Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jul 2002
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2002 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times

U.S. FINDS DRUG TRADE TIED TO TERROR GROUPS

Extent Of Connections Called `Shocking'

WASHINGTON - The United States has determined that about one-third of 
foreign terrorist organizations are trafficking in narcotics on a large 
scale, providing authorities with "shocking" insight into how two of the 
nation's most serious threats are connected, U.S. Attorney General John 
Ashcroft said Tuesday.

"Law enforcement has been aware for some time of significant linkages 
between terrorism and drug trafficking. But we have not had the tools to 
quantify the drugs-terrorism nexus until now," Ashcroft said in a speech at 
the annual conference of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Earlier this year, Ashcroft said, he asked federal law enforcement agencies 
to draw up such a list, quantifying all the major trafficking groups 
responsible for the U.S. drug supply.

"Following extraordinary collaboration and information-sharing between 
agencies, this list has been developed, and what it reveals is shocking," 
Ashcroft said. "Nearly one-third of the organizations on the State 
Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations appear also on our 
list of targeted U.S. drug suppliers."

Cross-matching the lists is providing authorities with substantial leads in 
their ongoing global war on terrorism, Ashcroft said, as well as helping to 
combat the growing problem of drug traffickers responsible for selling 
cocaine, heroin and other drugs worldwide.

Ashcroft's remarks came as U.S. authorities, working with state and local 
officials and their counterparts in Mexico, announced that they had 
arrested more than 2,120 fugitives along the Southwest border in recent months.

Ashcroft did not elaborate on which terrorist groups are suspected of being 
involved in drug trafficking. Justice Department officials would not 
comment on what organizations are on the drug trafficking list, except to 
say that Al-Qaida was one of them.
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