Administration Officials Looking For Pointers On Curbing Terrorism Are Focusing On A Little-Known Drug Control Task Force In South Florida. U.S. Coast Guard Liaison Office, Havana August 4 dawned here with the promise of another unexceptional day of tropical sunshine and afternoon squalls. Street vendors and beggars were already taking their positions along once-stately Prado Avenue in anticipation of the throngs of European tourists who had taken advantage of cheap holiday packages to visit Cuba. Serving as a backdrop to this seaside boulevard scene were crumbling mansions, their facades pocked with broken windows and supported by wooden props. [continues 4497 words]
The U.S. military's effort to intercept and suppress supplies of drugs from Latin America is more massive than it seems, and of uncertain effectiveness. On April 20, when a Peruvian pilot in an A-37 fighter aircraft fired two short bursts from the 7.62 caliber mini-gun mounted in his jet's nose, he didn't know he was firing at an unarmed plane carrying Baptist missionaries. Nor did he, or the CIA surveillance aircraft that had led him to the civilian plane, know he was about to invite a giant spotlight onto a little-noted but deadly battleground in America's "war on drugs." [continues 3418 words]
