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US Lets Cuban Terror Slide in Florida

5 anti-Castro groups planning coup get free ride from FBI

By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff

Posted Jan 14, 2008 8:19 PM CST

(Newser) – At least five anti-Castro paramilitary groups are operating on US soil, planning to overthrow the Cuban regime—and getting a free ride from Washington despite bolstered anti-terrorist laws that would back a crackdown. Holed up in Florida training camps, the Cuban exiles have been linked to commando raids, hotel bombings, and even downed airliners, Salon reports.

Aside from an occasional weapons charge, the US stays hands-off with the groups, which one former aide to Colin Powell called “Hezbollah in Florida.” Salon runs down a list of the militant community’s worst offenders—including one suspected of 73 murders—and notes a political link between the Sunshine State’s Cubans and two Bush's, one the US president, the other a governor who helped stop the deportation of a key militant.

Cuban students hold photographs of Cuban believed to have been killed during attacks by anti-government militants, including the victims of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, during a symbolic trial of anti-Castro Cuban militant  Luis Posada Carriles in front of U.S Interests Section in Havana, Tuesday May, 15,...
Cuban students hold photographs of Cuban believed to have been killed during attacks by anti-government militants, including the victims of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, during a symbolic trial...   (Associated Press)
A student walks past a mural depicting anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles in Cotorro, outskirts of Havana, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008. Venezuela and Cuba link Posada Carriles, 79, to the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airlines plane that killed 73. (AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)
A student walks past a mural depicting anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles in Cotorro, outskirts of Havana, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008. Venezuela and Cuba link Posada Carriles, 79, to the 1976...   (Associated Press)
In a file photo Luis Posada Carriles listens to a question by a reporter during a news conference in this May 17, 2005 file photo in Hialeah, Fla.  A federal judge has denied prosecutors' efforts to keep anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles jailed pending his trial on charges he lied...
In a file photo Luis Posada Carriles listens to a question by a reporter during a news conference in this May 17, 2005 file photo in Hialeah, Fla. A federal judge has denied prosecutors' efforts to keep...   (Associated Press)
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