04 December 2001

Terrorism, Drug Trafficking Inextricably Linked, U.S. Experts Say

Washington -- The links between terrorism and narcotrafficking are real and growing, according to current and former U.S. officials who participated in a special symposium December 4 at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Hosted by the DEA Museum & Visitors Center, "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and Your Kids" brought together government officials with private-sector experts in an effort to educate the American public about what DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson called the "extraordinary link between drugs and terrorism." The symposium was part of an effort by the Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents (AFFNA) to develop a museum exhibit and educational program that will explore this theme.

In remarks opening the symposium, Hutchinson said there is "a strong case to be made that drug trafficking proceeds are being funneled to terrorist organizations," such as the Taliban, the FARC group in Colombia and Islamic Jihad. "It is clear that bin Laden's terrorism has been protected by a regime funded by opium trafficking," he added.

U.S. Representative Mark Souder (Republican, Indiana) told symposium participants that the interrelationship between drugs and terrorism is not new. "When you [attempt to] control and look for terrorism," he said, "you find lots of other things. We'll see funding for narcotics when we look for terrorists."

Raphael Perl, senior policy analyst for international terrorism and narcotics issues with the Congressional Research Service, said that in areas where government control is weak, the criminal world, the narcotrafficking world and the terrorist world all exist. In Perl's view, three things are different about the situation today: one, in today's global economy, both legitimate and illegitimate activities are dramatically increasing. Two, money from the drug trade is increasingly important for terrorists, because state sponsorship is on the wane. Three, the U.S. homeland is now the preferred target, not only for drug traffickers, but also for terrorists.

Elaborating on the links between terrorists and drug traffickers, Perl said both merge into local ethnic communities in order to gain cover for their activities. He said both operate from base countries where government and the rule of law are weak, and both need to have money laundered. Both seek to create a climate of fear and intimidation, he said, and both target youth, especially for recruitment. And both seek a world incompatible with democratic values.

"To a large extent, terrorist organizations cannot survive without funding from drugs," Perl said. He called terrorists' need for drug-trafficking profits "addictive."

DEA Assistant Administrator for Intelligence Steven Casteel, following on Perl's remarks, said "The Taliban were a drug-trafficking group; it's as clear as it can be." Taking control of the heroin trade in Afghanistan when they came to power in 1995, by 1999 they had 71 percent of the world heroin market, he said.

As for the Taliban's announcement in 1999 that they would no longer allow the production of heroin in Afghanistan, Casteel said the DEA believes it was done for three reasons: First, it was good public relations for them at a time when they were trying to gain international recognition and legitimacy. Second, by cutting off the supply of so much of the world's heroin, it quickly drove up the price of all the heroin they had stockpiled. Third, they wanted to increase their already-dominant control of the heroin market.

"Two days before September 11th," Casteel noted, "we seized 53 kilo[gram]s of Afghan heroin in New York. It was being distributed by Colombians, to show you the [narco-terror] link."

For Larry Johnson, a principal in BERG Associates, LLC, it's crucial that the DEA be brought into coordinated intelligence briefings within the U.S. government. A former CIA and State Department counter-terrorism official, Johnson asserted that DEA agents in foreign countries are the best sources of intelligence about terrorists. "Terrorism does not operate without money. That's the bottom line," he said.

Retired Director General of the Colombian National Police Jose Rosso Serrano believes drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was also a terrorist. Using drug profits, Serrano said, Escobar paid to have 500 policemen in Medellin, Colombia, killed. Escobar also paid to have four Colombian presidential candidates killed, along with a high-ranking counter-narcotics official and the Colombian attorney general. Additionally, his henchmen were responsible for a car-bombing in Bogota which killed 157 people. For Serrano, that made Escobar a "narcoterrorist." Serrano also stressed the narcotics activities of the terrorist FARC group in Colombia, as well as those of the paramilitary "self-defense forces" in that country. Finally, he warned about the newest trend among traffickers toward synthetic drugs (such as Ecstasy).