CIA activities in Nicaragua as well as rebels and Americans who work with them." Five American Contra supporters who worked with the rebels confirmed the charges, noting that "two Cuban-Americans used armed rebel troops to guard cocaine at clandestine airfields in northern Costa Rica. They identified the Cuban-Americans as members of the 2506 Brigade, an anti-Castro group that participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. Several also said they supplied information about the smuggling to U.S. investigators." One of the Americans "said that in one ongoing operation, the cocaine is unloaded from planes at rebel airstrips and taken to an Atlantic
CIA activities in Vietnam in the mountains of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the CIA quickly realized the potential use of the Hmong as guerrilla fighters against Laotian as well as North Vietnamese communist forces. First donations of food, blankets, and then by January 24, 1961 300 Hmong received weapons to Vang Pao's troops, the CIA sent men to train Hmong fighters in guerrilla tactics, eventually engaging soon-to-be-General Pao's approximately 10,000 men. These Hmong forces would prove valuable to the CIA's tactics for the remainder of the war, despite insecurities on both sides as to the allegiance of the other. It was during 1961