Counterterrorism Blog

Slowly, it seems, the criminal-terrorist nexus is coming into a sharper focus for policy makers. The head of DHS intelligence analysis Charlie Allen, recently acknowledged the "threats in this hemisphere are real. We cannot ignore them."

This may not seem like much, but until now, there has been only passing comments by U.S. Southern Command commanders and the DEA on the linkages between drug trafficking organizations and Islamist radicals. In this case, the threat is primarily from Iran and the Shiite Hezbollah organization rather than the Sunni-al Qaeda linked groups.

DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun, at the same conference, aptly noted that drug traffickers and terrorist organizations often have much in common: ""They use the same money launderers, the same document forgers," he said. "You are naturally going to bump up against terrorist organizations."

Much of the discussion of these matters takes place in the context of these linkages being hypothetical, something to watch out for down the road.

Allen said the possibility of cooperation between terrorists and drug trafficking organizations was a "low probability" and would be "unprecedented," but that it was feasible.

I have a somewhat different take on this because, while each piece of the puzzle presents a fragmentary picture, all the pieces together show this would be, I think, a far higher probability.

The alliances among drug trafficking organizations and terrorist organizations have already taken place in Colombia (The FARC and AUC). The FARC has demonstrated an ability to reach out to other terrorist groups-even those who have little in common with the FARC's Marxist ideology-for technology sharing, information sharing and weapons (see paper I did for the NEFA Foundation for details). My full blog is here.