State Department: Cuba Is Aiding Iran, Hamas, Other Jihadis in the West

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's department released a detailed 99-page report on Monday accusing the Cuban government of being the primary driver of Marxist subversion in the Western Hemisphere. According to the report, the Castro regime has spent decades cultivating revolutionary movements both within the United States and globally. The document, presented alongside a formal statement from the State Department, frames Cuba not merely as a geopolitical rival but as the ideological core of the modern radical Left. Rubio, who previously served as a senator and has long advocated for a hardline stance against Cuba, shared his views on social media, stating that the report reveals the full extent of Cuban espionage and subversion in the U.S. He emphasized that the American public deserves to understand the historical context of Cuba's activities. The report highlights that the Cuban regime's greatest achievements have not been military or economic, but ideological. It claims that for nearly seven decades, Cuba has conducted a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States, which has infiltrated high levels of the U.S. government, recruited and nurtured generations of American activists, supported a surge of leftist terrorism on American soil, and executed one of the most persistent and harmful foreign intelligence penetrations in American history. The report outlines an unconventional strategy employed by Havana, focusing on espionage, infiltration, proxy networks, and ideological influence instead of traditional warfare. This approach, the report suggests, has led to notable successes despite Cuba's limited resources. It accuses Cuba of training and arming leftist guerrilla groups worldwide, offering refuge to American fugitives convicted of terrorism, and successfully infiltrating senior levels of the U.S. government, including the State Department, Pentagon, and National Security Council. A significant portion of the report discusses Cuba's ongoing influence over contemporary leftist activism in the United States. It claims that Havana has historically shaped and supported organizations such as the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground during the Cold War, as well as more recent movements like Antifa. The report further asserts that Cuban influence persists today through leftist nonprofits, anti-immigration enforcement collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations. It argues that from its inception, the Cuban regime has viewed the advancement of the revolutionary Left in the United States as crucial to its own survival and strategic interests. The report does not characterize Cuba solely as a Soviet satellite but rather as having developed its own unique form of Marxism focused more on anti-Western and anti-American revolutionary ideology than class struggle. It notes that while the collapse of the Soviet Union rendered the Soviet model of communism obsolete, the Cuban Marxist project not only endured but flourished. By the early 21st century, Havana had established itself as the ideological center of the modern radical left. The report also connects Cuba to several recent instances of civil unrest in the United States, suggesting that many of the most significant upheavals in recent American political history, from the George Floyd riots to the rise of Antifa to the proliferation of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses, can be traced back, in some manner, to Cuban influence. Additionally, the report cautions that Cuba remains an active intelligence threat, alleging that the regime maintains networks within American institutions while simultaneously acting as a base for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence operations. The report highlights Cuba's role in aiding Iran, Hamas, and other jihadist groups in spreading their influence throughout the Western Hemisphere. It points out that Cuba has not only supported Marxist revolutionary groups but has also formed alliances with a variety of hostile nation-states and terrorist groups since the fall of the Soviet Union. Modern Cuba is accused of funneling the information and intelligence collected by its agents in the United States to adversarial states such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Despite its small size and poverty, Cuba is described as retaining highly effective spycraft skills and well-established espionage networks on American soil. Its strategic location near the U.S. coastline allows it to serve as a valuable asset for anti-American actors, providing them with access to domestic influence and intelligence within the United States and facilitating connections with American groups and movements. Cuba's regional networks offer a comparable benefit, acting as a conduit for Iran, Russia, and other regimes to extend their influence across the area. The report dedicates a section to Cuba's collaborations with Iran and its "Axis of Resistance," which includes terrorist proxies across the Middle East, such as non-state actors like Hamas. It notes that Cuba has maintained long-standing relationships with Palestinian terrorist organizations dating back to the 1960s and provided military training to their fighters in the 1970s and 1980s. Groups like the PLO utilized Cuba as a gateway to forge partnerships with Latin American militants. Some of these terrorist groups possess Marxist-Leninist ideologies alongside their Islamic fundamentalism, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), both of which were involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli civilians. Some fighters in these groups received training from Cuban operatives, and the PFLP still maintains an office in Havana. According to the report, with Cuba's assistance, groups like Hamas and the PFLP have constructed an influence network spanning over 86 countries worldwide, including the United States. The report warns that Western governments should not overlook the convergence of Cuba's revolutionary solidarity networks and Islamist radicals. Over the years, Cuban ambassadors have regularly met with delegations from Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including a prominent meeting between Hamas officials and the Cuban ambassador to Lebanon just eight months prior to the release of the report.