Pubdate: Tue, 27 Dec 2005
Source: Austin Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2005 Austin Chronicle Corp.
Contact:  http://www.auschron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/33
Author: Gregory Katz
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

TERRORISTS SAID TO BE GETTING AID IN BALKANS

Crime Gangs That Control The Smuggling Routes Are Making Their 
Infiltration Easier

BELGRADE, SERBIA - A hidden alliance between terror networks and 
organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in 
the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western 
Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts.

In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the 
money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist 
activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist 
attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids.

A key problem is lax border controls throughout the region. Many 
borders, such as the one between Romania and Serbia, are wide open to 
gangs that smuggle people, heroin and goods.

Europe's battle to contain the spread of international terrorism has 
been hobbled by such porous borders, which each year allow tens of 
thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter. So many people are 
sneaking into Europe that authorities admit they do not know exactly 
who resides in their countries, complicating the effort to prevent 
more terrorist attacks.

"This is a paradise for al-Qaida," said Marko Nicovic, former police 
chief in the Serbian capital Belgrade and a director of the 
International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. "For Europe, 
it can be a disaster at any time because the authorities don't know 
who is there and they don't know who is who. The attacks in Madrid 
and London showed that."

Traveling freelyOnce illegal migrants reach Serbia overland from 
Eastern Europe, police say they can easily cross into Bosnia and then 
Slovenia, thus entering the European Union. At that point, they can 
take advantage of weak or nonexistent border controls to travel 
freely to France, Spain, Germany and other countries on the continent.

Police officials believe that most of the migrants are law-abiding 
people looking for work, but they caution that the migration gives 
terrorist gangs a way to move sleeper cells into the West while also 
fueling tensions between Western Europe's Muslims, the fastest 
growing minority on the continent, and the rest of society.

These tensions surface in a number of ways: the deadly attacks on 
transit systems in Madrid and London, intense rioting in France, 
death threats against secular politicians in the Netherlands, and 
legal battles over the right to wear Muslim scarves and headgear to 
public schools.

While smuggling gangs are using Serbia as a transit point, some 
Muslim militants seems to have established a base in neighboring Bosnia.

Officials warn that several hundred militants who came to Bosnia to 
fight on behalf of Muslims there during the war in the 1990s have 
remained in the country to attack the West.

In October, police in Bosnia uncovered an apparent plot to blow up 
the British Embassy and found a large cache of weapons and explosives 
along with propaganda vowing to retaliate for the 
U.S.-and-British-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A Swede and a Dane were also arrested in that raid, and there were 
follow-up arrests in Sweden that suggested the Bosnian extremists had 
operational ties to Western Europe, investigators said.

Disturbing Pairing

Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist at the Swedish National Defense College 
who testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 
Upon the United States, said the presence of Islamic militants inside 
Bosnia makes it an attractive gateway into Europe for terrorists.

"They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it 
was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe," he said. "The 
Iranians are supporting activity there, and the Balkans have become 
the crossroads where we see the merger of Islamic extremist groups 
who reach out to organized crime groups."

Ranstorp said well-established organized crime networks in the region 
provide the terrorist gangs with routes for people smuggling and with 
phony identification documents.

"People being smuggled in add to the security threat," he said. "Most 
are economic migrants but hand-in-hand with that are people in 
organized crime who allow terrorism to be possible. They move in the 
same circles and need the same things. If you want to tackle 
terrorists, you have to tackle the supporting environment, the 
organized crime rings and the human trafficking rings."

The migrants enter Europe in many ways. Some travel on land through 
Serbia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Others take trawlers or dilapidated fishing boats across the 
Mediterranean bound for southern Spain or Italy. Still others simply 
fly into the continent's many hub airports.

'New generation of jihadis'A large number of immigrants formally 
apply for political asylum in their new countries, giving them the 
right to a legal review that can take years. Others destroy their 
identity documents, making it difficult for authorities to determine 
their nationality.

Many come from predominantly Muslim countries like Morocco, Pakistan 
and Afghanistan where jihadis committed to waging holy war against 
the West are active. This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the 
United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to 
analysts and enforcement agents.

"There is clear, unmistakable evidence that the level of terrorist 
activity that has killed and injured people has soared to 
unprecedented levels since we invaded Iraq," said Larry Johnson, a 
former CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism specialist 
now working in the private sector.

"Iraq is creating a new generation of jihadis looking for places to 
live in Europe," Johnson said, "and they have this festering 
resentment that is usually at the core of terrorism. They will take 
up residence with existing communities or form new ones in Europe.

"It doesn't augur for a great future."

Serbian investigators maintain they have uncovered a prime example of 
the cozy relationship between terrorism and people smugglers. It 
involves a Bangladeshi suspect believed by prosecutors to be making 
more than $150,000 per week bringing people into Western Europe 
through clandestine routes.

Training camps in BosniaMioljub Vitorovic, the Serbian special 
prosecutor for organized crime cases, said he believes, but cannot 
prove, that some of this money was being paid to support the families 
of suicide bombers who have carried out attacks in Europe. He also 
believes a number of jihadis from Bangladesh have gathered at 
training camps inside Bosnia.

The prosecutor complained that the suspect, whom he declined to name, 
appears to have some high-level protection because he has been able 
to flee whenever police are closing in.

Prosecutors in several countries are gathering evidence about the 
gang, he said.

"This is a huge case involving Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and 
Bangladeshis, and the whole region is looking for the leader of the 
operation, who is this Bangladeshi," Vitorovic said. "He was involved 
during the Bosnian war and he's using his connections to bring people 
across the borders. We have information about the money he is making. 
This is from listening to his mobile phone conversations."

He said he had warned intelligence officials in Western Europe about 
the threat posed by this people-smuggling operation but was ignored.

That changed, he said, after the July 7 suicide attacks on London's 
transit system, carried out by British Muslims linked to overseas 
groups, revealed how dangerous the situation had become.

"Now they are paying much more attention to the situation here," he said.

'Using All Channels'

Serbian Border Police concede they are outmanned and outgunned in the 
losing battle against well-organized smugglers.

"It's very easy for them to cross the Danube," said Col. Dusan 
Zlokas, chief of the Serbian Border Police. "We need more boats, we 
need radar, we need thermal imaging, we need binoculars with night 
vision, we need everything. We don't have the technical capacity to 
provide border security."

He cited the arrest in Serbia in March of a Moroccan accused of 
taking part in the deadly 2004 attacks on the Madrid train system 
that killed nearly 200 people as proof that international terrorists 
are using Serbia as a transit point.

"The biggest number of recruited terrorists is coming from this 
illegal immigrants community," he said. "It is a very vulnerable 
society and easy to recruit in. For sure, this jeopardizes Western 
Europe and the U.S.

"This is the crossroads of the trade in illegal immigrants, weapons 
and drugs and no one can say terrorists cannot pass. They are using 
all channels."
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