Step in and read about the history of Alpha 66, Omega 7, and Brigada 2506 fighting Commies in Cuba from Miami.

[Miami_JBT]

Brigade 2506 was founded shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. Formed under the direction and funding the CIA, Cubans were recruited to be trained and to fight the communist government of Cuba. The goal was simple, land a force and march inland. Once a few towns would be taken, they would declare themselves to be the provisional government of free Cuba and the United States would recognize them as such and assist with US Forces.

Well, the invasion was a disaster and many Cuban Patriots died and were captured as POWs.

Brigade 2506 Members being taken as POWs by Castro lead Forces.

Their return to the US and President Kennedy honoring their efforts

The returning veterans were either offered direct commissions into the US Army as Second Lieutenants or other more clandestine positions.

One such group was Alpha 66, and they had multiple founders including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, who had served twenty years in a Cuban prison for counterrevolutionary activities, and Antonio Veciana.

The group was originally formed by Cuban exiles in the early 1960s and was most active in the late 1970s and 1980s. Alpha 66 presented itself as a patriotic organization that wished to undo the betrayal to the revolution that was Fidel Castro's government. Alpha 66's founding members included many Cubans who had fought as revolutionaries against the Batista government alongside Fidel Castro and Alpha 66's anthem directly references Fidel Castro as having betrayed the ideals that the group's members originally fought for.

A number of Members were veterans of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and served with Brigada 2506, others were veterans of the revolution against Batista in the 1950s.

Early on, some members of Alpha 66 also partook in the United States-sponsored Volunteer Program, which allowed Cuban exiles to form all-Cuban military units within the United States Army. Additionally, members of Alpha 66 received funding and training from the CIA; however, this support did not last.

The CIA found that it had little control over the actions of Alpha 66 and, in many cases, Alpha 66 carried out operations without the CIA's approval or consultation, leading to the CIA ending its involvement with the group. Despite the lack of government support, Alpha 66 still managed to train its members throughout the Eerglades of Florida and conducted hits in Cuba.

When the CIA originally supported the organization.

The 1980s and early 1990s is when they lost CIA support.

That didn't stop them from conducting operations and training.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Part II - More photos of Alpha 66.

This last set of photos were from the 1990s.

Here is a news segment from 1997.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Part III - Omega 7

Omega 7 was far more clandestine in their activities. While Alpha 66 was more of an open militia. Omega 7 was legit black-ops assassinations and bombings.

For example, they've been credited as being responsible for the Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 bombing. The Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on October 6, 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed after two time bombs went off and the plane crashed into the sea. The crash killed every member of the Cuban national fencing team.

Wreckage from the bombing being recovered.

Declassified FBI report that reads: "Our confidential source ascertained ... that the bombing of the Cubana Airlines DC-8 was planned, in part, in Caracas, Venezuela, at two meetings attended by Morales Navarrete, Luis Posada Carriles and Frank Castro".

Omega 7 also is credited with the assassination of a Cuban Representative to the United Nationa.

On September 11, 1980, an attaché with the Cuban Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Felix Garcia Rodriguez, was fatally shot. He was driving back to the Cuban Mission along the Queens Boulevard service road near 58th Street in Queens, and was killed by a bullet fired from a parked car. Garcia was "the first United Nations official to have been assassinated in New York City since the founding of the world organization" in 1945.

Here is a 1979 news story about their bombings in Union City, NJ against pro-communist businesses.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Part IV - photos from Alpha 66's raiding team enroute to Cuba.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Party V - more photos of the raid to Cuba by Alpha 66.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Part IV - November 1990 issue of Soldier of Fortune, article about Alpha 66.

 

[baxtrom]

That's a big one

 

[J Buck]

Very interesting, thank you.

 

[Miami_JBT]

That's a big one

Need something big to go through fat corrupt commies.

 

[Miami_JBT]

I forgot to mention Comandos Mambises.

During the 26th of July Movement, Martínez Pupo sent convoys of provisions and supplies to the rebels, only later to see Fidel Castro nationalize his belongings and his business empire in 1959. In 1960, he and his family went into exile. While his daughter and her family remained in Miami, he and his wife went to Guatemala. In 1963, the CIA recruited Martínez Pupo to lead a campaign of guerrilla warfare and sabotage by a commando group constituted by Cuban exiles. He called this group Comandos Mambises in honor of the Cuban insurgents who fought against Spain. The unit's mission was to sabotage strategic targets in Cuba in order to inflict economic and psychological damage to Castro's regime.

As a small elite group perhaps a couple of dozen specializing in underwater demolition, it was the brainchild of Shackley and Dave Morales, his paramilitary chief at JMWAVE.

The Mambises carried out at least a half dozen actions from mid to late 1963 and claimed another in September of 1964, although that one was apparently carried out without U.S. approval.

Kennedy's assassination signaled the beginning of the end for the Ray and Artime operations. President Johnson showed little enthusiasm for such activities and, with the Vietnam War escalating, had even less interest in the covert Cuba program.

Another blow came in September 1964 when the Artime group mistakenly attacked the Spanish freighter Sierra Aranzazu in the Windward Passage as it was carrying toys, garlic and cork to Havana. The raiders thought it was the Sierra Maestra, a Cuban freighter. The raid killed the ship's captain, second mate and third engineer, and wounded 17 other Spanish sailors.

Anti-Castro Cuban exiles prepare to attack Cuban shipping in the Caribbean Sea in 1964 as part of Operation Mongoose.

The attack on Spanish freighter Sierra Aranzazu.

 

[Miami_JBT]

As part of their training, members of Alpha 66 Commando Units climb Caldwell Mountain in Southern California, leaving a plaque to commemorate "El Grito de Baire," the day Cuba began its war of independence against Spain (February 24, 1985).