Funding for Terrorism, Senator McCain, and Punishment for Treason

I have been rather actively involved in the social media. Lately, I have not done so many blog posts here as I have created images and made comments for posting on social media.

There, I notice a trend of patriotic Americans who are complaining about Senator McCain. McCain's viewpoints and proposals on many issues have people outraged. They call it treason. The more polite commentary blame it on senility. They want him imprisoned.

I have done tremendous research on the crowd in Washington. What got me started was hearing about Sibel Edmonds case. Honestly, I think I have forgotten more about her case than most of my readers will ever know, unless someone actually bothers to read her book - and that person may have to read it more than once to know more than I have forgotten.

However, I did not stop there. I began my own research. I dug. I mean I really dug. I mean, I really, really dug, looking in places other people do not look, for things other people do not seek, and cross-referencing a wide variety of data. A quick glance at the sidebar here at the blog should convince anyone of the possibility that, when I do research, I do way more than most bloggers, and way more than nearly anyone in our mainstream media.

I present this as factual, but make no effort to prove my statements. In many of my posts, I give links, I show images from documents... here, I merely tell you what I know, and hope you will independently verify the information and conclusions provided.

Based on the material I have seen, some of it posted on the internet by other bloggers and by competent journalists from outside the mainstream, there is no doubt in my mind that the problem of corruption in Washington, DC, goes far beyond the extensive situation described by Sibel Edmonds.

In particular, I am convinced that Senator John McCain of Arizona has been connected to foreign organized crime for nearly two decades. The cartel in question is of primarily ethnic Albanian origin, and is based in the Balkans. This cartel was closely linked to ethnic Albanian and Islamic terrorists who have also operated in the Balkans, but who operate elsewhere as well.

If you go back to the Cold War, terrorism was easy to understand: the Soviet Union was behind much of it, and it was aimed at the West. Whenever a terrorist organization tried to bite the hand that fed it, the KGB, whose job was protections of Soviet assets worldwide, would spare no expense to teach that organization a lesson and redirect its activities.

In the 1980's terrorist organizations began to diversify their sources of funding. In particular, they teamed up with drug trafficking organizations (DTO's). The alliance was natural: they both had the same enemy - the government - though one fought for an ideological reason, and the other for monetary profit.

The DTO's discovered that terrorists were ready-made anti-government militarized forces, trained and equipped, which could provide considerable balance in the fight to protect drug trafficking operations against government counternarcotics forces which themselves were becoming heavily militarized in much of the drug-producing and drug-transiting regions of the world.

For their part, the terrorist organizations saw the profit in the production and trafficking of drugs. Cocaine, in particular, is so profitable that even if a small percentage of the total amount produced gets sold rather than interdicted, the DTO is still making good money. DTO's have always been able to get several times more product through to buyers than the bare minimum needed for solvency. Terrorists saw that production and trafficking of drugs exacerbated problems for their enemies in the government, a situation which could then be leveraged politically and militarily. Furthermore, the immense profits available in drug trafficking could finance terrorist activities in a way that state sponsors never could: virtually unlimited money was available, with practically no strings attached.

Narcoterrorism was born, and the monster had the "DNA" of both its parents.

It was in Latin America, in places like Colombia and Peru, where some of the earliest innovations in this area took place. But, it happened elsewhere. The Palestine Liberation Organization - the well-known PLO - was trouble for its Arab and Soviet sponsors - so much so that Jordanian security forces drove it from Jordanian territory across from the West Bank. The PLO landed in Lebanon, where it found the Bekaa Valley a perfect place to produce narcotics. This was when the PLO began to become less ideologically-centered, and more centered on profit. Its nickname was the "Poppy Lovers' Organization"; suffice it to say that its leader, Nobel Peace Prize Winning Yassir Arafat, died a very rich man indeed - and its award to a drug-trafficking terrorist should tell you something about the Nobel Peace Prize.

The US government was not immune to the lures of easy money.

In Latin America, the US was dealing with the threat of communist subversion. Maoist rebels were fighting to take over Peru, and other communist groups were battling the government in Colombia; both nations had an extensive problem with DTO's as well.

But, Nicaragua was special. There, taking its name from a legendary bandit of the late 1920's whose forces were defeated with the help of the US Marines, a group called the Sandinistas deposed President Somoza and established a communist regime. This regime was a threat to the security of the whole region.

In particular, Costa Rica, Nicaragua's neighbor to the south, did not even have an army, rightly concerned that standing armies and the constant coups they produce were a scourge to Latin American countries. Costa Rica's neighbor farther south, Panama, considered contingency plans to move Panamanian troops north into Costa Rica, should this become necessary to answer communist aggression from Nicaragua.

To Nicaragua's north, communist infiltration through a stretch of Honduran jungle supported an attempt by communist-backed forces to seize power in El Salvador, resulting in a long, brutal civil war there.

All this trouble could easily be traced back to Managua, and from there to Havana and Moscow.

The US had to do something to keep the cancer of communism from spreading, so the US began supporting the "contras", people who were against the Sandinista revolution and the resulting communist regime.

However, the Reagan Administration had to deal with a deeply-entrenched Democrat Congress - one which too often sympathized with the communists.

The "solution" discovered by certain relatively low-ranking players was to traffic cocaine to America. The money could be used to fund the contras, and since the money was illegal, it was "black" money for black ops, out of reach of Congress. It was far from an ideal solution, but the reality was that Americans were getting their cocaine - they were going to buy from someone - and if the intelligence community provided some of it, then at least the profits could be channeled to a productive purpose, the defeat of communist subversion in the Americas. The laudable ends "justified" the criminal means.

Predictably, the drug money soon corrupted the laudable ends. Drug trafficking became an end itself, with support for the contras becoming merely a cover story for corruption. According to some accounts, the operation worked so well that corrupt US intelligence operatives had to start supplying arms to the Sandinistas, lest they be defeated, the war would end, and there would be no need for the profitable drug trafficking black op to continue. According to some accounts, the DTO's were caught in the middle between heavily-armed communist forces and heavily armed anti-communist forces, so corrupt US intelligence operatives had to supply arms to the DTO's so the drugs could continue to be produced and shipped. If all of this is true, US intelligence operatives were supplying all sides and making real money doing so, all under a cover story of stopping communist subversion.

The same recipe was used in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to greater effect, and with greater official sanction. Poppies grown along the Durand Line (the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) could be refined into heroin, and much of this heroin could be shipped into the Soviet Union and "sold" there. The Soviet ruble was not considered hard currency, but barter to rogue Soviet officials for arms and supplies could always be arranged. The heroin destroyed the infidel godless communist regime from the inside, while the arms helped support the jihad in Afghanistan. Once again, it was black money for black ops, well out of reach of Congress, but this time with fatwas avowing Allah's approval. The war in Afghanistan, fought right outside the Soviet border, became Moscow's "Vietnam", and kept Moscow from dealing more harshly with Poland and from causing problems elsewhere; in fact, the war in Afghanistan and the resulting stress in the Soviet Union proved to be the straw that broke the communist camel's back in Russia.

By the 1990's, the guys who came up with this recipe had moved up in rank in government service. Add to that the intrinsic corruption of the Clintons and their Administration, and the Clinton Administration became the most corrupt Administration in US history: no one else was even close. The cold war was over, but government officials were dealing with DTO's which, in turn, were connected to terrorist groups, including Islamic terrorist groups connected to the Arab-Afghan Mujahideen - "Al Qaeda" - and to the Poppy Lovers' Organization.

Bush-43 took was inaugurated in January, 2001. As a dedicated Republican, I was happy to vote for him after the outrages of the Clinton era, and I was confident America was on the right track again. Little did I realize...

Information that these Arab-Afghan Mujahideen were planning terrorist strikes against the US was not lacking. They had planned many attacks involving aircraft, including the Bojinka plot. They had attempted to crash planes into buildings, kamikaze style.

And, information was coming in that something was afoot for later in 2001. Blueprints to US skyscrapers had been sent to the Middle East - and, if you are going to crash a plane into a building, why do you need blueprints of the building? Guys affiliated with Islamic terrorist organizations were learning how to fly big commercial jets, and the way they were doing it looked suspicious.

So, there was background to this - Condoleezza Rice lied when she said she didn't "think anyone could have predicted" this - and there was hard intelligence coming in that it may have been about to happen.

The trouble is, an attack this big had never happened before. It was considered very unlikely.

Much more importantly, though, the intelligence coming that it could be about to happen was not coming in through counterterrorism channels; it was coming in through counternarcotics channels: the intelligence apparatus targeting DTO's was picking up information about possible ops being planned by terrorist organizations affiliated with the DTO's.

This was a major problem. An investigation into this could conceivably lead to highly-placed US officials, both elected and appointed, who were on the payroll of these DTO's. By this time - mid-2001 - this included Republican Dennis Hastert, who at the time was the 59th Speaker of the House, and who was on the payroll of Turkish organized crime.

It should be noted that by this time, Senator John McCain was already doing favors for the Albanian cartel described above. McCain was steering US policy in a direction favorable to the cartel and its terrorist allies; in return, a PAC affiliated with that foreign cartel was laundering illicit money from foreign organized crime activities into McCain's campaign coffers.

This illicit money wasn't just from moving Afghan heroin into Western Europe and America; it included the profits of operations for trafficking arms, for trafficking women for forced prostitution, and for trafficking in human body parts from living non-volunteers - Serbian prisoners of war and even civilians captured in the fighting in the former Yugoslavia. This money was mixed in with legitimate, legal campaign contributions from decent, honest, hard-working Americans of ethnic Albanian descent, and given to McCain. In return, McCain, who as a Republican in the Senate was aware of the reports about these terrorists and criminals that the Clinton Administration had been supporting (and that the Bush-43 Administration was now supporting - oh, yes, Bush-43 and even Joe Biden took money from the same guys), was helping Clinton to support them.

McCain went into this with his eyes open, he knew what he was doing, he knew where the money was coming from, and he knew that he was hurting innocent people in the Balkans and betraying US security interests.

An investigation into the intelligence about upcoming terrorist attacks - intelligence that was mainly coming in through counternarcotics channels - would inevitably lead to highly-placed, powerful people in the US government, and would be very embarrassing for them, implicating them in extensive, treasonous corruption.

So, they buried it, instead.

Then, when 9/11 hit, the cover-up began, and from the very beginning, Bush-43 was deeply involved in steering the investigation away from the corruption.

Meanwhile, these guys who came up with the idea to fund anti-communist groups with drug money in the 1980's... they had moved up in rank, and now found themselves under another Republican administration. They were calling the shots now.

This, coupled with the Bush-43 Administration's cronyism, made the Bush-43 Administration more corrupt than the Clinton Administration. And, when one considers how Clinton was giving critical military technology to Communist China in exchange for Chinese money laundered into Democrat campaign coffers, that's saying something.

I mentioned Condoleezza Rice above... she was involved in the Chinese espionage. While working at Stanford, she discretely failed to investigate a Chinese spy ring that was stealing critical technology there. But, that's another story.

Fast forward to the Obama Administration: we now have a "President" who openly, obviously hates America. He was raised by communists and nursed with communist propaganda. He received a strong dose of Islamic indoctrination - and Islam, like communism, is antithetical to everything America stands for.

On top of that, he has no integrity, no honor, no moral compass... in short, he's a perfect example of the worst the far left has to offer.

The treasonous corruption is now so bad, even the Clinton years look good by comparison.

Back to McCain.

As far as I'm concerned, McCain served his time in prison in the Hanoi Hilton. Provided he will cooperate fully with the investigation, I believe his time should be served restricted to the grounds of senior officer's quarters on a military base, where his family can stay with him and visit him, and where he will be safe from the criminals he will need to betray to recuperate some degree of honor.

The others... well, I want them in a federal prison. And, I think we need to build a new one, one big enough to house them all. We need honest investigators, answerable to an honest President, a real American, and we need those investigators to go through Washington, DC, with a fine-toothed comb.

Warrior King, Part 2

In Part 1, we examined how corruption in Ghana permitted the trafficking of narcotics from Latin America, through Ghana, and on to Europe, in particular to the UK. Then-President
John Atta Mills was quoted in Wikileaked cables to be concerned about corruption even among his personal entourage.

Since that post in December, 2010, a great deal has happened.

First, President Mills passed away in office on July 24, 2012. His Vice President, John Dramani Mahama, then ascended to the Presidency, and was retained as President as a result of the regularly-scheduled general elections on December 7, 2012. The elections went off fairly smoothly, as they generally have in Ghana since 1992, when a new constitution was written restoring multi-party politics. The next year, as the new constitution took effect, the Fourth Republic was proclaimed, and President Mahama is the fourth President of the Fourth Republic.

However, this has not altered the close relationship between Ghana and the United States - neither has a change in Presidential administrations in Washington. From Ghana: Background and U.S. Relations by Nicolas Cook of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service (link in sidebar), July 8, 2009:

U.S. Relations

U.S.-Ghanaian relations are close ― as discussed in the Overview and Current Developments of this report ― and a small population of Americans, many of African-American descent, has settled permanently in Ghana. The Obama Administration regards Ghana as "a stable and democratic country" and as among the "most trusted partners" of the United States in Africa, a sentiment that reflects broad continuity with the Bush Administration's view of Ghana.³⁰ In part, this strong partnership is due to the Obama Administration's view of Ghana’s status as "a leader in promoting peaceful conflict resolution in Africa" and as a major troop contributor to international peacekeeping missions.³¹

Considering the unrest across North Africa and into the Middle East in the past couple of years, U.S. Africa Command commissioned a project to assess the stability of some of the countries in Africe. In response, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., wrote a series of reports on the projected stability of several key African nations over the next several years. Ghana was one of the countries analyzed.

According to Ghana: Assessing Risks to Stability, by David W. Throup, June, 2011, the foundation of Ghana's economy has been production of cocoa. Mining, in particular gold, has provided additional income to Ghana. In recent years, oil was discovered, and Ghana has been transitioning to become more of an oil exporting country. In general, Ghana's economy has been productive and stable, due in part to good management of the economy by both of the major political parties, regardless of which one has been in power.

However, there are problems. Soil fertility is declining, there have been few innovations in the production of cocoa, and the country has failed to develop its agricultural sector beyond cocoa; though much of Ghana is fertile and could produce a wide variety of lucrative crops, including for export, Ghana remains a net importer of food. Additionally, exports of oil are expected to peak in 2014, but are then anticipated to fall off sharply beyond 2016; this in the face of unrealistic expectations about what the development of oil production would mean to the country. Finally, the manufacturing industry is not growing, with a major weakness being power supplies.

Overall, after reading Throup's analysis, my impression is that in the next 5-10 years, Ghana could begin to experience significant economic difficulties.

It is in this overall context that we return to the consideration of the trafficking of illegal drugs through Ghana, usually on its way from Latin America to Europe, but sometimes to the United States, as well.

Drug money corrupts government officials, even in stable countries. Ghana, is described by USAID as "a stable, democratic country with a free press, independent judiciary, apolitical military, and active civil society." That notwithstanding, corruption is generally acknowledged as a significant problem; in Ghana, a key node in the corruption is with the judiciary.

First, we have some excerpts from Ghana sits on drug time bomb, May 7, 2008:

THE HEAD of Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD) at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Dr. Kwesi Aning, says Ghana is sitting on a time bomb. He said this in regard to the increasing spate of drug menace in the country.

He wondered why government officials are not prepared to face the fact and adopt methods to reverse the situation. "We need to call a spade a spade. The nation is actually in a deep crisis and people are afraid to speak about it," he said.

[snip]

Dr. Aning contended among others that the fear factor that has gripped many officials who are fighting against some of these vices must be condemned. He cited the case of the late Chief Justice, Justice Kingsley Acquah, who reportedly told him that his life was in danger because he was fighting against corruption in the judiciary.

Despite the shortcomings of the security agencies in curbing the menace, he noted that the judiciary has in no small way thwarted the zeal and ability of the security agencies to combat this particular type of crime.

Dr. Aning said "it became apparent that particular judges give particular judgements in drug cases that are beginning to show a pattern. While previously, this was explained as due to the technicalities of the law, it is now clear that judgements by some members of the judiciary are more than suspicious, especially in cases where judges grant bail to drug traffickers with sureties which are far less than the value of the drugs seized."

It is interesting that allegations of corruption seem to focus on the judiciary.

In one instance, in April, 2006, the MV Benjamin was trafficking 77 parcels of cocaine - each parcel with 30 kilos in it. There were arrests, with one suspect eluding police until February, 2012. Ultimately, each of five suspects who were convicted received 25 years in prison.

However, a major scandal broke when the cocaine went missing.

Mrs. Justice Georgina Wood, was named to head a commission to look into the disappearance of the cocaine.

The key finding fthe commission's report was that one detective sergeant took a bribe to allow one of the perpetrators to escape:

4.7. The Committee finds that DETECTIVE SERGEANT NO27294 who from his own account had the opportunity of meeting ASEM DARKEI SHERIFF at KPONE almost immediately after the discharge, and who then confided in him that the COCAINE had already been discharged, acted corruptly by accompanying ASEM DARKEI SHERIFF to his house, receiving $3,000 from him, and allowing him to make good his escape without reporting him to his superiors.

It seems no one could figure out what happened to 76 of the sacks of cocaine.

Fast forward to 2008: a woman is discovered with a white substance in her possession. The substance tests positive as cocaine; over a kilo is confiscated as evidence, and the woman is held for trial. In 2011, at trial, the defense asks that the evidence be tested again; this time, though, it tests negative for cocaine. It seems the police have over a kilo of baking soda. The defense submitted that the prosecution had no case.

So, Mrs. Justice Wood, now Chief Justice of Ghana, was named to head another commission to investigate this scandal.

From Ghana's corrupt Chief Justice in cocaine scandal again, January 12, 2012:

In effect the Chief Justice is arguing that that the police who arrested the suspect, brought her before a court of competence, followed up on her bail, and brought her back to court to face charges for her crimes swap their most important evidence in the case in order to free her. The question is, for what purpose would the police do that? It does not make sense. If the police wanted the suspect to be free they would not have forced the person or persons who signed off her bail before it was the granted to produce her for further action. The report as released by Chief Justice simply will not pass the litmus test. And the police are already disputing the report.

This is the kind of stuff we have come to expect from the Obama regime.

So, corruption is endemic in Ghana, and it prevents effective prosecution of drug trafficking. Who exactly is responsible depends on the party being asked, as fingers are pointed in different directions: officials and journalists point their fingers at the judiciary, while the judiciary blame corrupt police.

Returning now to Ghana sits on drug time bomb, May 7, 2008, Dr. Aning expressed further concerns during his keynote address, including the following:

He also mentioned the activities of land guards, chieftaincy disputes, land litigations, the concentration of youth unemployment, ethnic tension as being contributory factors to the heightening tension in the country.

[snip]

"Corruption has become a way of life, abuse of authority and position is now a menace, robbery with violence resulting in the loss of precious lives continue to plague our society more seriously than ever before", he noted.

In Ghana: Assessing Risks to Stability, Throup in 2011 indicated that ethnic tensions were not a significant problem in Ghana, and that militant Islamic extremism was not getting much traction among the 15 percent of the population that are Muslim, mostly in the north of the country, though he did point out that Iran is spreading Shi'ite teachings among the Sunni Muslims there. One thing Throup mentions about ethnicity is that the patronage-style politics does tend to politicize ethnicity.

I wonder to what extent economic difficulties, should they develop significantly, would generate ethnic issues. Also, I wonder about the possibilities of militant Islam spreading down into Ghana. A combination of factors, insignificant individually, could generate instability.

Also, as Ghana's banking industry develops, I wonder about the potential for money laundering. And, of course, with money laundering and drug trafficking, one has to wonder about terrorism: it seems Ghana would make a useful base to support terrorist operations in Latin America, targeting U.S. interests.

We will look at these topics as the series continues.

So Close to the United States, Part 1

Actually, I have not felt terribly motivated to blog in recent months, as you may perceive from how few posts have been written. However, as I was surfing through Facebook this weekend, I noticed people posting links about the Texas Highway Patrol, a division of the Department of Public Safety, and its new armored patrol boats operating in the Rio Grande.

I find it interesting how people complain nothing is being done to stem the tide of illegal immigration and general lawlessness along our southern border, yet, people then complain when some government agency actually tries do to something about it, misconstruing what is being done.

Perhaps it is time to do another post here at the blog.

First, I would like to review some previous material, with a focus on a series dealing with issues just south of the border.

In So Far from God, Part 1 we saw how President Calderón's escalation in the war on drugs helped fuel a dramatic increase in violence and instability in Mexico, so much so that surrender of Ciudad Juarez to the cartels was beginning to become somewhat politically palatable. If it went that route, I wondered where things would end.

In So Far from God, Part 2, we considered what actually gets smuggled - narcotics, weapons, and other merchandise, including people - and saw how Ciudad Juarez connects to El Paso which, in turn, connects to the major trafficking routes in Texas. We also saw how the cartels are using military grade weapons, and this caused us to question common reports that 90 percent of the weapons used in Mexico come from gun sales in the United States: how can this be so, when the weapons being used - automatic weapons, crew-served weapons, grenades, grenade launchers, and other military-grade weapons - are not being sold in gun shops and guns shows north of the border? Also, we saw how, with the cartels now armed almost as heavily as the Mexican military, President Calderón had begun to explain the unrest in Mexico as a battle for the government of Mexico to exert control over sovereign Mexican territory - which, by the way, is one way to describe a civil war. In the comments, we clarified the origin of the "90%" figure.

In So Far from God, Part 3, we saw how foreign sources account for the military-grade weapons, as well as outright theft from the Mexican government of weapons sold by the US government. We also saw how these foreign suppliers are even providing radars and submarines to the cartels; there's no way the Obama Administration can blame these items on gun shops along the border! More significantly, though, is that Islamic terrorist groups have helped supervise the training of cartel gunmen in special camps near the US border.

With So Far from God, Part 4 we began to see how Africa is increasingly becoming a transit area for South American cocaine destined for Europe and beyond, and we also saw how there was a westward flow of precursor chemicals for methamphetamines, as well as other suspicious cargo. This is significant, considering how we developed in other posts the concept of the Saharan and Sahelian regions of North Africa as a crossroads for smuggling all kinds of goods as well as for the interactions of various Islamic terrorist groups going as far east as the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

We pause in our review of past posts to introduce some new information not previously covered at this blog and to examine information that has been presented from a new perspective.

One key aspect to what we learned in Part 4 - though not developed as a concept in the post, but rather seen in a new light now - is that the Mexican cartels have come to have significant influence in Africa, with ties going all the way to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Whether this grew out of a desire to grow their business, or out of necessity due to increased pressure by government forces in Mexico, is not important; the fact is, Mexican cartels are tied in with the trafficking of arms, drugs and Islamic terrorism that occurs across the Saharan/Sahelian region of Africa.

This is interesting.

If cocaine is going one way, and arms and expertise to fight against government forces are coming the other way, that means Islamic terrorist organizations have bases and allies, not just in this hemisphere, but immediately along our southern border.

This is not a theoretical threat. We have extensive evidence that we are actually being infiltrated by Islamic terrorists across our southern border. Here are excerpts from A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border, a House committee report not specifically dated but apparently finalized in late 2006:

Items have been found by law enforcement officials along the banks of the Rio Grande River and inland that indicate possible ties to a terrorist organization or member of military units of Mexico.¹⁰⁶ A jacket with patches from countries where al Qa'ida is known to operate was found in Jim Hogg County, Texas by the Border Patrol. The patches on the jacket show an Arabic military badge with one depicting an airplane flying over a building and heading towards a tower, and another showing an image of a lion's head with wings and a parachute emanating from the animal. The bottom of one patch read "martyr," "way to eternal life" or "way to immortality."¹⁰⁷

[snip]

Members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already entered to the United States across our Southwest border. On March 1, 2005, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah.¹¹¹ Kourani is an illegal alien who had been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border after bribing a Mexican consular official in Beirut for a visa to travel to Mexico. Kourani and a Middle Eastern traveling partner then paid coyotes in Mexico to guide them into the United States. Kourani established residence among the Lebanese expatriate community in Dearborn, Michigan and began soliciting funds for Hezbollah terrorists back home in Lebanon. He is the brother of the Hezbollah chief of military operations in southern Lebanon.

In December 2002, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a café owner in Tijuana, Mexico, was arrested for illegally smuggling more than two hundred Lebanese illegally into the United States, including several believed to have terrorist ties to Hezbollah.¹¹² Just last month Robert L. Boatwright, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent of the El Paso Texas Sector, reported, "We have apprehended people from countries that support terrorism... they were thoroughly debriefed and there was a tremendous amount of information collected from them."¹¹³

Statements made by high-ranking Mexican officials prior to and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks indicate that one or more Islamic terrorist organizations has sought to establish a presence in Mexico. In May 2001, former Mexican National security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, reported, that "Spanish and Islamic terrorist groups are using Mexico as a refuge."¹¹⁴

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller has confirmed in testimony "that there are individuals from countries with known al-Qa'ida connections who are changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic-sounding names and obtaining false Hispanic identities, learning to speak Spanish and pretending to be Hispanic immigrants."¹¹⁵

These examples highlight the dangerous intersection between traditional transnational criminal activities, such as human and drug smuggling, and more ominous threats to national security. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez summed it up this way: "I dare to say that at any given time, daytime or nighttime, one can get on a boat and traverse back and forth between Texas and Mexico and not get caught. If smugglers can bring in tons of marijuana and cocaine at one time and can smuggle 20 to 30 persons at one time, one can just imagine how easy it would be to bring in 2 to 3 terrorists or their weapons of mass destruction across the river and not be detected. Chances of apprehension are very slim."¹¹⁶

So, before this series continues - even before we finish our review of the previous series - I would like to address the matter that sparked my desire to start writing again at the blog: the advent of heavily armed patrol boats in the Rio Grande River, manned by Texas State Police. Actually, this is old news - from a little more than a year ago - but it is now really making the rounds on Facebook.

From Heavily-armed Texas gunboats now patrol Rio Grande, June 28, 2012:

"Typically, the boats operating in the Rio Grande River are operating with six M-240, 30-caliber automatic machine guns," explains Lt. Charley Goble, the DPS officer in command of the newly deployed force of gunboats on the Rio Grande.

Texas now has a small navy of gunboats patrolling the Rio Grande and the Intercoastal Waterway.　 Right now, the DPS has four of the 34-foot shallow water vessels, but the fleet will soon grow to six.　 Each of the boats, equipped with armor-plating, night vision equipment and a small arsenal of weaponry, costs about $580,000 in state and federal funds.

Troopers patrolling the border say the expense is justified, considering the ruthless nature of their adversaries in the Mexican drug cartels. What they fear, more than anything else, is the prospect of an ambush.

An ambush may seem particularly threatening, considering what we know, not covered in the article, about the presence of terrorists infiltrating the border and training cartel gunmen along the border. These terrorists have developed their skills ambushing US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They downed our Blackhawk helicopter in Somalia - "Blackhawk Down" - using techniques they had developed fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. These guys have decades of corporate experience successfully ambushing superior forces.

And now they're here.

:)

From "Texas Navy" fights drug traffickers' escapes on the Rio Grande, June 25, 2012:

Video from Texas State Police shows officers chasing a pick-up truck, its bed loaded down with drugs destined for sale in the United States.

The drug runners, once cornered, race back to the border to escape capture.

"They do not care who they run over," said Lt. Charlie Goble, who patrols the Rio Grande Valley. "They do not care how many felonies they commit while they're doing so, their goal is to get away from law enforcement."

The cartels' latest escape technique is something called a "splashdown."

"They just splash their vehicle right into the river," Goble said. "We have seen them jump off 30-foot cliffs into the river."

After the drug runners abandon their vehicles in the river, other cartel members in boats rush in to save their bales of drugs, and whisk them back to the Mexican side of the river, determined to get the drugs back to Mexico.

"The cartels that are controlling these situations -- they're very ruthless," Goble said. "Their life literally depends on them either getting the load to where it's going, or safely getting it back."

Police say the drug traffickers have made these splashdown getaways at least 65 times in the past three years. Texas police don't have the boats they need to stop them -- and the drug runners know it.

"They know once they get back into the water, they're safe," Goble. Said. "All they gotta do is swim home."

The Texas-style solution? Launching its own mini-navy. Six boats, each equipped with multiple machine guns, will soon be patrolling a 54-mile stretch of the Rio Grande.

From Have You Seen the Bulletproof Texas Gunboats Equipped With Automatic Machine Guns That Will Battle Drug Cartels on the Water?, July 4, 2012:

Maj. Bob Bailey of the Texas Highway Patrol’s Special Ops Division told Fox News the boats would be another tool for law enforcement on top of ground units, helicopters and various weapons being used to battle the ruthless cartels who seem to always find a way to get their product into the United States. He says the cartels have access to “unlimited” funds and firepower.

Trafficking cocaine is extremely lucrative, and we have already seen how the cartels are getting firepower far beyond what is available in a local gun show on this side of the border - contrary to the lies the Obama Administration spread regarding this situation.

All in all, I think Texas authorities would be irresponsible, foolish and derelict in their duties if they were not doing something like this; I applaud the Texas government for deploying its heavily-armed patrol boats, I hope they will be safe and effective, and I would further add that if Obama were on the right side of this issue, federal vessels would also be patroling this international waterway.

More to follow as this series continues.

Pearls of the Sun God, Part 2

We continue from Part 1 examining the events in Somalia, which have taken an interesting turn.

Anyone following the news from the Horn of Africa knows that the TFG, together with AMISOM, launched an offensive to clear Al Shabaab terrorists from Mogadishu and its environs.

From AMISOM PRESS RELEASE: TFG/AMISOM Commence Operations to Secure Final Sector of Mogadishu, October 10, 2011:

10 civilian deaths from continued Al Shabaab mortaring in Heliwa and Karaan Districts last week have prompted the Somali National Army, supported by AMISOM, to undertake operations in the North of the Mogadishu.

Operations are aimed at securing the former Arafat Hospital and the Pasta Factory on the Industrial Road, and driving the Al Qaeda linked extremists out of the city.

And, more recently, from AMISOM PRESS RELEASE: Control of Deynile Critical to Security of Mogadishu, October 21, 2011:

Mogadishu, 21 October, 2011; AMISOM Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Fred Mugisha, today undertook a tour of the frontline following the commencement yesterday of operations in support of the Somali National Army, aimed at pushing al-Qa'ida linked extremists from the strategic Deynile district on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

"Deynile is of vital strategic importance as it controls access to the Afgoye Corridor which links the capital to the terrorist-controlled areas of southern Somalia, allowing them to reinforce and resupply their fighters in Masla and Balaad in the far northeastern edges of the city," he said following his tour.

"The Afgoye Corridor is also home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and securing it will allow humanitarian aid, which the extremists have so far been restricting, to finally reach them," he said. "The extremists have also been using the suburbs of Deynile as a base to assemble improvised explosive devices, including car and truck bombs such as those recently employed to target civilians in the capital."

He said that the success of this operation was critical for the security of Mogadishu. "As was to be expected, given Deynile's significance, the operation has encountered heavy resistance but steady progress is being made. In the face of this resistance, AMISOM has suffered casualties," he added.

The offensive has had some success - which generates new problems. As we previously pointed out, control of key economic areas in Mogadishu served as a source of income for Al Shabaab, as the organization "taxed" merchants and businesses.

Of course, we have also been told a big part of the problem in Somalia now is a famine.

But, then, the famine is starting to look a little suspicious.

We now consider an article entitled Somalia: Manufacturing a famine by Rasna Warah, October 19, 2011:

On July 18 this year, the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea tabled a report to the UN Security Council.

The report stated that United Nations agencies, international humanitarian aid organisations and local Somali non-governmental organisations had been forced to move their operations or cease them entirely in many parts of Somalia, mainly due to "an alarming void in international humanitarian aid and development assistance," and also because of "threats from elements of Al Shabaab," who control much of southern Somalia.

Two days later, the UN's World Food Programme — the largest distributor of food aid to Somalia — declared that Bakool and Lower Shebelle, two regions in southern Somalia, had been hit by the worst famine in 20 years.

The UN agency further claimed that 3.7 million people across the country — almost half the total Somali population – were in danger of starving, of which 2.8 million were in the south.

This declaration led to a massive multimillion-dollar fund-raising campaign by UN and international humanitarian agencies. Meanwhile, journalists began referring to the famine as a "biblical event." By September, Time magazine was reporting that the famine had expanded and that a full 12.4 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda were at risk from hunger.

The magazine also stated that in southern Somalia, 63 per cent of the population was either starving or at risk of it.

These figures did not convince many Somali analysts, including Ahmed Jama, a Nairobi-based agricultural economist and former consultant with the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation.

"I was disturbed by the WFP announcement because Lower Shebelle is Somalia's breadbasket and had even experienced a bumper harvest last year," he told this writer.

Skipping down:

But was there really widespread famine, or were the famine figures exaggerated or misinterpreted? FSNAU's estimates for Somali populations "in crisis" in the period August-September 2011 were highest in the most fertile southern parts of Somalia, and were highest in those areas controlled by Al Shabaab.

Significantly, there were only 490,000 people (less than one-eighth of Nairobi's population) in Somalia who were experiencing what the IPC classifies as "famine" or a "humanitarian catastrophe."

In fact, about half of the nearly four million people that the WFP claims are starving are actually experiencing what is known as a "humanitarian emergency"; the rest are in an "acute food and livelihood crisis."

Therefore, I think the widely reported "famine" in Somalia is highly exaggerated. What Somalia is experiencing is generalised food insecurity, not widespread famine. Unfortunately, most media organisations have failed to mention or comprehend this fact.

Is it possible that the "famine" in Somalia was "manufactured" to raise funds? The sequence of events leading to the famine appeal certainly raises suspicions. According to Jama, the timing of the famine declaration in July was probably a response to the shortfall of funds that WFP has recently been experiencing and also to divert attention from the criticism that the UN agency was subjected to after the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia released its 2010 report in March last year.

Then, WFP was castigated by the UN Monitoring Group for colluding with corrupt Somali contractors who are known to sell or divert food aid. Sources interviewed by the Monitoring Group — an entity mandated by the UN Security Council to monitor arms embargo violations in Somalia — estimated that up to half of the food aid reaching Somalia was regularly diverted, not just by Somali transport contractors, but by WFP personnel and NGOs operating in Somalia. That 2010 report led some donors, notably the US, to withdraw funding to WFP’s operations in Somalia.

Rasna then goes on to explain how the European Union has invested a considerable amount of money - 175 million Euros over the past 15 years - to develop the agricultural infrastructure of the Shabelle region of Somalia - "Somalia's breadbasket" - and the question presents itself as to how a famine could occur in a "breadbasket" whose infrastructure has been built up with so much investment over more than a decade. Later on, Rasna points out that the EU funds this through the UN, and relies on UN reports to assess the effectiveness of the program - without any independent or EU audits.

An opportunity for someone? To divert and profit from control of international aid? And, perhaps more... after all, there is international traffic of ships, aircraft, and trucks moving that international aid, from developed countries to Somalia, and then the ships, aircraft and trucks go back... I wonder if they are empty when they go back.

The interesting turn, though, is a Kenyan armed invervention, prompted - supposedly - by lawlessness that spilled over from Somalia into Kenya.

From Kibaki gambles on regional war with Al Shabaab, October 21, 2011 (also available here):

Panic in Lamu

Some witnesses say the kidnappings along Kenya's coast were carried out by groups linked to the Somali pirates whose operations have come under pressure from heavier international maritime policing in the region. The kidnappings generated panic. The resort town of Lamu, favoured by (relatively) wealthy European tourists, emptied within days and this at the start of the tourist high season, which this year was forecast to generate a record US$1 billion in revenue.

Those abductions were further aggravated by the kidnapping of two Spanish aid workers in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp. This was the shot that sent Kenya's armed forces into south-central Somalia. Invoking Article 61 of the United Nations charter on territorial integrity, some 1,600 Kenyan troops launched their first cross-border military offensive, Operation Linda Nchi (Protect the Nation), since the end of the Shifta War in 1967. Derided in the region for their lack of fighting experience, the Kenyan armed forces have deployed mechanised infantry with aerial cover from fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships. We hear that Somali TFG troops will be joining them in the battle for Afmadow.

The real prize, though, is the port city of Kismayo. Both Kenya's military and its Amisom counterparts believe that the capture of Kismayo, from which Al Shabaab now derives much of its revenue, will choke off the militants.

Kismayo... in Part 1 we discussed how Al Shabaab taxes, among other things, the charcoal industry, which exports charcoal to the Arabian Peninsula. But, a port town is important for moving other commodities, as well.

By the way: the Kenyan attack seems to be supported by US drone activity which has resulted in losses of some of our drones.

Either way, Kismayo is important to Al Shabaab, and Al Shabaab is preparing to defend it. From Kenya-Somalia: A risky intervention, October 20, 2011:

On the move

"Many people have been leaving in the last three days. No-one wants to get caught up in the fighting, I have sent my family to the villages," said a resident of Afmadow, a town 140km north of Kenya's border.

Describing the intervention as a "joint Kenya-Somali operation", the commander of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces in the border area, Gen. Yusuf Hussein Dhumal, told IRIN from his base in Tabta, 65km north of the Kenyan border, that his forces were in control of Qoqani, 50km south of Afmadow town.

"We are being delayed by heavy rains. Our aim was to be in Afmadow by now but the rains have made that impossible. We will push until we chase them [Al-Shabab] from Kismayo."

Mohamed Ahmed Ilkase, a reporter for Somali national TV travelling with the Somali forces, told IRIN Al-Shabab was reportedly regrouping in Afmadow.

A resident of the port city of Kismayo, 500km south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, said Al-Shabab had been reinforcing its positions in the city and conscripting people "to fight the enemy. They have been bringing many militias since Monday [17 October] and have been calling on residents to register to fight."

He said families had started leaving the city. "Some are going south [towards Kenya], while many others are going north to Mogadishu."

Al Shabaab has time to dig in to defend Kismayo, conscripting local people to fight. The time is available because heavy rains are slowing the movement of the military forces trying to seize the town... heavy rains in a region that has a famine caused by drought.

Of course, it is not uncommon for an area devastated by drought to have heavy rain, which still does not make up for an extended time of below-average rainfall. And, it is not uncommon in arid regions of the world for sudden heavy rain to bring vehicular movement to a standstill.

We consider an excerpt from an article entitled Taliban Heroin Flooding Kenya on its Way To Europe and The Americas from December 14, 2009 (the post appears to be a copy of an article from The Standard (Kenya), to which I link in the sidebar, but I have (curiously) not been able to find the article there; italics, boldface and other formatting are in the original):

Kenya is fast becoming a key hub for trafficking of drugs from Afghanistan to the rest of the world.

According to reports by the United Nations, "30 to 35 metric tonnes" of Afghan heroin pass through East Africa each year.

This is two-thirds the volume going through West Africa. The largest ever drug haul in Kenya, in December 2004, was 1.1 metric tonnes with a street value of over Sh13 billion.

The proceeds from the drugs are used to finance terrorism activities in Northern Africa and some other sub-Saharan states. It is also suspected that the illicit drug trade supports the unending conflict in neighbouring Somalia.

The Taliban, among whom the world's most notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden hides, are reported to earn $100 million (Sh8 billion) a year from protecting the drug trade. Drug barons are rumoured to sit in Afghan government positions raking in billions more. The UN puts the potential export value of Afghan narcotics at about $3.4 billion (Sh270 billion) a year. So much is grown that destroying it all is impossible: With stockpiles of 10,000 metric tonnes awaiting export, the UN this year proposed creating a "flood of drugs" in the country to destroy the value of opium.

This last comment is interesting; if the Afghan opium fields were suddendly destroyed, for example, by spraying herbicide on or by burning the opium plants, there is still enough Afghan heroin in the "pipeline" to supply the world until another harvest - and, perhaps, for longer. This stuff has been getting stockpiled under the watch of US-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Skipping down:

On November 24, a ministerial declaration supporting UN efforts against drugs and organised crime was signed in Kenya. Dated December 8, the report quotes Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director on the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) as saying: "Drugs are enriching not only organized crime but also terrorists and other anti-Government forces,"

He describes the situation as a worrisome development.

"In East Africa... 30 to 35 tonnes of Afghan heroin [are] trafficked each year causing a dramatic increase in heroin addiction and spreading of HIV and Aids in the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa."

The official said the rise is also connected to state failure in Somalia.

"Mainly because of the drastic situation in Somalia, he said, East Africa was becoming a free economic zone for all sorts of trafficking — drugs, migrants, guns, hazardous wastes and natural resources."

West Africa has traditionally been associated with the international drug trade but Kenya now leads states in East Africa that have emerged as favourites for drug traffickers.

Obviously, this development of Kenya becoming a hub for drug-trafficking is not something that happened over night. For example, drug-trafficking through Kenya was addressed in an article entitled Traffickers' drugs haven in Kenya by Karen Allen, May 9, 2006

Mules

It is something that worries Titus Naikuni, chief executive of Kenya Airways.

His airline crews have been amongst those used as drug mules.

Five of his staff have been arrested over the past year, trying to bring narcotics into Europe.

With extra security measures now in place, he says his employees are aware that international drug cartels are now targeting them.

The travel industry is used to move drugs from Kenya to Europe.

It is interesting that the previously-described "panic in Lamu" is resulting in a dramatically-decreased number of tourists coming in from Europe to Kenya. Decreased business might have an impact on the travel industry... at a minimum, fewer tourists means that honest customs and immigration officials (assuming some can be found) have more time to examine aircraft, passengers and cargo, and thus to detect drug shipments.

We now consider an excerpt from a recent report, Termites at Work: Transnational Organized Crime and State Erosion in Kenya by Peter Gastrow, September, 2011:

While to the onlooker Kenya appears to be in a relatively healthy state, it is in fact weakening due to a process of internal decay. Endemic corruption and powerful transnational criminal networks are “white-anting” state institutions and public confidence in them. Termites are at work, hollowing out state institutions from the inside. As a result, development is being hampered, governance undermined, public trust in institutions destroyed, and international confidence in Kenya’s future constantly tested.

The country is perceived as one of the most corrupt in the world, ranked far down at 154th on a list of 178 countries that feature in the 2010 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.⁵ Close to 90 percent of Kenyans surveyed rated their country as being between corrupt and extremely corrupt, while only 8.5 percent regarded it as slightly corrupt.⁶ Bribery has become a normal part of life. In 2010, 58.6 percent of persons who sought the services of the Nairobi City Council paid bribes, 54.4 percent of those who sought the services of the police did the same, and 47.8 percent who sought the services of the judiciary also resorted to bribes.⁷ It is this corruption- ridden environment that enables criminal networks to thrive. They can buy protection, information, and power.

I wonder if the corruption includes collaborating with transnational cartels that traffic in Afghan heroin (and Latin American cocaine)?

Kenya's intervention in Somalia is not about stabilizing Somalia, a neighbor which has been in chaos for decades. The intervention is about control of a route for moving heroin from Afghanistan where it is produced, via Iran and Pakistan, to the Somali port of Kismayo, from which heroin is trafficked through the lawless areas of southern Somalia and across the border into Kenya, and from there smuggled to lucrative markets in Europe and elsewhere.

And, the US is actively supporting this intervention, just like the US occupies Afghanistan, where the heroin is now comfortably produced and even stockpiled.

Take A Long Holiday, Part 2

I hope you are familiar with Part 1 and with other things I have written at this blog, because this topic is headed in your direction.

To establish some background, we begin with a passage from Cocaine, kidnapping and the al-Qaeda cash squeeze, from March 6, 2010:

The three al-Qaeda agents assured the Colombians that they would have no problem moving their shipment of European-bound cocaine through the Islamist badlands of the Sahara.

As supporters of the terrorist organisation's North African branch, they would guarantee shipment of the drugs through territory they controlled - so long as they were paid fee of $2,000 per kilo.

The trio, all from the impoverished desert nation of Mali, thought they were setting up a deal with representatives of Colombia's Marxist FARC guerrillas to smuggle up to 1,000 kgs of cocaine.

In fact, they were speaking to informants for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who secretly taped the meeting in Ghana in a sting operation in December.

[snip]

Every business needs cash flow, and Islamic terror is no exception. Across the world, al-Qaeda is turning to drug smuggling and sharply stepping up kidnapping and extortion to plug the gap in its finances caused by a fierce international crackdown on its original sources of cash. The trend raises the prospect of new floods of illegal drugs entering the West, and a sharply increased risk to Western tourists and businesspeople as they travel outside Europe.

When the terror group first began its activities more than a decade ago, it did not need to resort to criminal activities of a kind which might offend the strict Koranic principles proclaimed by its founder, Osama bin Laden. Deep-pocketed donors, in countries like Saudi Arabia, and Islamic charities throughout the Middle East channelled the cash needed to bankroll bin Laden's drive to create an Islamic caliphate across the region.

There has been a nexus between terrorism and organized crime for decades. These guys run in the same circles, and ever since the Cold War began to die down, terrorists began to look to drug trafficking as a source of money. Credible evidence suggests Al Qaeda and its predecessors were getting a significant amount of funding from trafficking Afghan heroin going all the way back to the 1980's jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's group had previously been able to rely on wheeler-dealers like Abdul al Hamid al Mujil, known in jihadist circles as "the million dollar man" for his ability to solicit donations to the cause of holy war.

The 60-year-old Saudi was a regular visitor to Afghanistan during the 1990s and on friendly terms with bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, as he channelled funds from Arab states to al-Qaeda.

But in August 2006, al Mujil and the Philippine and Indonesian branches of the International Islamic Relief Organisation, which he headed, were designated by the US treasury as financiers of terrorism.

Western firms were prohibited from doing business with him, UN member states froze his assets and Saudi Arabia restricted the outflow of funds from the charity.

Deprived of his largesse, groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (the Arabic name for North Africa) are turning increasingly to international crime to provide their cash flow. And for bin Laden, that represents a dilemma.

At first he did not want al-Qaeda to dirty its hands with the drugs trade. But he apparently was won round by a combination of fiscal necessity and the argument, as often voiced on jihadist websites, that the drugs trade weakens Western "infidels" by feeding their sinful addictions.

Kidnapping of Western tourists to the Sahara has also become a lucrative money-spinner for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Its members also traffic everything from arms to cigarettes to people.

And, AQIM is connected to Nigeria's Boko Haram which, in turn, just got people back from training with Al Shabaab in Somalia, as mentioned in Unity and Faith, Part 4. There we also considered Iranian trafficking of arms and heroin through Nigeria. And, in Hazy Shade of Winter, Part 3, we considered evidence of and rationale for Shi'ite Iran's support of Sunni extremist groups.

If you think about it, it all kind of comes together.

We now consider excerpts from South American drug gangs funding al-Qaeda terrorists, December 29, 2010:

Islamic rebels familiar with the barren terrain of the Sahara have struck deals under which they provide armed security escorts for drug traffickers in return for a slice of their profits.

Counter-terrorism experts said that the terrorists belong to the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group, which has kidnapped a series of Westerners and killed a British tourist last year.

They warned that the money they receive from drugs gangs could be used to attract new recruits and plan terrorist attacks on European cities.

Olivier Guitta, a counter-terrorism and foreign affairs consultant, said that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Marxist rebel group, was the "force behind the agreement with AQIM".

In the past drugs were flown or shipped from South America straight to Spain or Portugal but the introduction of more rigorous controls in those countries led FARC to change its way of operating.

"Since the routes going through Europe became much more difficult to use, FARC saw an opportunity to use the Sahel and North Africa as its new drug route," said Mr Guitta.

"And since AQIM has a hold over the area and was already involved in major smuggling operations it made sense to offer them a deal.

"AQIM is an independent unit of al-Qaeda and does not share the monies with al-Qaeda central but is looking to pull off terror attacks on its own in Europe."

I have been warning about this for some time.

In Côte d'Ivoire, the legitimate government of President Gbagbo was overthrown, and French-backed strongman (and friend of Sarkozy) Ouattara was installed with French military force under UN auspices. In Libya, Gaddafi's regime is being destabilized, with the intent to overthrow it.

There are many factors in play. One of them is to open up a way for South American cocaine to enter Africa via Côte d'Ivoire; another is to open up Libya as a staging ground to move cocaine into Europe's soft underbelly, possibly to open up connections with long-established transnational criminal cartels based nearby in the Balkans and Turkey - important players and key connections in trafficking Afghan heroin.

These newly-opened routes will provide redundancy against interdiction, offering options against those routes currently in use to move cocaine from South America to Europe.

But, a major focus of this series is what is happening on this side of the Atlantic, so let's continue:

Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in north Africa have made $130m (£84m) from helping drugs gangs and kidnap ransoms since 2007, according to one report citing an investigation by the Algerian government.

[snip]

Algeria's paramilitary police have reported dozens of clashes with AQIM rebels carrying Kalashnikovs and providing armed escorts for drug smugglers since 2008.

[snip]

Counter-terrorism officials in Europe and the United States fear that the Sahara is fast becoming a safe haven for the activities of Islamic terrorists, along the lines of Somalia and Yemen.

May I suggest you also review Standing There on Freedom's Shore, Part 1 and Standing There on Freedom's Shore, Part 2 for further background on what is happening in and around the Sahara/Sahel region?

But Mr Guitta said attempts by Europe, the US and some north African states such as Morocco to tackle the growing links between terrorism and drug trafficking are hampered by the attitudes of other governments.

"In South America, only Colombia really helps. In Africa, most other countries do not co-operate very much and a few allegedly actually profit from the drug trafficking," he said.

Once you've made the connection to Columbia and its fight against the FARC, connections to Venezuela's strongman Chavez jump out at you.

But, it doesn't end there.

Here is Mexican Groups Team Up With Islamic Terrorists, from July 16, 2008, in its entirety (see the original for a link which I did not reproduce):

The same Mexican drug cartels that violently smuggle their goods through the United States' porous southern border are buying arms from radical Islamic terrorists and teaming up with them to distribute narcotics in Europe and the Middle East.

An alarming U.S. government intelligence report reveals this dangerous relationship, lending credibility to what advocates of immigration enforcement—including a barrier along the southern border—have said for years: National security is at risk. The southern border is not utilized only by desperate, hard-working people in search of the American dream.

Published by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), the report identifies terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Front and the Palestine Liberation Organization as Arab associates of Mexican drug-trafficking cartels. All are officially designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State.

The Islamic terrorist groups have trafficked large amounts of heroin and cocaine in Europe and the Middle East sold to them by Mexican drug cartels as well as similar enterprises in South America. In turn, the terrorist groups have established multi million-dollar contracts in order to sell weapons to Mexican drug traffickers that are commercialized by providers in Yemen, Kuwait and Syria.

The investigation was conducted by the three U.S. government agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), probing Islamic groups operating on the common border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It revealed that these groups launder money, sell arms and traffic drugs of the same Mexican criminal organizations that operate within a stone's throw of the United States.

And this brings us full circle: Islamic terrorist groups are based and operating literally a stone's throw from the United States, receiving their funding from trafficking drugs in this hemisphere.

And the reason we can't have honest investigations of this is because the investigations would connect the terrorists to the drug traffickers, and the drug traffickers to corrupt officials in Washington. That's why there is no effective policy to control the flow of drugs and terrorists into the US along the border with Mexico: the drug traffickers are paying Washington officials for ineffective control of the border, so they can move their drugs to a very lucrative North American market.

The only good news is that now Europe is becoming the destination-of-choice for South American cocaine. :)

Unity and Faith, Part 4

In Part 1 we had an overview of Nigeria and introduced the various angles of the north/south split in the country. Then in Part 2 we considered some of the various factors in the unrest in Nigeria. Next, in Part 3 we examined the jihad and counterjihad aspects of this unrest a little more closely, encountering reason to suspect Nigeria's security forces of committing excesses, including extrajudicial killings, in dealing with the trouble.

We now review excerpts from 'Nigeria's Taliban': How Big a Threat?, dated July 30, 2009. With the ongoing violence in Nigeria today, it is important to keep in mind this article is from two years ago.

The immediate crisis may be over in Nigeria, but the threat of violence remains. Government security forces today attacked a mosque filled with Islamist militants, killing scores of fighters and forcing more to flee. The militants, blamed for days of violence across the country's north, belong to a group known as Boko Haram, which aims to overthrow the federal government in Abuja and impose a strict version of Islamic law. The sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf escaped the raid along with some 300 of his men, but was later arrested and then died in custody according to police. Four days of clashes, sparked by attacks on police stations and government buildings, have killed at least 300 people.

The Boko Haram leader died in police custody; interesting in light of the allegations against Nigeria's security forces that we considered in Part 3.

Continuing:

Also known as Nigeria's Taliban, Boko Haram formed about eight years ago. A huge government operation against the group in 2004 ended with the police claiming victory. But five years on and the militants are back, stronger and more vicious. In the latest outbreak of violence, in Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno state, militant gunmen assaulted police stations and engaged armored-personnel backed troops.

Africa's most populous country sits on a religious fault line. Its 150 million people are split almost evenly between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. For many years, the northern Muslim élite have dominated Nigerian politics, using their positions to enrich themselves and their families.

The allegations are that it was a "northern Muslim élite" responsible for much of the corruption.

Skipping down a little:

Over the past few years a new breed of young Muslim activists, most of them educated and from the middle class, have aggressively embraced a stricter version of Islam, rejecting anything Western and Christian.

It seems this sect may have been founded by younger Muslims who were angry at corruption among their parents. Regardless, as if often the case, the terrorist organization has its foundation among educated, middle class Muslims.

The article concludes pointing out the concern that al Qaeda might gain a foothold here, and calling attention to a special place Osama bin Laden had assigned Nigeria in the world's jihad.

A month later, Nigeria's Vanguard reported that Boko Haram ressurects, declares total Jihad:

The Islamic sect Boko Haram has declared total Jihad in Nigeria, threatening to Islamise the entire nation by force of war.

[snip]

WE SPEAK AS BOKO HARAM
For the first time since the Killing of Mallam Mohammed Yusuf, our leader, we hereby make the following statements.

1) First of all that Boko Haram does not in any way mean "Western Education is A sin" as the infidel media continue to portray us. Boko Haram actually means "Western Civilisation" is forbidden. The difference is that while the first gives the impression that we are opposed to formal education coming from the West, that is Europe, which is not true, the second affirms our believe in the supremacy of Islamic culture (not Education), for culture is broader, it includes education but not determined by Western Education.

[snip]

2) That the Boko Haram is an Islamic Revolution which impact is not limited to Northern Nigeria, in fact, we are spread across all the 36 states in Nigeria, and Boko Haram is just a version of the Al Qaeda which we align with and respect. We support Osama bin Laden, we shall carry out his command in Nigeria until the country is totally Islamised which is according to the wish of Allah.

[snip]

Having made the following statement we hereby reinstate our demands:

1) That we have started a Jihad in Nigeria which no force on earth can stop. The aim is to Islamise Nigeria and ensure the rule of the majority Muslims in the country. We will teach Nigeria a lesson, a very bitter one.

[snip]

3) That we shall make the country ungovernable, kill and eliminate irresponsible political leaders of all leanings, hunt and gun down those who oppose the rule of Sharia in Nigeria and ensure that the infidel does not go unpunished.

It is not uncommon that analysts point to economic disparities as a source of the violence in Nigeria. But, the terrorists themselves point to Islamic ideology. Furthermore, at least some of the economic disparity is the fault of a corrupt "northern Muslim élite". Consequently, any analysis that does not factor in jihadist Islamic ideology is inadequate.

Fast forward to June 15, 2011, when an article in the Nigeria Daily News entitled Nigerian Islamist sect, Boko Haram vows fiercer, wider attacks quoted Boko Haram as declaring:

"Very soon, we will wage jihad...We want to make it known that our jihadists have arrived in Nigeria from Somalia where they received real training on warfare from our brethren who made that country ungovernable...," said the group in a handwritten statement.

"This time round, our attacks will be fiercer and wider than they have been," it said, adding it would target all northern states and the country's capital Abuja. The statement in Hausa, a widely spoken language in the North, was anonymously delivered to journalists in the North-eastern city of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, where the attacks were concentrated.

The sect admitted links with a foreign Islamist group connected to Al-Qaeda, although security experts had already speculated that it had established ties with Islamists in North Africa.

Maiduguri featured in an attack only days later.

From Nigerian Boko Haram Islamists 'kill nurse' in Maiduguri, June 20, 2011:

Gunmen from Nigeria's radical Islamist sect Boko Haram have killed a nurse who was playing cards in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, according to police.

Police said four people were also wounded in the shooting at a bus stop in the city.

Of interest is the connection to foreign terrorist groups; this is an international Islamic extremist ideology that is manifesting itself locally in Nigeria. Boko Haram's statement specifically mentioned Somalia, and there are reasons to suspect other connections.

First, we look at excerpts from Boko Haram Declares War, dated June 27, 2011:

Few seem convinced by President Goodluck Jonathan's assurances that the security situation is under control following the bombing on 16 June of Louis Edet House, the national police headquarters in Abuja. It killed at least two people and wounded seven. Agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived to help investigate claims of international terrorist links.

[snip]

Some immediate questions emerge from the latest round of attacks: Who is behind Boko Haram? How much foreign support has it got and how can it best be confronted? After downplaying its importance and regional ties for some years, Nigerian security officials now point to cross-border links.

[snip]

It seems their tactics are working: security sources speak of training camps of Hausa-speaking Nigerians in Burkina Faso and Niger as well as a wave of new recruits to Boko Haram across northern Nigeria. It's harder to trace the international links, but some officials are taking seriously claims from Boko Haram that their militants, including bomb-makers, have been training in Somalia alongside Al Shabaab and Al Qaida operatives. There are also small, highly mobile affiliates of Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb across the Sahel, which could provide the training and the materiel to launch the type of bombings and guerrilla attacks that Boko Haram favours.

Also, in Part 2 we began reviewing a paper entitled Key Issues in Nigeria's 2011 Elections, dated March 29, 2011, by Sola Tayo. We now pick up with an excerpt from page 7:

Concerns about internal security are common during electoral periods, but the possible action of outsiders is also causing concern within the government. In November 2010 a shipment of arms was intercepted in Lagos. The intended destination of the shipment was unclear, although it is claimed it was to be re-exported to The Gambia. However the trafficked rockets and explosives, which came from Iran, were the responsibility of a Nigerian and two Iranians who have been charged with the importation of prohibited firearms. The incident caused a diplomatic storm which resulted in Nigeria reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for a possible arms violation. Although Nigeria has not severed diplomatic ties with Iran, the relationship (on the Nigerian side at least) is tense.

Whatever the intended destination of that shipment, the Nigerian government is understandably wary of arms shipments entering the country and ending up in the possession of militant groups. It is equally suspicious of direct interference by outsiders. In March 2010 the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, suggested that Nigeria be split in two to end the violence between Muslims and Christians. His comments provoked a strong reaction from the Nigerian government, with Abuja recalling the Ambassador in Tripoli and accusing Libya of trying to destabilize the country. The issue of partitioning the country into a Muslim north and Christian south is a deeply sensitive subject in Nigeria.

Gaddafi is not the only one to suggest this division of Nigeria; there are calls among Nigerians for a north/south (= Muslim/infidel) "divorce" and I am sure recent events in Sudan will fuel these calls. Also, the situation in Côte d'Ivoire, where a "northerner" of questionable Ivoirian credentials was installed by force by the international community, in violation of Ivoirian law, may set a precedent that worries the southerners in Nigeria.

The arms shipment addressed in the quoted passage above was quite substantial, too.

In fact, it was so substantial that some analysts suggested it was a new way to supply anti-Israeli terrorists forces. From Nigerian arms seizure may indicate new Iran-Hamas route, October 29, 2010.

Weapons discovered in 13 shipping containers in the Port of Lagos earlier this week could signify that Iran is trying to develop a new route to smuggle arms and explosives to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, defense officials said on Thursday.

The ship, apparently from Iran, reportedly docked in the Lagos Port on Tuesday and, according to the bill of lading, was supposed to be carrying construction supplies. On inspecting the 13 containers, customs officials discovered rockets, mortars, bombs, rifles and heavy machine guns hidden among crates of building tiles.

Nigerian officials were quoted in the media claiming that the cargo had been under surveillance for some time. It was possible that the intelligence on the cargo was supplied by Western sources.

"On opening the first container, the service operatives discovered rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives; the weapons were concealed among crates of floor tiles," Nigerian State Security Service spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar was quoted as saying.

The largest rocket appeared to be a 107-mm. Katyusha, which Iran is known to manufacture and which makes up the backbone of Hizbullah's and Hamas's arsenals.

Even if most of the weapons, including the rockets, are intended for Palestinian terrorists, it is not unreasonable to expect that local Nigerian jihadists might take a cut for helping move them.

So, we have Iranian arms smuggled into Nigeria, resulting in an international incident reported to the UN.

But, the report previously quoted above, Key Issues in Nigeria's 2011 Elections, only mentions the smuggled arms; why don't we hear about the heroin?

From From Iran: Customs intercept container of heroin at Tin-Can port, November 19, 2010 (I fixed misspellings of "heroin"):

LAGOS—Nigerian Customs Service has intercepted a large quantity of heroin concealed in a 40-foot container, which was believed to have originated from Iran. The container which was brought into the Tin-can Island Port [Nigeria's Tin Can Port - EL] was concealed among machine parts.

[snip]

Also confirming the interception of the large quantity of hard drugs at the Tin-Can Island Port, Customs spokesman, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, said that about ten wraps of heroin each weighing 112kg had been off-loaded from the container.

It was also gathered that CMA-CGM, the shipping company that brought in the 13 containers of arms and ammunition intercepted recently at the Apapa Port, also brought the heroin-laden container.

The heroin and the arms were being moved via the same smuggling route, it appears.

Nigeria is a major oil-producing country. We now see arms- and heroin smuggling from Iran, and connections to international Islamic terrorist groups. Where have we seen this combination before: oil, heroin, and Islamic terrorists?

A November, 2009, NATO research paper entitled An assessment of crime related risks in the Sahel touches on the role played by Nigerian organized crime cartels, and points to increasing movement of marijuana and cocaine across the Sahel region. Of course, I have been pointing to the movement of arms, terrorism and heroin through this region, and alluding to (though not yet establishing) connections between events in Côte d'Ivoire and cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe.

Boko Haram is connected to international Islamic terrorists who, in turn, are connected to international arms- and narcotics traffickers. These connections run to Iran, to Somalia, and across the Sahara/Sahel region to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. They of course run through nearby countries; Burkina Faso was specifically mentioned. Burkina Faso is a significant player in the world of transnational smuggling, and is implicated in the situation in Côte d'Ivoire; in fact, Côte d'Ivoire's new strongman, Ouattara, is from Burkina Faso. Nigerian groups are also connected to movement of South American cocaine.

Boko Haram's ideology is shared with terrorists all over the world; the "Religion of Peace" is in fact an ideology of terrorism. But, it would be cut off at the knees without all the transnational organized crime activities that fund it, via smuggling of cocaine, heroin, arms and other commodities, and that supply it with potent weapons.

Unfortunately, though, our "War on Terror", or whatever they call it these days, will only deal the most superficial aspects of terrorism. Political correctness will not allow us to connect terrorism to Islam, and corruption and illicit money which finds its way to important officials in Washington from transnational organized crime will not allow us to effectively address terrorism in any case.