
“The monitoring plan is our priority effort, but that is not enough,” William H. Janes, the Florida director of drug control, said in a statement accompanying the study. He said Florida was also looking at ways to curb illegal Internet sales and to encourage doctors and pharmacists to identify potential abusers.
Some local police departments have taken a more novel approach.
In Broward County on May 31, deputies completed a “drug takeback” in which $5 Wal-Mart, CVS or Walgreens gift cards were distributed to 150 people who cleaned out their medicine cabinets and turned in unused drugs in an effort to keep them out of young people’s hands.
“The abuse has reached epidemic proportions,” said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. “It’s just explosive.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/us/14florida.html
D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.
Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.’s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her “All Hands on Deck” weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.
Under today’s proposal, the no-go zones will last up to 10 days, according to internal police documents. Front-line officers are already being signed up for training on running the blue curtains.
Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”
“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”
Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal “breathtaking.”
“I think they tried this in Russia and it failed,” she said. “It’s just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.”
The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry “Tommy” Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.
“They’re really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets,” Thomas told The Examiner.
Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. “moving towards a police state.”
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former Chicago police officer charged with being part of a ring that falsely arrested and stole from drug dealers has detailed how the operation led to a plot to kill two colleagues, according to interview excerpts released on Friday.
The scandal in the elite Special Operations Section helped lead to a change in the Chicago police department with the appointment of a new superintendent, former FBI agent Jody Weis.
In what was described as his first interview on the matter, FBI informant Keith Herrera told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that pressure to get drug dealers and their guns off the streets led first to cutting corners and then to crime.
“Creative writing was a certain term that bosses used to make sure that the job got done,” Herrera, referring to fabrications on police reports, said in a program to be aired on Sunday.
“I didn’t just pick up a pen and just learn how to (lie). Bosses, guys that I work with who were older than I was … It’s taught to you.”
CBS released portions of the program in advance.
As an example, Herrera said, a drug suspect might be listed in a report as refusing to surrender his gun even if he had dropped the weapon.
“Do you want that guy … that just shot somebody to not go to jail because he threw the gun? Or do you want him to go to jail because he never let the gun out of his hand?” Herrera said. “I know what I’ve got to do.”
He said some officers obey the rules but “this isn’t Podunk, Iowa. This is the city of Chicago … You’ve got to do a job.”
Herrera and six other former members of the Special Operations Section were charged in 2006 with robbery, kidnapping and other crimes. All have pleaded not guilty.
Herrera said he began stealing from people he arrested but decided to go to the FBI after the group’s leader proposed killing two colleagues who were threatening to testify against him.
He said the ring leader, who has been charged with plotting a murder for hire, told him in a conversation he recorded for the FBI that there would be a “paint job” and if it was done right “we’d never have to paint again.”
Weis, also interviewed on the program, said there was probably an atmosphere of breaking the law so the elite unit could cite progress and accomplishment.
“They lost their way and it saddens me,” he said. “This is horrific in my eyes.”
CBS said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley acknowledged in an interview to be aired on Sunday’s program that the scandal tainted the department but most officers were not involved.
McALLEN - A U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of smuggling cocaine through airport security checkpoints made his first appearance in U.S. District Court on Friday.
Prosecutors allege Agent Ramiro Flores Jr., 36, of McAllen, used his federal credentials and badge to bypass U.S. Transportation Security Administration screeners at McAllen-Miller International Airport with about 13.2 pounds of the drug hidden in a piece of luggage.
Once inside the secure area of the airport, he is accused of swapping the bag with an awaiting accomplice, before both men boarded a flight to Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Houston police arrested both men Thursday as they exited the plane.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, Flores unknowingly met with a federal informant earlier in the week to plan the drug smuggling trip. The man offered him $400 up front and an additional $6,000 once the trip was completed.
A search of the Flores’ McAllen home after his arrest uncovered $340 of the initial payment, U.S. attorneys said.
Federal authorities said it remains unclear whether Flores had made previous smuggling trips.
TSA policy allows armed, on-duty local and federal law enforcement officers to bypass airport checkpoints with the proper identification, according to the agency’s Web site. Flores, however, was not supposed to be on duty at the time of his trip, prosecutors said.
It was unclear Friday whether he had retained an attorney. Several phone calls to his home Friday were not returned.
Fellow agents described Flores as a longtime member of the Border Patrol’s ranks in McAllen.
Although local Border Patrol spokesman Dan Doty said he could not comment specifically on Flores’ case, he said it was standard procedure for any agent who becomes the target of a criminal investigation to be put on administrative leave pending the outcome of the case.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Ramiro Flores Jr. is the second U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of smuggling activity in Texas this week. On Tuesday, Agent Jesus Miguel Huizar, 26, of El Paso, was arrested on conspiracy and money laundering charges.
Court documents allege Huizar and two Mexican nationals smuggled more than 100 illegal immigrants into the United States since 2005. Huizar is accused of taking $500 per person to go through the checkpoint to a house he owned.
If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.
A corporate jet owned by a principal in a trendy Meatpacking District hotel reportedly made several mysterious flights over the years to the U.S. military installation in Guantanamo Bay where terror suspects are held.
The jet was managed and offered for charter by a company owned by the hotelier’s business associate.
Yesterday, a lawyer for an ex-worker at the air-charter company said his client knew that up to 80 percent of the firm’s rentals of its fleet of planes involved “confidential, governmental flights.”
Ex-employee Mark Billey said there were “governmental people, armed people. He did recall flights to Long Beach where they did have a lot of U.S. Marshals,” according to the lawyer, Ian Friedman, who spoke to Billey in an Ohio federal prison yesterday.
Billey - who worked at the company for six months until his arrest in April - is awaiting trial on unrelated kiddie-sex charges.
The intrigue surrounding the corporate craft, a Gulfstream II, deepened last Monday, when the plane crashed in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula carrying 3.6 tons of cocaine.
The Gulfstream had been owned by Hotel Gansevoort proprietor William Achenbaum from 2001 until Aug. 30 of this year - more than three weeks before the plane crashed.
The plane was reportedly sold to Florida aircraft broker Donna Blue Aircraft, which then promptly peddled it to another man, Clyde O’Connor, for $2 million.
When Achenbaum owned the plane, it was managed by a Long Beach, Calif., company, Air Rutter International, which offered it for charter.
Air Rutter is owned by Arik Kislin of Long Island, who according to the Hotel Gansevoort’s liquor license is also a principal in the hotel.
Earlier this year, The Post reported that a Manhattan company Kislin ran in the 1990s had sponsored a U.S. visa sought by an alleged Russian mob hit man.
During the time that Kislin’s associate, Achenbaum, owned the plane, it made trips in 2003, 2004 and 2005 to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the McClatchy Newspapers group reported.
Bill Cripe, general manager of Air Rutter International, denied the plane flew to Guantanamo during charters and that the company leased
