10 World Leaders Assassinated By The US Government.

Since the 1940’s, the CIA has allegedly succeeded in killing a significant number of leaders around the world, either by pulling the trigger themselves, or by using local military to do the dirty work for them. 

1. OSAMA BIN LADEN 

Founder and head of the Islamist group Al-Qaeda,Osama Bin Laden was the key figure behind the September 11 attacks on the United States, which killed nearly 3,000 people and injured a further 6,000. 

From 2001 to 2011, he was a major target of the War on Terror, and the FBI placed a $25 million bounty on him in their search for him. 

For almost ten years, Bin Laden remained in hiding, recruiting enthusiastic young jihadis to his cause and plotting new attacks. 

Meanwhile, the CIA and other intelligence agencies frantically searched in vain for his hiding place. 

Finally, in August 2010, they traced Bin Laden to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 

For months, CIA agents spied on the house and used drones to photograph it from the sky. 

On May 2, 2011, a team of Navy SEALs burst into the compound, found Bin Laden and shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. 

US forces then took Laden”s body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law. 

In a televised address to the nation that night, Obama claimed “Justice has been done.” 

2. CHE GUEVARA 

Of all the pop culture images that surround us, it is ironically Che Guevara”s face - a man who gave up his life for communism - that often stares at us, emblazoned on t-shirts, posters, iPhone cases and tattoos. 

Guevara was an Argentinean-born, Cuban revolutionary leader who in the late 1950’s, played a key role in Fidel Castro’s seizure of power from Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and later served as the minister of industry. 

In 1965, Guevara resigned from his government post to take the ideas of Cuba’s revolution to other parts of the world. 

He disappeared from Cuba and eventually resurfaced in Bolivia. 

A year later, he tried to encourage the Bolivian people to rebel against their government, but had little success. 

With only a small guerrilla force to support his efforts, he was captured and killed by the Bolivian army, with help from US Green 

Beret and CIA operatives. 

In the 1960s, leftist guerrilla movements were threatening the balance of power in the Cold War. 

So Che wasn’t in America’s good books. Guevara couldn’t care less though, as he believed the United States was responsible for most of the economic and social problems in the Third World, and wanted to start two, three or many Vietnams” in Latin America to ultimately bring the US to its knees. 

In 1997 his remains were discovered, exhumed and returned to Cuba, where he was reburied. 

3. DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD 

What caused the 1961 plane crash that killed former UN secretary and Swedish diplomat General Dag Hammarskjöld? 

Some say it was the result of a pilot error, others suspect it was foul play. 

More than half a century on, the cause of the plane crash remains unknown. 

However, in July 2016, the United Nations published a much-anticipated inquiry into the crash that revealed new information about what happened. In the report, UN investigators said that they had found significant new information supporting a theory that Hammarskjöld”s plane was downed by aerial attack or other interference. 

Those who believe this theory think the plane was deliberately shot down to prevent a meeting with Hammarskjold and Moise Tshombe, the president of the Congolese breakaway province of Katanga. 

Their meeting was an attempt to negotiate an urgent ceasefire and end its civil war. 

The USA however, had a vested interest to stop the peace deal: Congo’s mineral wealth, with its soil abundant in deposits of copper, gold, diamonds, and oil. 

Hammarskjöld was convinced that western interests and mercenaries in Katanga were preventing a settlement. 

It is believed that the NSA might be in possession of crucial radio intercepts taken from pilots who were in the area at the time the Albertina came down. As of May 2017, the NSA hasn’t released any information. 

4. GENERAL RAFAEL TRUJILLO 

For over 30 years, brutal dictator General Rafael Trujillo ruled over the Dominican Republic with an iron fist. 

It is estimated that he was responsible for the deaths of more than 50,000 people. 

Trujillo’s tyrannical rule came to an end on 30 May 1961, when he was shot and killed after his blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air was ambushed on a road outside the Dominican capital. 

The ambush was the result of an assassination plot carried out by a number of men, including General Juan Tomás Díaz, Antonia de la Maza, 

Amado García Guerrero and General Antonio Imbert Barrera. 

An internal CIA memo states that there was ‘quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters’. 

The weapons of the assassins included three M1 carbines that had been supplied with the approval of the CIA. 

Within days of the assassination, Trujillo”s son Ramfis took charge and almost everyone involved in the conspiracy and members of their extended families were rounded up and killed. 

5. ABU AL-KHAYR AL MASRI 

Reports surfaced on 26 February 2017 that al-Masri, the second in command to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in a 

US drone strike on his car in Northern Syria. Masri had been part of the global jihadi organisation for three decades and was a son-in-law of its founder, Osama bin Laden. 

He had a pivotal role in the terrorist group, responsible for co-ordinating al-Qaida’s work with other terrorist organizations. 

Most notably, he was implicated in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in which more than 200 people, mostly 

civilians, died. 

Following the lethal drone strike, there was no immediate official confirmation of his death from either the United States or al-Qaeda. 

However, two journalists from The Guardian and a US intelligence official later reported that jihadist leaders confirmed that al-Masri was in fact killed in the drone strike. 

His death was a major blow for the terrorist group and marked its biggest loss to its leadership since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. 

6. NGO DINH DIEM 

The assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, was the result of a successful CIA-backed coup led by General 

Dương Văn Minh in November 1963. 

Diem and his adviser, his younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, were executed in the back of an armoured personnel carrier by Army Republic of Vietnam officers on the journey back to military headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base. 

Diem’s death caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam as his governance style had become increasingly dictatorial over time. 

But it also lead to political chaos in the nation. In an attempt to stabilize the South Vietnamese government and beat back communist rebels, the United States became more heavily involved in Vietnam. 

But did the US have any prior knowledge of the coup that overthrew Diem? 

Most likely. Despite publicly disclaiming any participation in the planning of the coup, it was later revealed that American officials met with the generals who organized the plot and allegedly gave them encouragement to go through with their plans. 

7. PATRICE LUMUMBA 

Patrice Lumumba was Congo’s first legally elected Prime Minister and the hero of Congolese independence from Belgium. 

However, shortly after the African country gained independence in 1960, things went downhill for poor Lumumba. 

A mutiny broke out in the army and in a fateful move to suppress Belgian-supported rebels who wanted to break up the country, he turned to the Soviet Union for support. 

Bad idea. In the midst of the Cold War, this set off panic in London and Washington as people feared the Soviets would get a foothold in Africa. 

President Eisenhower was outraged. He turned to his CIA director and told him the time was up for Lumumba. 

So the CIA starting planning his demise. After an aborted assassination attempt against Lumumba involving a poisoned handkerchief, the CIA alerted Congolese troops of his location. In January 1961, Lumumba was dead, killed by a firing squad. 

It wasn’t until 2014, that the United States recognised the CIA”s active involvement in his death. 

8. IMAD MUGHNIYAH 

It’s the evening of February 12, 2008. Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mughniyeh is strolling home after dinner on a quiet street in Damascus. 

Not far from his location is a group of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital tracking him. 

Just as he came close to a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel towards him. He was killed instantly. The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. 

According to a former US intelligence official, the United States helped build the bomb and tested it at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage. 

But why would the US and Israeli intelligence agencies work together? 

They both had motive. Mughniyeh had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most deadly terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina. 

9. SALVADOR ALLENDE 

President Nixon made it clear in 1970 that a CIA assassination of the new left-wing Chilean president would not be unwelcome. 

Nixon viewed left-wing Allende as a threat to democracy in Chile and Latin America, so for three years his administration worked with the CIA to instigate a coup against him. 

In 1973, with the help of the CIA, Chile’s armed forces staged a coup d’état against Allende’s government. 

Fearing for his life, Allende retreated with his supporters to La Moneda, the fortress-like presidential palace in Santiago, which was bombed by air force jets. 

Despite surviving the aerial attack, Allende allegedly fatally shot himself as troops stormed the burning palace. 

Ironically, the democratically elected Allende was succeeded by the brutal dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who during the period of his rule, allegedly murdered around 3,000 people and sent up to 80,000 people to concentration camps. 

10. RENE SCHNEIDER

Salvador Allende wasn’t the only victim of the CIA-led coup following the 1970 Chilean election, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean 

Army, René Schneider was also assassinated during a botched kidnapping attempt. 

In the days after the Chilean election, a plot to kidnap Schneider was developed. You see, neutralizing Schneider was vital for a military coup, as he would never support it. 

So the CIA supplied a group of Chilean officers led by General Camilo Valenzuela with sterile weapons for the operation, which was to be blamed on Allende supporters. After two failed attempts to assassinate Schneider, the coup-plotters set out to kidnap the commander. His official car was ambushed at a street intersection in the capital city of Santiago. 

Schneider drew a gun to defend himself, and was shot point-blank several times. 

Military courts in Chile found that Schneider”s death was caused by two military groups, one led by General Roberto Urbano Viaux and the other by the CIA’s man Valenzuela. 

The lawsuit also asserted that the CIA had aided both groups. On September 10, 2001 Schneider”s family filed a suit against Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor under President Nixon, accusing him of collaborating with Viaux in arranging for Schneider”s murder. 

The U.S. government claimed it did not intend for Schneider to be murdered, only kidnapped, and eventually the lawsuit was dismissed in the federal district court.