Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4917114 By Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer Article Launched: 12/29/2006 12:00:00 AM PST COLUMBUS, N.M. - On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border. The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings. The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas. But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression. Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security documents. He lied to the agents about who he was, where he came from and what he was doing. It would take nearly a week of interviews with federal agents before Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt - a country designated as "special-interest" by the United States for sponsoring terrorism. Kamal's case is not an isolated one. Evidence of "special-interest aliens" using the Mexican border to gain entry to the United States has been kept secret from the American public, according to federal law enforcement agents, terrorism experts and critics of U.S. foreign policy with Mexico. In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. illegally. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol. Those interviewed by the Daily Bulletin say agencies including the FBI and CIA are not using information from Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to make connections between the drug trade, illegal immigration and terrorist organizations. "For us to believe that Mexican smugglers will not assist, knowingly or unknowingly, foreign terrorists trying to enter the United States is incomprehensible," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who, along with other congressional representatives, has pushed for stricter border security policies. Whether Kamal had ties to a terrorist group is not known. No information about him, including his current whereabouts, is available aside from what is in Justice Department and Homeland Security documents. But the links between illegal immigration, expanded trade, Mexican narcotics organizations and terrorist groups has already been assessed by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, according to DEA documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin. According to an intelligence report written by the DEA, "La Entrada al Pac fico (Gateway to the Pacific)" - also the name of a Texas-Mexico plan to expand border trade - Asian narcotics traffickers, in collusion with Mexican drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups, could use expanded trade routes to bring contraband into the United States. "The DEA has made a conscious effort to generate predictive intelligence so policy makers can be aware and plan ahead for significant changes in narcotics and smuggling operations," said a DEA official who asked to remain anonymous. "Any time you send in a predictive piece of intelligence that has merit and it's ignored, then the consequences of that can be devastating to national security." According to DEA intelligence reports, the link between terrorism and narcotics has been well known since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. But federal agents say getting bureaucrats to understand the growing danger is difficult when most lawmakers won't even acknowledge many of the problems already happening along the U.S. border. BORDER BATTLES One of those problems was on full display in Texas earlier this year. Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County - a border area 50 miles east of El Paso - and other Texas border sheriffs had complained for more than a year that Mexican military personnel were helping cartels smuggle humans and contraband across the Rio Grande and into the U.S. The Daily Bulletin first published Department of Homeland Security documents and maps from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in January, showing 226 Mexican military incursions into the United States since 1996. That information led to a call for congressional investigations and hearings to determine the extent of the intrusions. Shortly afterward, West was confronted with another incursion. This time, local law enforcement officials videotaped the event and went public with it. "We had video and photographs," West said. "We went to Congress and testified before them with the evidence in hand. And we were told by Congressman (Silvestre) Reyes (D-El Paso) that we were either lying or mistaken." Reyes, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and U.S. and Mexican government officials tried to play down the documents and the incident in Hudspeth County. They stated publicly that the cartels were dressing like Mexican military to damage relations between the U.S. and Mexico. Reyes, who recently was appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not return phone calls seeking comment. "The bureaucrats don't understand what a dangerous game they are playing with American lives if they don't do something to fix the situation at the border," said Michael Cutler, a former special agent with Immigration and Naturalization Services, who testified before the 9-11 Commission. According to Border Patrol agents in Texas and Arizona, the Department of Homeland Security has stopped agents from filing full-disclosure incident reports if they see Mexican military involved in an alleged smuggling operation. In some parts of Texas, if Mexican military personnel are suspected of assisting narcotics traffickers or smuggling humans, they are not processed, but instead are taken to a port of entry and released into Mexico. An unnamed Border Patrol agent in Arizona said he witnessed a Mexican military helicopter shooting at a fellow agent in pursuit of a vehicle along the Arizona border with Mexico. The supervisors would not let the agent put the Mexican military's involvement in the incident report, the agent said. Michael Friel, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said he had no knowledge of such an incident. It's not just the cartels' connections to Mexican government officials and military that have U.S. intelligence officials and law enforcement worried. It's also the growing evidence that terrorist organizations have become increasingly dependent on narcotics and weapons sales to support their activities, and that they see the Southwest border as an incubator for their activities. "Intelligence indicates that terrorist organizations are increasingly probing the U.S.-Mexico border," El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego told the House Judiciary Committee in August, during hearings about border security. "The large international border creates tremendous smuggling opportunities for terrorists and is fertile ground for recruitment and development of support networks for terrorist organizations," Samaniego said. "The Mexican drug trafficking and human smuggling organizations use their knowledge of the border to assist terrorist cell members in their attempts to exploit the United States. "The multicultural aspect of the border area also appeals to the terrorists. There are many nationalities, many of them transients, who live and interact in the border setting. This provides the terrorists the opportunity to blend into the community. "The Southwest border may not be a priority target for a terrorist attack, but it is prime territory for the cultivation, recruitment, transportation and stashing of terrorist cell members," Samaniego concluded. Samaniego and his colleagues aren't the only ones with such beliefs. A DEA official said terrorist incidents such as the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 would be easy to duplicate in the United States, with the Southwest border as the best place to smuggle in those who would carry out such a plot. In the train bombings, 10 synchronized explosions killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,700. An Islamic extremist group that funded the operation with narcotics sales was pinpointed as the perpetrator of the bombings. "A former DEA director explained the problem best. During the cold war the threat was ABC: atomic, biological and chemical," said an intelligence official with the DEA, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If you apply that formula now to post 9/11 ... it becomes ABCD: atomic, biological, chemical and drugs. The drugs provide the funding for terrorism." TERRORIST CULTURE Additionally troubling to U.S. authorities are the growing cultural similarities between Mexican drug cartels and established terrorist groups. Like Islamic extremists and other terrorist organizations that use suicide bombings or decapitations to strike fear into their enemies, drug-trafficking organizations have developed cultural associations with death over the past several years. The Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaqu n "El Chapo" Guzm n, is now known by federal law enforcement officials as the "Federation" or "Golden Triangle." The long-running war between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels for control of the Nuevo Laredo border forced Sinaloa to build alliances with numerous other drug trafficking organizations throughout Mexico, making the Sinaloa Cartel one of the most powerful in the country. The Sinaloa Cartel, along with the help of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juarez Cartel, moves the majority of its narcotics through Ciudad Ju rez, which borders El Paso, Texas. Along the streets of Ciudad Ju rez, Mexico, statues of La Santa Muerte - the saint of death - can be found at almost any local shop. The robed skeleton with a sickle clutched in its bony fingers is worshiped by many drug runners in Mexico and the United States. The empty-eyed deity is particularly haunting in a city known for the brutal murders of nearly 500 women since 1995. Many Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials have attributed the murders to drug traffickers, some of whom have been arrested. But the murders continue, and women still live in fear. "Women shouldn't be on the street after dark," said Lalo, 81, who sat with his wife at their empty shop in downtown Ciudad Ju rez. Danger signs are everywhere. Billboards follow passers-by like shadows, warning women to be vigilant. Every man begins to look like a predator. "There is so much death," Lalo sighed. "I'm beginning to think the saint is real." The attitudes and actions represented by worship of La Santa Muerte culturally connect Mexico's drug cartels to terrorist groups, according to DEA officials. Like Hezbollah and al-Qaida, which promise martyrs that their family members will be provided for after suicide bombings, Mexican drug trafficking organizations promise high-level members that if they die in the name of the cartel, their families will be provided for. Other similarities include the growing number of beheadings of Mexican police officials by the cartels to instill terror. In cities all along the U.S.-Mexico border, the popularity of the death deity is growing. From Tijuana to Laredo's violent sister city Nuevo Laredo, La Santa Muerte is found in statues, stickers and trinkets. "Widespread and unchecked violence creates a palpable sense of fear and tears at the social, cultural, and economic fabric of Nuevo Laredo," stated a June 2006 report, "State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico," written by the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit organization promoting human rights. "As the war between cartels rages, no one - not police, not journalists, not ordinary citizens - knows whom they can trust, so they trust no one." In Nuevo Laredo, the saint haunts cemeteries where worshippers have left offerings of food. The deity also is seen on the back of bulletproof SUVs driven by narco-traffickers who cruise through the city, and even in graffiti along the city's walls. Now the saint is gaining popularity in Laredo. Eerie evidence of ritualistic ceremonies performed by illegal immigrants in stash houses was discovered by Webb County sheriff's deputies after one raid. Pictures of members of a Mexican military unit lay in a bowl of blood, sprinkled with herbs and roots. "This really spooked us," said Webb County sheriff's spokesman Tom Sanchez as he sifted through the photographs taken by the deputies who conducted the raid. "I mean, there was an altar filled with everything you can imagine to this Santisima Muerte. It's a culture of death." And it's something U.S lawmakers should pay attention to, DEA and Border Patrol field agents said: Drug traffickers accepting death as a glorious end to their violent lives. "We pray for a good death," said Jose, 21, a young worshiper of La Santa Muerte in Tijuana. He stood stoic by his white-boned statue of the death saint, and pointed to his charm necklace, where a smaller version of the saint hung. "I pray that I will die in a hail of bullets or fighting for my last breath against my enemy. I'm not afraid to die. I welcome death." Staff writer Sara A. Carter can be reached by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or by phone at (909) 483-8552. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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