Posted on 03/14/2003 12:19:10 AM PST by sarcasm
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazilian police confirm that suspected al-Qaida terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed visited their country in the 1990s, and U.S. intelligence suggests that he may have hidden out in the region.
Mohammed's visit — the first confirmed al-Qaida presence in South America — renews fears that Osama bin Laden's organization may have sleeper cells in South America. There have been numerous unconfirmed reports of al-Qaida training camps on Paraguay's border with Brazil.
When he was apprehended in Pakistan on March 1, Mohammed was one of the world's most sought-after suspected terrorists. Dubbed the field general of al-Qaida, he is one of bin Laden's closest associates.
According to Brazil's Federal Police, Mohammed entered Brazil under his own name, using a Pakistani passport with a tourist visa, on Dec. 4, 1995. Brazilian police yesterday said the U.S. Justice Department asked Brazil on June 25, 1998, to help apprehend Mohammed based on intelligence reports that he had returned to Brazil under an alias.
A former U.S. official said there was credible information that placed him in the environs of Foz do Iguaçu, a gritty southern Brazilian city that borders Argentina and Paraguay, in 1998.
A retired Brazilian intelligence official said the tri-border area near Foz do Iguaçu is home to numerous international criminals, rampant smuggling and arms trafficking. It is also home to about 25,000 Middle Easterners.
The CIA and Israel's Mossad spy agency say terrorists used the tri-border area to plot deadly bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994. There is ample evidence that Hamas and Hezbollah — two militant Islamic organizations that conduct terrorist operations — use the region as a financial center.
Fear of an al-Qaida attack led to brief closures of the U.S. embassies in Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador on April 6, 2001.
Concerned that the tri-border area is a haven for terrorists, the State Department's anti-terror chief, Cofer Black, met with officials from the three countries in Argentina last Dec. 17.
"We have concerns that we have picked up around the world, and we have confidence in these concerns," Black explained.
A spokesman for the Brazilian Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
An intelligence division of Planalto, Brazil's equivalent of the White House, issued a statement that "indications of terrorist cells from the Middle East or other places — of whatever nature, inspiration or origin — have not been found" in Brazil or the triple-border region.
Prior to Mohammed's confirmed presence in 1995, U.S. intelligence had linked him to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. But there were no international arrest orders for Mohammed until Nov. 17, 2000. That warrant sought Mohammed in connection with a thwarted plan to blow up airborne passenger jets in Asia.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.