July, 16 2019 /Politics, Law & Society

Americas lone fight against Taliban and Islamic State group is hindered by corruption

America lost a battle against terrorism in Afghanistan to corrupt officials and military personals

The President of the United States, Donald Trump has decided to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan after losing a long fight for nearly two decades against terrorism. The US has lost billions of dollars to fraud contractors and illegal arms dealers in Afghanistan till date. The local government had been a mere spectacle to miscreants and misconducts happening in the country.

In 2009, the multi-billion dollar contract fraud was exposed by the US Army, the man named Raymond Azar and his secretary Dinorah Cobos were arrested in the context. Their company Sima Salazar International located in Afghanistan procured $150 million contracts of the US military before being exposed and also had been running the company by using the alias Sarah Lee, a non-existing person. The US Army orchestrated a sting operation to catch the fraudsters, both Raymond and Dinorah were caught from Afghanistan redhanded with bribe money and documents used in the conspiracy against the US Army.

As the case of Azar unraveled, the investigation team realized that he was not alone to execute the plan of billion dollars fraud against the US, another name came to light—Tony Abi Saab, a Lebanese arms dealer. Till now, the Army was thinking they have caught the right person and the mastermind of the billion dollars embezzlement but they soon understood, Raymond is a mere puppet of his master Tony. Most of the shares of Sima Salazar was owned by Tony and the company was run under the sub-contract of his company Brescia Middle East. Tony also duped the US of 5 million dollars through his fake companies Bennet-Fouch and G2 Armony.

Despite, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Tony is running shell companies in EU, importing weapons from Italy, Russia and Germany to Lebanon and re-routing them to terrorists in Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. While Raymond and Dinorah were punished and sent to prison for five and two years respectively and also paid the penalty of $15 million, Tony escaped the jail term by tricking the legal authorities by pleading human rights violations and errors in collecting evidence. The US is again collecting evidence against him and for that, it needs the support of the Lebanese authorities, where Tony still runs his illegal business. BME and other companies of Tony are banned in the United States but they are active in Europe and the Middle East.

NATO has failed to restrict the movement of contraband weapons to the vulnerable regions as the fraudsters fool the authorities through false documents, fake destinations of arms, and extravagant invoices. It’s time to identify the treacherous NATO member who breached the protocols of the treaty and has gone against the national interest.

Marc Azani