The “Achilles Heel” in our National Security and Counterterrorism Mission
U.S. counterterrorism professionals in Washington, DC and elsewhere rarely raise an eyebrow when the topic of Latin-America and terrorism are lumped in the same sentence. To most, even those who work the terror target, terrorism and Latin-America seem mutually exclusive.
When we talk about national security and Latin-America, issues that normally take priority begin with drug cartels, paramilitary guerrilla groups, human-smuggling, arms-trafficking and kidnappings and extortions of U.S citizens in the region.
The reality is, although there is an overlap and nexus to each of these issues and terrorism, the threat of international terrorism to U.S. targets and the U.S homeland is a “clear and present danger”.
Since 9/11, the FBI and the U.S intelligence community has drilled down and increased its global surveillance and analysis of terrorist organizations, their cells and affiliates and the global linkages between these groups. In this regard, Latin-America continues to pop up on the radar screen. While Latin-America will never have the terrorism profile of many Middle-East, south Asia or east Africa regions, its proximity to the U.S. and its shared 2,000 mile porous border with the U.S., should be of concern for counterterrorism policy-makers.
We know from intelligence analysis that Al Qaeda (AQ), Hizballah and other international terrorist organizations are keenly aware of México as a transit point or conduit to the U.S. because of certain conditions and existing “support” entities that exist in Mexico. We’ll discuss some of them shortly.
Shaikh Abdullah al-Nasifi, a Kuwaiti professor and AQ recruiter was seen on an Al-Jezeera television video in February of this year speaking of a WMD attack on a major U.S. metropolitan target that could cause the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and make 9/11 seem insignificant. In that speech, al-Nafisi specifically mentions Mexico as the logical transit point into the U.S for such an attack.
When Kalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), the notorious mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was captured, interrogated and debriefed over an extended period of time, McAllen, Texas on the U.S./Mexico border and numerous references to Mexico were found in his documents and mentioned in his interviews.
AQ suspect, Adnan al-Shukrijumah, who took flight lessons in Florida along with the 9/11 hijackers and is considered by many as the 20th hijacker, remains at large and his whereabouts are unknown. It is known through investigation, that al-Shukrijumah did pass through Panama on a Trinidad and Tobago passport in 2001.
Numerous detainees and terror suspects interviewed at GITMO as well as detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have made references to Mexico and Latin-America.
It is difficult to talk about Mexico and the 2,000 mile border without talking about illegal immigration, human smuggling and the link to terrorism. Anecdotally, it’s interesting to note that three of the 9/11 hijackers were illegal overstays, seven of the nineteen hijackers bought fraudulent ID cards from Hispanic day-laborers in northern Virginia and two of the World Trade Center bombers in 1993 were also illegally in the U.S. DHS intelligence conservatively estimates that there are over 115,000 Middle-Easterners are in the U.S. illegally and over 6,000 have defied deportation orders and remain on the loose.
MEXICO
Mexico represents a unique, two-pronged counterterrorism challenge. Although there are only about 6,000 Muslims in Mexico and only four principle Muslim communities, they are fairly well organized, funded by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran as well as other global Islamic groups and remain committed to the Muslim principle of spreading the Da’wa (missionary word of Islam) throughout the country. Of greater concern to terrorism officials in Mexico is the overwhelming presence of sophisticated, global human smuggling networks that exist and utilize Mexico as the final staging point for the movement of illegal aliens across the U.S./Mexican border and into the U.S.
Throughout the 1990’s, George Tajirian, an Iraqi and naturalized Mexican citizen and his Babylonian Travel Agency in Mexico City, provided false documents and smuggled thousands of Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis and other Middle-Easterners and south Asians into the U.S. until his arrest and sentencing of 13 years in a U.S. prison.
Salim Boughader Musharraf, a Lebanese human smuggler who owned the Lebanon Café in Tijuana, Mexico smuggled hundreds of Lebanese into southern California until his operation was finally shut down in 2003 and he was sent away for 14 years. Interestingly, a key figure in his operation was the Mexican Consul General in Beirut, Lebanon, Imelda Ortiz Abdullah, arrested by Mexican authorities but then suddenly released two years later by a Mexican judge for lack of evidence. Boughader was notoriously known for his smuggling of Hizballah operative, Mahmoud Kourani into the U.S. Kourani , who is the brother of Haider Kourani, Hizballah’s operations chief of military security in Lebanon, was captured by the FBI in Detroit, Michigan in 2003 in possession of large amount of Hizballah jihadist materials and video tapes.
Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim and Sampson Lovelace Boateng successfully ran an east African human smuggling pipeline through Belize and into the U.S for about five years until they were shut down and arrested in 2008. This operation ran along with the help of a corrupt Mexican consulate official in Belize who would provide Mexican visas for entry into Mexico. Once in Mexico, the Africans were staged for smuggling into the U.S. by the vast array of “coyote” smuggling operations that exist in Mexico. The smuggling of east Africans is of concern to counterterrorism officials because AQ has increased its presence and influence in east Africa in recent years, particularly in Somalia (al-Shabab) and the Sudan.
IRAN and HIZBALLAH
Hizballah, the “party of God” has always been the world’s most prolific terror group. Founded in 1982, in response to the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon, it is the most organized and best funded terror group with global reaching operations. As a proxy for the Iranians and, to a lesser extent, the Syrians, it receives millions in direct funding and arms each year. Estimates are that Hizballah raises over $100 million per year through it global web of fund-raising and criminal activities. Most of that money comes from its sophisticated, mafia-like criminal enterprises that specialize in counterfeiting everything from U.S. currency and documents to blue jeans, perfumes, DVD’s, CD’s and computer software. We know AQ and its affiliates have been on the forefront of the terror radar screen but prior to 9/11, Hizballah had the blood of more Americans on its hands than any other terror group in the world going all the way back to the bombings of embassies, kidnappings and assassinations of Americans in the early 1980’s in Beirut and Kuwait to the Marine Corp barracks, TWA 840, the LaBelle disco in Berlin, Khobar towers and, in some intel circles, a hand in the bombing of PanAm 103.
In the southern cone of South America, Hizballah was responsible for the carnage of both the Israeli Embassy bombing in 1992 and the Jewish Community Center bombing in 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both were classic Hizballah operations; PETN/RDX truck bombs against somewhat soft symbolic targets in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of Hizballah leaders in Lebanon.
Just to the north of Buenos Aires, the notorious tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay is the western headquarters of Hizballah, a region that 25,000 Lebanese Arabs call home. Located in a remote lawless area with uncontrolled borders and rampant corruption, it is designated a commercial “free port” zone. It is considered the smuggling capital of the world and estimates are that over $100 Million in counterfeit goods generated each year end up in the coffers of Hizballah.
Beyond presence and fundraising, Hizballah maintains logistical support in Latin-America with access to explosives, arms, false documents, cloned cell phones and stolen vehicles; all critical elements in terrorist operations. It has also been determined that Hizballah maintains a robust intelligence collection process in Latin-America with direct ties to Iranian intelligence.
Endemic to many parts of Latin-America, Hizballah is known to exploit regions where there are weak and poor police and intelligence services. The consistent variable always found in the final analysis, as was the case in the Buenos Aires bombings, is that of Iranian “diplomatic” presence. The Islamic theocracy of Iran is deemed a state sponsor of terror since 1984 because Iranian intelligence agents and Hizballah posing as diplomats have successfully conducted bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations around the world. General Amad Vahidi, former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operations wing, was a principle player and has been indicted in the 1994 Jewish Community Center bombing in Buenos Aires. He is a fugitive from justice and wanted on an INTERPOL warrant by both Argentine and British authorities. Iranian President Ahmadinijad just named Vahidi last month the new Minister of Defense in Iran.
Beyond Latin-America’s southern cone, the growing presence of Iran and Hizballah operations throughout Latin-America and reaching literally right into our own “backyard” is of increasing concern. The growing “love fest” between Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad and Venezuela’s President/Dictator Hugo Chavez has been memorialized in various press photos throughout Latin-America. A relationship, based in part on a mutual disdain for the U.S., their actions have become more than just a “poke in the eye” for Uncle Sam. Ahmadinijad is exploiting the ever growing left-of-center governments in Latin-America and is wooing them with all kinds of promises. He has established growing Iranian diplomatic missions and embassies in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and, most notably, with left wing leader and former U.S. nemesis, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Shrewdly, the Iranians are exploiting their presence in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Central America where electricity is rationed and the average person may live on $2 a day. Ahamdinijad has promised the Nicaraguans, schools, hospital, power plants, dams, new ports on the Caribbean side and over $1 Billion dollars in aid. Of course, none of these projects have materialized but the Iranians have built their largest Embassy in Latin-America in Managua with over 150 diplomats, most of whom were never registered with the Nicaraguan government according to a La Presa media investigation in Managua. When interviewed recently by a journalist as to why Iran would establish such a broad-based presence in Central America, I cynically replied that I didn’t think it was because the Iranians had an interest in becoming banana farmers.
Conclusion
From a macro-perspective, counterterrorism experts will always say the threat of AQ and AQ-inspired groups remain the primary terror threat to our national security. Nonetheless, when we consider the exploitation of our vast and porous southern border global smuggling groups, the threat of the growing presence of Iran and Hizballah in Latin-America, the resume and modus operandi of Hizballah terrorist operations around the globe coupled with the current saber-rattling over the Iranian nuclear issue increasing tensions in the Middle-East, Washington policy makers may want to reconsider and refocus our counterterrorism efforts from the “backwaters” of Pakistan and Afghanistan to that of our own “backyard”.
[This article was published in the Fall, 2009, Terrorism Law Report published by the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's Law School, San Antonio, Texas]
James G. Conway, Jr. is President and Managing Director of Global Intelligence Strategies, Inc., a Houston-based firm that consults, advises and trains government agencies, academia and the media on terrorism and national security matters as well as private sector corporations on security issues, counter-terrorism measures and risk mitigation. Mr. Conway, a retired FBI, Special Agent, was a former manager of counterterrorism operations for the FBI in Latin-America.
