Posted on 12/15/2002 8:21:33 PM PST by RedWhiteBlue
CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay: The so-called Triple Frontier, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, has long been South America's busiest contraband and smuggling center, a chaotic place where just about anything from drugs and arms to pirated software and bootleg whisky are available to anyone who can pay the price.
Its reputation has brought the area under close surveillance by the police and foreign intelligence services for decades. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Triple Frontier has been transformed into a sort of Casablanca, a center of intrigue scrutinized more intensely than ever for its suspected links to Islamic terrorists.
Argentine and U.S. officials describe the area, with its large Arab immigrant population, as teeming with Islamic extremists and their sympathizers, and they say those businesses have raised or laundered more than $50 million in recent years for terrorist groups. Their Brazilian and Paraguayan counterparts are more ambivalent, however, and say they need more evidence that the area has been used by terror groups in the past as a financing, logistical and recreation center.
In a sign of increased U.S. attention, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Cofer Black, is scheduled to visit the Triple Frontier on Wednesday. In such a hotbed, the authorities say that nearly as plentiful as Islamic extremists since the Sept. 11 attacks are the spies and intelligence agents of a half dozen countries - from China to the Middle East to the United States. "There are so many of us now that we are bumping into each other," a senior Argentine official said last month.
The question on nearly everyone's mind, especially after a map of the region was recovered from an Al Qaeda safehouse in Kabul, is whether Osama bin Laden's operatives are also among those operating here. Acting on what they say was a tip from the United States last July, the Paraguayan police arrested two Lebanese, Ali Nizar Darhoug and Mohammed Daoud Yassine, who are uncle and nephew and were said to be raising funds for Al Qaeda.
Paraguay has no anti-terrorism law, and Yassine was released and is reported to have left the country. Darhoug, owner of a perfume store and a pharmacy, is being held on tax evasion charges.
"So far, nobody has been able to prove a single thing against me," Darhoug said after a bail hearing here late last month. "I'm not accused of terrorism and I'm not involved in terrorism."
Early this year, the frequently sensationalist Paraguayan press reported that Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups had set up training camps; and, more recently, they have also talked of a secret terrorist summit meeting here. Intelligence officials monitoring the region are skeptical of such reports, though they acknowledge that Islamic fundamentalists are indoctrinating the region's young Muslim residents in extremist ideology.
But intelligence officials say they have noticed worrisome signs that Islamic extremists are fanning out, especially to nearby countries that have established Arab or Muslim communities. Mentioned most often are Iquique, Chile; Guayaquil, Ecuador, and Maracaibo, Venezuela. At the same time, a parallel dispersion to smaller towns within the region also seems to be taking place.
What worries them most, intelligence officials say, are signs that Islamic extremists are also gravitating toward Sao Paulo, a bustling city of 18 million that is home to the largest concentration of Brazil's estimated 1.5 million Muslims - an ideal hiding place for anyone intent on being overlooked.
Officials say the Triple Frontier has been used for years both to collect and launder money for terrorist groups and for mafias, as well as providing a haven for fugitives.
More than 20,000 Middle Eastern immigrants, most from Lebanon and Syria, live in the area. Many operate small businesses on the Paraguayan side, but the most successful commute daily across the bridge from homes in Foz do Iguacu, a tidy Brazilian city of 250,000 where neighborhoods are dotted with halal butcher shops and women walk in headscarves. There are a pair of Islamic schools there, four Arab language cable television stations and a gleaming mosque with a gold-tinted roof on Palestine Street.
Terrorists sought in the Middle East have been sent to the Triple Frontier to hide out in comfort, using fake passports or other documents manufactured in some of the same local workshops that also make phony credit cards, intelligence officials say.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group, appears to be the dominant group in the area. But according to a recent Argentine intelligence report, "support activities" on behalf of Hamas, Amal and the Party for Islamic Unification have also been detected, and there is also evidence that Egypt's Islamic Brotherhood has used the area as a haven.
Since 1999, two men said by Egyptian authorities to have been central figures in the terrorist attack in Luxor that killed 58 tourists - Said Hassan Mokhles and Mohammed Ibrahim Soliman - have been arrested here and are in custody.
And why, pray tell, are we still importing Islamists into this country?
"The witnesses Edwin Giovani Rodriguez and Jhon Alexander Rodriguez, as guerrilla deserters, have received threats against their lives and so will not be attending the court," said a witness statement read out in court. The testimony of the two men is crucial to the prosecution's case as they say they saw Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).
The three Irishmen, all with links to the IRA or Sinn Fein, are charged with travelling on false papers and training rebels in terrorism techniques. Alexander Rodriguez has been presented by a source in the prosecutor general's office as the crucial part in the prosecution's case. He is an Farc deserter, and acted as the driver and bodyguard of guerrilla commander Fabian Ramirez, in whose territory the training was alleged to have taken place. The legal source indicated that he is the key witness who allegedly saw the Irishmen training the rebels in explosives, although there are others who claim they saw them with guerrilla commanders.***
***THE STAR.com - THE TORONTO STAR (CANADIAN PRESS): Ottawa. "CANADA ALLOWS IMPORT OF BOMB BOOK" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The federal government has approved the importation of a book that gives detailed instructions for making bombs and blowing up bridges, the Ottawa Citizen reported yesterday. Even the author of The Anarchist Cookbook has renounced it as "misguided and potentially dangerous." But the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency says there is nothing to prevent its sale in Canada because it violates neither the hate law nor obscenity law, the newspaper reported.") (121502)
FBI.gov: MOST WANTED TERRORISTS: "IMAD FAYEZ MUGNIYAH" aka "Hajj" (WANTED POSTER SNIPPETS: "Mugniyah is the alleged head of the security apparatus for the terrorist organization, Lebanese Hizballah."..."The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension and/or conviction of Imad Fayez Mugniyah.")
-The Fire Down South...( Latin America--)--
Also, FYI--
4 Protesters (Terrorists mine) held for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at Navy on Vieques
The Puerto Rican government very quietly announced that they were letting all 4 of these terrorists go, because (get this) there was no probable cause.
These 4 terrorists were all wearing ski-masks to conceal their identities and apprehended after throwing 4 Molotov cocktails at a Navy convoy. They had 4 other Molotov cocktails ready to throw when they were nabbed and the Puerto Rican courts find no PROBABLE CAUSE!
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